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‘Bored’ after selling his company for $532 million, this founder is going back to work
After a successful stint as an entrepreneur, Tom Grogan grapples with the transition to investor life, seeking new purpose beyond his Wingstop empire.
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Tom Grogan’s story sounds like the stuff of entrepreneurial dreams. The British founder went from earning £5 an hour as a construction worker to cofounding the UK arm of Wingstop, the popular American restaurant chain known for its chicken wings and cult following. Alongside his cofounders, Herman Sahota and Saul Lewin, Grogan built the franchise from scratch—sending one cold email to Texas to secure the rights, facing 50 investor rejections, and eventually expanding to 57 restaurants across the country.
In 2023, the team sold a majority stake in the business for a reported £400 million ($532 million) – a massive payday that should have marked the start of an easy, carefree chapter. But for Grogan, it turned out to be anything but.
“Money doesn’t fill that void”
“For seven years, your whole mind is occupied on making a success of this business,” Grogan told Fortune. “It’s all you think about. And then when you get there, it’s just a bit surreal. It’s like, Okay, it’s done now. Now what? And money doesn’t necessarily fill that void either.”
After nearly a decade of relentless focus, Grogan admits that navigating life after the sale has been unexpectedly challenging.
Learning to manage millions
While his rise from construction worker to multimillionaire in his 20s was meteoric, the transition from entrepreneur to investor has felt “slow-paced,” Grogan confessed.
“You have to now change your head from we’re not business building anymore. We’ve gone from being an entrepreneur to managing money—and they’re two different skill sets,” he said. “So we have to discover the world of financial instruments, stocks, bonds—all of that stuff that’s all new to us, but we’re being strategically careful.”
Despite the windfall, Grogan says he’s still renting and hasn’t splurged on luxuries like a mansion or a fleet of cars. He and his co-founders have instead spent the first half of the year reflecting on what comes next.
“I can’t live life sat on a beach”
One thing’s clear: Grogan isn’t planning to ride off into the sunset just yet.
“It’s boring,” he said. “I can’t live life sat on a beach. I think we need something to occupy our minds, to challenge ourselves. You need a purpose every day to wake up for, which we don’t have right now.”
For the entrepreneur who built a restaurant empire from the ground up, the next big project might just be finding that sense of purpose again. He is, in fact, already planning to get back to the grind.
What will be his next project? Grogan is not sure yet – “but it probably won’t be in the world of food and beverages,” he says.
