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If that was the case, Tom Grogan should have been living the dream. After cofounding Wingstop UK and selling a majority stake for £400 million ($532 million), most people would expect him to wake up every day feeling on top of the world. But the reality? Far from it. Wealth didn’t magically make life feel complete.

“For seven years, your whole mind is occupied on making a success of this business,” Grogan exclusively 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 building a UK brand from scratch—including one cold email to Texas, 50 investor rejections, and 57 restaurants later—he admits that navigating life after the sale is a whole other challenge.

From $5 an hour builder to multimillionaire sounds like the dream—but this founder says ‘it’s boring’

While Grogan’s rise from a construction worker to a founder (all in his 20s) was meteoric, the transition from entrepreneur to multimillionaire has been… unexpectedly slow-paced, he admitted.

“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.”

Instead of rushing to buy a mansion or a fleet of fast cars, Grogan added that he’s still renting. And along with his cofounders Herman Sahota and Saul Lewin, the trio gave the first half of this year to sit back and start thinking about what they want to do next.

But one thing is for sure: He won’t be resting on his laurels, enjoying the fruits of his labour and riding off into the sunset any time soon.

“It’s boring,” Grogan adds. “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.”

It’s why he’s already planning to get back to the grind—he doesn’t know what his next venture will be, “but it probably won’t be in the world of food and beverages.”

Brian Chesky called the Airbnb IPO ‘one of the saddest periods’ of his life

Grogan isn’t alone in feeling the emptiness that can follow a massive milestone. Years of relentless focus and sweat poured into a single venture can leave a strange void when it’s suddenly past the finish line.

In fact, Brian Chesky cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, previously admitted that his company’s IPO—despite making him a billionaire—was “one of the saddest periods” of his life. 

Growing up, Chesky admits he “desperately wanted to be successful” because he thought it would bring him adoration. Plus, having social worker parents who were by no standards rich, he also thought a large sum of money could “solve every problem.”

“I had this image that if I got successful I’d have all these people around me, all these friends, I’d have all this love, all this everything, and my life would be fixed,” he told Armchair Expert podcast. 

But actually, when Airbnb hit that $100 billion valuation and “everyone in high school” knew what he did, he was lonelier than ever, having poured all his energy into his work for up to 18 hours a day.

“At the bottom of the mountain, you have hope,” he concludes of his journey from scrappy start-up founder to billionaire. “But the problem is when you get to the top of the mountain oftentimes you are at the top by yourself, disconnected.”

Billboard‘s Global Charts will soon include music consumption numbers from the Chinese market for the first time.

Entertainment industry research firm Luminate has struck a deal with Tencent Music Entertainment Group, China’s biggest music streaming operator, that will enable Luminate to incorporate TME data into its Global statistics.

According to the announcement, as Billboard’s longstanding, official Charts partner, Luminate will incorporate data from TME in its weekly analysis and ranking used for the publication of Billboard Global Charts.

Luminate said it will track streaming and sales metrics from TME platforms, including QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music, and JOOX, through the TME Chart.

The data will be available to subscribers of Luminate’s CONNECT platform in the coming weeks, Luminate said. The addition of Chinese data into the Billboard Global Charts will be announced “at a later date.”

The partnership addresses “a long-standing gap in representation,” Luminate and TME said in a statement on Wednesday (November 5).

“This partnership marks a pivotal moment for the global music industry, underscoring Luminate’s unwavering commitment to providing the most accurate and comprehensive measurement of music activity worldwide,” Luminate CEO Rob Jonas said.

“As the industry’s most trusted source of streaming and sales data, our customers and partners expect as much information as possible to make the best business decisions, and we know how valuable it is for a market as large and influential as China to be represented in those insights.”

“This partnership marks a pivotal moment for the global music industry.”

Rob Jonas, Luminate

TC Pan, Group Vice President of TME and President of the Content Cooperation Department, described the partnership with Luminate as “a data-driven effort to establish a unified global content ecosystem.”

Added TC Pan: “China is one of the most dynamic music markets in the world, and through this partnership, all content on TME’s platforms — whether domestic or international — will participate in, and even help shape, global music trends.

“Moving forward, TME will continue to strengthen its content ecosystem, enabling more quality content to be discovered worldwide, realizing long-term value through a journey from ‘data connectivity’ to ‘ecosystem synergy’.”

TME operates a number of music streaming platforms in China, including QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music, and JOOX. As of Q2 2025, TME’s platforms had 553 million monthly active users and 124.4 million paying subscribers, of which some 15 million were subscribers to its ‘Super VIP’ tier for music superfans.

Luminate has been expanding its international partnerships in recent years, in an effort to develop a global database of music consumption. The research firm now tracks more than 60 different countries, with recent additions including markets in the Middle East and North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Thus far, Billboard’s only data on the Chinese music market was via the UNI Chart, which launched in early 2023 in partnership with TME.

“Our partnership with Luminate marks TME Chart as Billboard‘s first in-depth data partner in China, which demonstrates that its objectivity and professionalism have gained recognition from international authorities,” said Ryan Liang, TME’s Vice President of Corporate Development and Content Ecosystem.

“We see this partnership as an opportunity to further strengthen the TME Chart’s role as a bridge connecting Chinese music with the global market. By integrating China’s music data into the global chart ecosystem, we are dedicated to delivering Chinese music to a broader audience and enhancing its international recognition.”Music Business Worldwide