Bruce Buschel spent two years and $2 million launching his seafood restaurant, Southfork Kitchen. So when the dining room finally opened to the public last Saturday, he must have felt a rush of excitement and satisfaction, right?

Not to hear him tell it: As opening night approached, Buschel says his emotions were more about “emptiness, desolation, uselessness, anxiety [and] gloom.” For two years, the restaurant was his obsession, but it was mostly in his head. He was Southfork; it didn’t exist without him.

Now, with the doors finally opening and the registers ringing, Buschel recognizes that “it’s kind of over for me.” He’s got a chef and a manager to do the heavy lifting, and they’ve hired a staff whom he barely knows. He’s reached a conclusion that he never anticipated: “I could vanish tomorrow and Southfork Kitchen would be the restaurant I envisioned, more or less.”

Buschel never says so, but I suspect he’ll move on relatively quickly to another project, even as his current business prospers. It’s not that he’s greedy or dissatisfied or ADD. Instead, he’s a classic serial entrepreneur. He loves to create, not operate. Taking a vision and turning it into reality — that’s the measure of success. Gross revenues and operating margins seem mundane by comparison.

“The creation has happened. It is the eighth day. What next?” he wonders at the close of his column. It’s a good question, and one that entrepreneurs should ask themselves from Day One. Either find a business that you love — Prost! is perfect for me because creation happens on a daily basis — or find a partner with the operational passion you lack.