Lost and founder
We are all founders.
Parents. Children. Lovers.
All responsible for the growth of someone, something.
In this world of AI, we've perhaps never needed more to be found ourselves.
I haven't been employed since, well, I activated Maverick Mode.
I know what it feels like to be marooned.
And there's solidarity in that.
Because none of us know what's happening next month. Next week.
Today?
Well, there's a podcast for that.
I could wax on (and off, Ralph - ooh, memory lane; or Cobra Kai for the youngs) about all the amazing things I have done this week with AI, including astronomical progress with a podcasting app and figuring out how to refactor your codebase for ingestion by AI.
But I think your time is better invested in a look at how founders need to, and can, feel seen.
My wife introduced me to Sawubona in the first flushes of our romance.
On a dusty roof terrace in La Orotava she told me about a community centre she'd visited in London.
A weary social worker named Amina greeted a withdrawn teenager with that unfamiliar Zulu word.
"Sawubona."
"It means ‘I see you’," she explained, her voice softening.
"Not just your hoodie or your scowl. Your grit, your hopes… all of you."
The boy, Jamal, froze. No one had acknowledged his exhaustion from night shifts supporting his mum since his dad’s deportation.
Amina had learned the greeting from South African colleagues at Loom International, who embedded sawubona into their ethos.
To them, it wasn’t politeness but a radical act: "By seeing others fully, we mirror their inherent worth."
Sceptical at first, Amina soon witnessed its power.
When she began using sawubona with families facing homelessness, defensive postures crumbled. One mother whispered: "You’re the first person who’s looked at me since we lost the flat."
For Jamal, that moment sparked change.
He started volunteering at the centre, mentoring kids using sawubona as his compass.
Years later, he runs a nonprofit teaching employers this philosophy.
"People thrive," he told me, "when you greet their potential, not just their problems."
finding founders
You'll notice I have a reckless attitude towards capital letters these days.
There's something artistic about losing them. Just as there is unpredicted genius in losing ourselves.
in the shadowed valleys between innovation and catastrophe, every founder knows the weight of unspoken fears — the gnawing doubt that their life’s work might unravel through a single misstep.
yet buried within these anxieties lies an uncomfortable truth: the most perilous risks are often those we refuse to name.
this is not a guide to avoiding failure.
it’s a map for surviving it.
the anatomy of founder anxiety: why fear outlives failure
entrepreneurial anxiety is not a flaw in the system — it is the system. consider the numbers: 90% of startups collapse within a decade, yet research reveals that founders who acknowledge their vulnerabilities survive longer.
dr cheryl mathews’ work on speaking anxiety applies here: when founders interpret fear as a disorder rather than a natural response, they compound the crisis.
the reddit entrepreneur who confessed “i feel like a bug on my back, just stuck” epitomises this paralysis.
contrast this with the founder who, after spewing from pre-meeting anxiety, rebuilt their communication skills through incremental exposure therapy.
the difference lies not in courage, but in redefining anxiety as a flawed yet loyal crew member — one shouting warnings from the crow’s nest, however clumsily.
the validation paradox: when passion becomes liability
academic studies from queensland university underscore a brutal reality: startups wedded to their “vision” perish fastest.
the founder who wasted months building an unvalidated product learned this through collapse, later admitting “the market is indifferent to your enthusiasm”. yet validation need not be grandiose.
take ugeddit, the social platform built not on code, but on reddit threads simulating conversations.
by manually testing their “feeling of being heard” concept through free forums, they sidestepped the $2m mistake of premature scaling.
as one serial founder advises: “sell the product before it exists — if they pay, build it. if not, bury it”.
financial jiu-jitsu: turning scarcity into armour
the myth of venture capital as salvation persists, yet data reveals a darker truth: 70% of vc-backed startups fail from premature scaling.
contrast this with starter story’s bootstrapped ascent to $500k/year through organic seo — a strategy born not from discipline, but desperation.
financial anxiety often stems from misreading runway metrics. the crypto founder who lost everything now preaches “track burn rate like your life depends on it — because it does”.
yet survival isn’t about frugality alone. when netflix decimated hollywood’s traditional models, the editors who adapted thrived by monetising youtube tutorials about their craft’s demise.
scarcity, it seems, breeds reinvention.
the pivot imperative: rewriting failure as plot twist
instagram’s evolution from failed check-in app to photo-sharing behemoth wasn’t genius — it was desperation wearing a clever mask.
queensland researchers quantify this: successful startups average 2.8 major pivots, often triggered by user growth dipping below 10% month-over-month.
but pivoting requires redefining loyalty. jay-z’s transition from street hustler to ceo succeeded not through abandoning his roots, but weaponising them.
similarly, the founder who slashed their product line by 80% discovered that focus isn’t subtraction — it’s amplification.
as adam whybrew learned after failing publicly: “knowing i can fail at something important and still breathe? that’s the real security.”
the mythology of the unflappable leader (and why it’s killing us)
hustle culture’s toxic mantra — “sleep when you’re dead” — ignores a physiological truth: chronic stress shrinks the prefrontal cortex, impairing decision-making.
tamara wu’s ted talk dismantles this, arguing sustainable success demands “redefining productivity as presence, not punishment.”
the data agrees. startups with founders over 40 outperform their younger counterparts, leveraging emotional regulation honed through life’s storms.
consider the ceo who schedules “vulnerability hours”, sharing their anxiety narrative to normalise struggle.
as tim box, a former social anxiety sufferer turned therapist, insists: “treat your anxiety as a misguided friend, not an enemy.”
rewriting the exit narrative: when survival is victory
the hollywood editor’s eulogy for traditional filmmaking resonates here: “we’re the nation’s dirty little secret.”
yet within this obituary lies hope. those who pivoted to youtube thrived by embracing platform-agnostic storytelling.
exits needn’t be binary — success or failure. the travel startup founder who rejected a seven-figure buyout only to collapse later learned this brutally.
but their next venture, an ai-driven e-learning platform, secured ￡10k pre-launch through raw vulnerability: “we told clients ‘we’re building this — want in?’”.
sometimes, transparency is the ultimate moat.
conclusion: the alchemy of anxious ambition
the path through founder anxiety isn’t paved with bulletproof strategies, but with paradoxical truths:
as the ashes of netflix’s disrupted empires prove, today’s apocalypse is tomorrow’s blank canvas.
the question isn’t whether you’ll face storms, but which compass you’ll forge in the squall. here’s to sailing onward, crewmates and all.
Fruit of the Loom
Loom’s team often reflects: "Sawubona didn’t just change how we work. It rewired how we exist."
By choosing to truly see - the cracked masks, the quiet resilience - they unearthed a universal truth: recognition is oxygen.
And in a fractured world, that breath still stirs hope.