Founders’ silent struggle — Personal pains (Part 5)
By: Inga Stasiulionyte
Tags: Psychology, Startup, Entrepreneurship, Mental Health, Coaching

“Everyone is doing so much better than me” you find yourself thinking in the founders’ community. One raised more money, another closed a bigger deal, you only hear the shiny success stories in the sight of your dark struggles, feeling like a loser, a failure who cannot catch a break.

While founders find themselves swallowed into the deep waters of anxiety gasping for air in a dark, they have to appear as confident leaders on a straight road to a dream despite all the problems that may be going on.

Often founders quit too early on absolutely great ideas and startups. The fight to succeed is long and very exhausting. We should properly address and recognize how hard a founder’s role is.

1. Balancing life

“As soon as I will raise money I will have more time for myself,” I hear founders say. The time imagined that would be dedicated to celebration, rest, recovery, finally paying attention to the personal life gets swapped by new and even bigger startup demands.

The most significant founders’ personal challenge becomes finding a balance between personal and professional life, health and intense life of the entrepreneur.

“It doesn’t matter how important your startup is for you, you cannot sacrifice family and your life for it” emphasized the majority of the interviewed founders.

Founders shared that having a clear structure in their days, taking care of the body, committing to have at least 7 hours of sleep daily, devoting time for not thinking about work, having a hobby, the most importantly dedicating time for themselves and family helps them to keep the sanity and more balance in their life.

2. Internal stress

In a startup life every founder is faced with investors backing down at the last minute, product failing before presenting, business partners quitting, clients not paying, constantly hearing rejections and all other scariest nightmares unfolding in a reality…

These events are not only making one oblivious what to do next but also crushed under enormous feelings of shame, embarrassment, and disappointment.

“As a leader, you have to deliver for a team without dumping emotional stress on the team” recognized one of the interviewed founders.

Emotional and physical fatigue from the constant pressure of the responsibility to deliver the dream into reality kills the ability to be rational and patient. Not long and you can see exploding characters, complete withdrawal and attempts to self-destruct.

Learning to manage yourself, emotions, anxieties, fatigue and how to relax becomes a big personal challenge for startup founders.

3. External pressures

Besides founders putting all the pressure on themselves to succeed there is also a heavyweight of social pressure to handle.

Expectations from investors, team, and family who put their beliefs in you are always weighing on the shoulders making it hard to pivot. By trying to show that everything is “great” frequently founders are covering everyone’s bills at the bar or restaurant with money they don’t have.

“Fake it until till you make it” attitude is strong in the startup life. More often pretending breaks everyone sooner then it makes them.

Successful founders have to be brave not only by setting up the scary goals but also to look deeply into themselves. To handle pressures they have to clearly know what are one’s strengths and weaknesses. The key is to keep the expectations of the progress more realistic.