Identifying stress factors: what’s the cause according to other founders

The subject of founder resilience emerged when we started unraveling Sander's journey and how he dealt with specific situations or how he could have dealt with them differently. We realized that there is limited support and information available for entrepreneurs regarding maintaining mental fitness. It is not a widely discussed or accepted subject. Being active in the Dutch startup ecosystem in different roles and for different organizations, Sander and I have seen many different programs for startup founders. However, none clearly covered dealing with mental challenges or becoming resilient as a founder.

We define "Founder Resilience" as the capacity of entrepreneurs to bounce back from setbacks and overcome challenges. Maintaining a sense of purpose and determination, to grow even stronger.”?

The relevancy of the subject is underlined by some clear statistics, a US study shows over 72% of founders report impacts of their company on their mental health, 54% are very stressed out about the future of their startup, and 81% are not really open about their stress, fears, and challenges. It's time to break this taboo and learn more.

We decided to do more research, and in the last months, we have interviewed many different startup/scale-up founders about how they are dealing with their mental health. In different stages, mostly in tech startups, all driven to build an impactful company. Some with clear challenges, looking back at their years as a founder after a bankruptcy, others that have overcome many of these challenges already and are still going strong.

In the following posts, we will be sharing the main lessons learned from these conversations. Today, we focus on the 'causes'—what founders experienced as stressful or what are the things that consume energy instead of giving it.

In our view, founder resilience is not necessarily about avoiding stress but certainly about preventing it from becoming too much. As such, it is key to understand what you experience as 'stressful' or what really 'drains' energy from you and how you deal with that.

Let’s run by the main subjects raised. Curious to know your perspective. What, in your view, brings stress to your entrepreneurial journey? Are there specific subjects with which you admittedly 'struggle'??

• Your ever changing role. Managing growth involves making decisions, shifting focus, developing new skills, and letting go of tasks. As your company expands, your span of control changes, and you may find yourself moving further away from the day-to-day operations. Tasks taken on with the intention of being short-term can be challenging to offload. Common stress points include the fundraising process, managing investor relations, or sales activities. It's crucial to stay connected to your strengths, assess the best value you bring to the company, and be self-reflective about what tasks suit you best versus those others may handle more effectively.
• Your responsibilities. Many founders we spoke to, who openly admitted to struggling personally, emphasized the overwhelming nature of their responsibilities. This was especially evident in their relationships with investors, often individuals known from the initial phases, and their teams. The pressure to ensure they could meet payroll, with people depending on them, was a common concern. This often led to a reluctance to invest time in their own mental well-being, a sacrifice that, in almost all cases, proved counterproductive in the long run.
• This links to a topic raised by many non-self-funded or profitable founders as a critical stress factor: the pressure of your runway and the fundraising process as such. The uncertainty of whether you will raise capital in time and the inability to pay salaries next month contribute to stress. Additionally, the considerable time fundraising costs and deals not coming through in the end add to the uncertainty.
• Finding product market fit, or the fly wheel to scale is another stress-inducing aspect. While the idea and initial stages of launching or product development are one thing, discovering a model that truly makes your business self-sustaining causes many sleepless nights and stress for a founder.?
• People or the people strategy are a frequently mentioned topic when discussing what drains energy or increases stress levels. People-related topics include your (management) team and keeping them motivated, ensuring they operate as a smooth team and move in the same direction. Unsuccessful hires, and letting go of people. Relationships with your investors and shareholders, specifically the power balance and the fact that a third party has a certain level of control over your company, are additional stressors. It's worth noting that for many entrepreneurs, relationships within the company were mentioned as an energy giver, a reason to want to invest more, fostering a bit of a love-hate relationship with the subject.
• Related but a separate subject is the relationship with your co-founder,? particularly splitting ways with your co-founder. Entrepreneurs who have gone through this experience often have been in very difficult and personally tough situations.
• When you start to get all of this under control, life happens :). Changes in family or with family members were mentioned as matters that might change your own life and priorities. Becoming a parent creates more expectations from your company and may make you rethink your priorities. While widely accepted and not a reason to stop as an entrepreneur, it makes you reconsider your priorities and brings an extra factor that wasn’t part of the equation before. It makes you have to change your way of working, be more adaptable, and may also make you want to spend your time wisely, forcing decisions and setting priorities. But it is key to experience it this way. It requires resilience for sure.

If there's one thing we've learned from these conversations, it's that entrepreneurship, though rewarding (they say :-)), is simply stressful at times. You have a lot coming at you and must accept that many challenges will come your way. On its own these topics are amongst many of the things that will cross your path as a founder of a (fast)growing start-up. It is how you deal with it that can cause a growth in stress levels.?

Resilient Mindset

In the next topic, we'll focus on dealing with these situations, sharing tips and lessons learned from experienced entrepreneurs who have navigated similar challenges. One of the things that stood out from our conversations with founders on overcoming setbacks is their mindset. They came prepared, accepted setbacks, or even expected them. They maintained an open mind, and didn't take things personally. They acknowledged that they are learning every day, were doing what they could, and always gave their best effort. Despite having to make tough decisions, they did so with a larger goal (purpose) for their company in mind. With this mindset, they grew stronger every day, never taking things personally, and avoiding regret or self-disappointment.

For now, we're curious to know what 'stress-factors' you experience and how you deal with these situations. What are your tips for other entrepreneurs?

About Sander & Wouter

Having met in Delft 2015 at YES!Delft, we both went our own entrepreneurial ways. Sander, initiating Dutch Students for entrepreneurship helping to foster student entrepreneurship and founding de Krekerij - Europe's first certified cricket based meat processing facility. Wouter, joining as one of the co-founders of the tech startup ParkBee: optimizing the use of off street parking spots, growing to a 100+ FTE company operating in different companies across Europe.

Until, after a few conversations the subject of founder resilience sparked both our interests. We decided to do more research together and interview many different founders. The outcomes you can read in these articles, and we hope to spark some more interest and conversations...

Thanks for sharing your reflection and personal insights.?