In 2012, Mike and Kass Lazerow sold their social media marketing company, Buddy Media, to Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) for $745 million. It was the culmination of years of work, a moment that should have felt nothing short of euphoric.
Instead, Kass told CNBC, the pair felt a sense of "numbness."
"We get into the Uber to go home … and [Mike] looks at me and goes, ‘OK, so which doctors' appointments do we have tomorrow for the kids?'" Kass says.
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The entrepreneurial couple had been working on Buddy Media since 2007. It had taken a huge amount of dedication and sacrifice – Kass recalls building desks for their office while nursing her newborn – but once they nailed down their business model, the company grew quickly. By the time they sold it, just five years after launch, Buddy Media was generating around $50 million in annual recurring revenue.
After the sale, Kass left her role as Buddy Media COO to become a full-time stay-at-home parent. She told the outlet it took her a full year to come to terms with what she and Mike had accomplished.
"I don't want to compare it to real trauma, but it was like a version of PTSD, because we just couldn't process it all at once," she said.
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For Mike, the dissonance stemmed from the fact that he felt like "the same old schmuck" after selling the company as he had before launching such a successful enterprise. It didn't help that he felt as though he had lost the sense of purpose he'd had as an entrepreneur.
"The joy in creating themes and building businesses and winning customers and hiring people, all that stuff that is really exciting," Mike told CNBC.
For a short while after the sale, Mike, who had been CEO of Buddy Media, transitioned into a marketing and strategy position at Salesforce. The role, which required long hours and consistent travel, eventually took a toll on his health, which led him to quit.
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These days, Mike and Kass have found a new purpose through an entrepreneurial-adjacent role. The couple supports founders through personal equity investments, and shares their advice more widely through their new book "Shoveling $h!t: A Love Story."
As for starting a third company (the pair launched Golf.com during the dot-com bubble), the couple maintains they have no plans to do so.
"I don't think I could do another standalone company again," Kass told CNBC. "Those two companies and leading the people part of it — which I take very, very seriously — took just about everything out of me."
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