THE STRUGGLE IS UNIVERSAL.

The loneliness of the entrepreneurial journey is paradoxically the tie that binds us all together. The media is full of stories of big fundraisings and bigger exits—an absurdly small sampling of companies driven by selection bias. Entrepreneurial success has a thousand fathers and a thousand stories written, but the failures are silent orphans.

And so, we erroneously believe that we are the only ones struggling.

Even worse, the anxiety of who we will be the day after we shut down. Our identities are so wrapped up in saying we are the “Founder/CEO of X COMPANY” that it becomes hard to know who we are without that.

Let’s de-stigmatize that process.

The Dear Investor, I’m Sorry series features real letters and emails from entrepreneurs who have found themselves at that final moment.

Trust me, I’ve been there. Almost every professional entrepreneur will find themselves at the point of telling their investors, employees and customers, “I’m sorry, we can’t continue.”

As a veteran of the entrepreneurial arena, I’m intimately familiar with many of these struggles and happy to offer my condolences—and sound advice for getting through it. I’m in this with you.