A few friends of mine have found themselves building companies they didn't want to work for. As the signals started pointing to customer groups they didn't really love, progress started to slow. Tough, complicated decisions were a symptom.

The root problem was that they were avoiding a bigger decision: do they abandon their sunken costs into their startups and accept that they weren't happy? Eventually, they both jumped ship. The regrettable part is they could have jumped much sooner.