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Startup Success Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Today, we’re diving into a crucial topic that we partially investigated in previous episodes: The often-overlooked importance of maintaining your mental health while dealing with the high-pressure demands of startup life.
Embarking on a 10+ year journey as a founder is no small feat. It requires relentless hard work, dedication, and an unwavering commitment. However, if your mental health starts to deteriorate, it can severely impact your decision-making abilities and make stress management nearly impossible.
With 70 to 100-hour workweeks and an “always on” mentality being the norm, it’s challenging to identify exactly what affects your well-being. With all of the hustle culture, startup stereotypes, and bravado, mental health is often sidelined. While working incredibly hard is an inevitable part of the startup grind, there are ways to approach it that can help minimize the harm to yourself.
For this episode, we will explore the status quo of mental health for founders and what can be done to mitigate negative impacts.
Is It All That Bad?
You might be asking yourself: “Isn't all this stress just part of the game?” Founders are expected to work hard but the potential payback is immense, with successful founders gaining significant societal standing and great financial rewards! Also, wouldn’t you expect the best founders to be more resilient as well?
The short answer is yes. Studies show that harder-working founders produce better outcomes for their companies (Amore & Conti, 2023; Benedetta et al. 2022) and that they usually cluster around certain, more resiliency-prone personality traits (Freiberg & Matz, 2023).
The better answer is: Yes, but there are many considerations:
Mental health directly impacts decision-making, resilience, and stress management in entrepreneurs (Stansfeld, 2023; Kim et al., 2018).
Company performance suffers when founders struggle. Studies have shown that companies with leaders who have poor mental health often see declines in productivity and morale among employees, leading to reduced overall performance (Eeseley et al. 2023).
Desirable outcomes, like IPOs and acquisitions, become less likely if founders suffer from mental health issues (Khuong & van Thahn, 2022). A famous example is WeWork's IPO being derailed partly due to concerns over CEO Adam Neumann's erratic behaviour, highlighting how a founder's mental state can impact a company's financial future [The Guardian].
The ability to react to crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, diminishes significantly when mental health is compromised. During the pandemic, leaders who maintained their mental health were better equipped to pivot business strategies, manage remote teams, and navigate the economic downturn, ensuring their companies' survival and growth (Salamzadeh, 2020).
Distribution of personality traits, founders vs population by McCarthy et al. 2023
✈️ KEY INSIGHTS
Founders are expected to work harder than anyone else but there is considerable risk to ignoring mental health. A decline in this department negatively influences financial performance, decision-making, and overall outcomes.
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