I am an entrepreneur and am taking a 6-week vacation – can that work?

Mawave founder Jason Modemann shares how he's learning to relinquish control as he becomes a father and his company grows.

Starting a business feels like the birth of a child in many ways: There's that first idea you're passionate about. The nights when you barely sleep because your head is so full. The first steps, where you nervously watch to see if everything goes well. And then that sense of pride when it suddenly works. For me, Mawave was my first "baby." And as is the case with children: You cling to them. You want to be there for everything. You don't want to miss anything.

I've recently become a father to a little girl, and we're going through many of those same phases again. Our first big family vacation is coming up: six weeks in Sweden and Hawaii.

To do this, I have to learn to let go at home. Spoiler: It was (and still is) a process. Precisely because my job is so closely tied to my own identity, giving up control was a real issue for me for a long time.

I thought: If I do things myself, things will go faster. I had this constant urge for growth – and the feeling that my company would miss out on opportunities if I wasn't involved everywhere. Today, things are different – at least somewhat. Of course, I still want to grow. But now I have a strong team at my side: people who are just as hungry for growth as I am. I'm happy to entrust them with projects, decisions, and responsibility because I know they'll not just manage them, but also develop them further.

But what does that mean in concrete terms? I offer these tips to every founder who wants to take a longer break:

If you want to be out of the office for six weeks, you have to create space beforehand. I've consciously worked on this over the past few years: I've defined roles, clearly assigned ownership, consciously removed myself from operational issues, delegated processes, and created space. And it's paying off now. Because I've already let go of a lot more in my daily life, being on vacation doesn't feel like a loss of control—it feels like the next logical step.

Am I offline for six weeks now? Not quite. During my parental leave, I really took myself completely out of the loop: company phone turned off, no Slack, no backups. That was the right thing to do and important—but also brutally hard. This time, I'm doing things differently.

I defined in advance who would be available to me in which situations. In my case, that's my C-level team. I get regular updates. And when things get really urgent, I get called in. This scenario has never happened, but just the thought of being able to sit down in a Hawaiian internet café if necessary gives me peace of mind. I want to truly enjoy my time on vacation – and that includes knowing that everything is going well at home. And: If you communicate clearly how and when you're available, you can switch off the rest of the time with a clear conscience. That's exactly what it's all about.

My lesson from this: Growth doesn't just mean more responsibility, but sometimes also letting go. Creating space—for others and for oneself. While my team grows into new roles, I grow into my new role as a father. Not the one who does everything—but the one who trusts. And that, for me, is precisely the true leadership challenge.