Exiting Your Role, Not the Business: A Founder’s Guide
Ivona Namjesnik
Leadership
Most founders imagine their “exit” as a clean sale and a celebratory handoff. But what if you’re not looking to sell, just step out of the day-to-day?
That’s what we did at Barrel.
After 18 years in the business, we handed off the CEO role, transitioned out of operations, and shifted our focus fully to Barrel Holdings. We didn’t sell. We didn’t disappear. But we did something most founders never get around to doing: we exited our roles without blowing up the business.
Here’s how we did it, and what we’d do differently.
Decide What Kind of Exit You’re Making
Most founders assume “exit” means selling the company.
We made a different move, a role exit.
We kept ownership. We stayed involved at the board level.
But we removed ourselves from day-to-day operations. No Slack channels. No team meetings. No client fires.
It was the only way to free up the time and energy to grow our portfolio, and it forced us to build the systems that would let the agency thrive without us.
Identify the Right Successor (Before You Think You Need One)
The most critical decision was who would take over as CEO.
For us, that person was Lucas Ballasy, a designer who joined Barrel in 2013 as a freelancer and steadily grew into leadership. Over a decade, he became a senior designer, creative director, and eventually Chief Experience Officer. By the time we considered stepping back, Lucas was already running a significant portion of the business.
More importantly, he shared our values. He had a bias for ownership. He didn’t chase the title, he earned it through trust.
That’s what made the transition work.
We didn’t need to recruit someone from the outside. We had already been building with him for years.
Map Out Everything You Do
This part took time, and forced some uncomfortable reflection.
We made a complete list of everything we touched as founders:
Finance
HR
Marketing
Sales
Client relationships
Strategic planning
It turns out, we were doing a lot on autopilot.
Once it was all on paper, we saw which tasks needed to be owned by Lucas, and which could be handed off to others. That list became the blueprint for restructuring, not just for the CEO transition, but for building a stronger leadership team overall.
Build a Clean Role
We didn’t want to throw Lucas into a mess of leftover tasks. So we took the time to shape the CEO role intentionally:
Which meetings would he lead?
Which metrics would he own?
Which relationships would we transition to him directly?
We also identified areas where he needed support, like finance and sales, and either trained him or put other leaders in place to cover the gaps.
We weren’t just stepping out. We were setting him up to succeed.
Exit Even If the Timing Isn’t Perfect
The hardest part? Letting go when the business was in a tough spot.
Right before the handoff, three of our top five clients churned, wiping out over seven figures of expected revenue. Deals weren’t closing fast enough. The year had gone from optimistic to uncertain.
We considered postponing the transition. But we stuck to the plan.
Why? Because leadership transitions rarely happen at the “perfect” moment. If anything, that uncertainty made the move more real, Lucas stepped into a real leadership challenge, and we got out of the way so he could lead.
Let Go Without Letting It Fall
The hardest shift wasn’t tactical, it was emotional.
Overnight, our faces disappeared from the website. The Slack pings stopped. The inbox went quiet. It felt like leaving a job we’d held for 18 years, because that’s exactly what it was.
But letting go doesn’t mean disappearing.
We still meet with Lucas weekly. We still advise when needed. But we don’t intervene. We trust him to run the business, and support him without hovering.
That’s what makes the role exit sustainable: space and trust.
The Benefits Compound, If You Give It Space
Within weeks of stepping back, we felt it:
Calendar space to think and plan
Energy to build the next chapter
Room to make our first acquisition at Barrel Holdings
The shift forced us into longer-term thinking. We moved from the daily firefight to strategy, portfolio building, and CEO support across our companies.
The business didn’t fall apart. It got stronger.
Lessons for Founders Planning a Role Exit
If you’re thinking about stepping back, here’s what made the difference for us:
Start building your successor early. Decades of shared history mattered more than a polished resume.
Map everything. Don’t just wing the transition. Get clear on what you actually do.
Create structure. Don’t transfer your chaos. Build a role that someone can succeed in.
Make the transition even if it’s hard. The business might never feel “ready.” Make it ready.
Support without interference. Weekly check-ins are enough, if you’ve set the right foundation.
The Takeaway
You don’t need to sell your agency to step away from it.
A role exit is harder in some ways, it requires more trust, more planning, and more emotional maturity.
But if done right, it’s also more freeing. It lets you keep building, just from a different seat.
🎧 Want the full story of how we did it, with all the hard parts included? [Listen to the podcast episode here.] or take a look at Peter's in-depth presentation on this exact topic.
