Start Up Yourself

Internal & External Support System for Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs?

Start Up Yourself (TM) is a program to support startup founders and entrepreneurs of all kinds to create and utilize the internal and external support system, so that they could achieve their goals in a sustainable and healthy way.?

Why Start Up Yourself?

Entrepreneurship is essential for humanity. If humans were ok with the status quo of anything, we would be still living in a cave, without language, trying to survive day to day against the predators. Instead, we’re living a very different lifestyle now. Yes, there are still existential threats such as climate change and wars; but we don’t have to constantly be wary of the potential predator behind our backs every moment in our life.?

From the moment I started working at Apple in 2002, I was fascinated by technologies that didn’t exist before and by the people and teams that made them happen. Not because they created something new out of nothing, but because they undertake the risks of uncertainty. Back in 1957, eight semiconductor scientists who were working at William Shockley’s lab in California decided to start their own semiconductor company, funded by capital raised from many investors. They didn’t have to do that; they would have been fine and comfortable staying where they were. However, to pursue the idea they were passionate about, they left their comfortable job and this undertaking has become the beginning of Silicon Valley startups and Venture Capital. It’s a remarkable story, not because they became successful with their endeavors but because they tried. Thanks to their attempt, there are many more entrepreneurs who are trying to undertake new challenges every day.?

However, statistics in entrepreneurship aren't in favor of entrepreneurs. Roughly 9 out of 10 startups fail (Source: Failory). Moreover, the entrepreneurs were significantly more likely to report a lifetime history of depression (30%), ADHD (29%), substance use conditions (12%) and bipolar diagnosis (11%) than were comparison participants, according to the research by Michael A. Freeman and his colleagues at UCSF. Simply put, It’s just damn hard to be an entrepreneur, undertaking new challenges with high risks.?

There are many resources available for entrepreneurs from how to create an awesome pitch deck, business plan, to how to think about product-market fit, and how to raise money. While these resources are helpful for better outcomes of their businesses, they don’t cater to the key major force of their businesses - entrepreneurs themselves. Resilience is the name of the game in entrepreneurship but the resources for resilience are strangely scarce.?

What is Start Up Yourself?

People+Culture created the Start Up Yourself as a resource for entrepreneurs not only to develop necessary qualities for them to stay resilient in their entrepreneurship journey, but also to get replenished with their resilience through the system that works for them. The program is composed of two parts: Internal & External Support System.

1. Internal Support System: Entrepreneurs learn how to be resilient by having higher clarity about their inner states and visions.
2. External Support System: Entrepreneurs learn how to create a self-sustaining support system around their social networks to get the support they need.

Recently, thankfully there is more attention to the mental health and wellbeing of startup founders and startup teams, but it's still considered a private problem that needs to be treated individually and this approach is wrong. Mental health issues of entrepreneurs are often the result of the lack of resilience. Additionally, we don’t develop resilience just alone internally; it requires a systemic approach internally and externally.?

Key Takeaways from Start Up Yourself with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Korea & dcamp

Last March, People+Culture offered this program to entrepreneurs and Venture Capital investor clients of Amazon Web Services in Seoul, Korea. There was a great turnout with about ~80 VC investors and operators and ~30 startup founders in two separate sessions. We received great feedback from the participants of its efficacy and accessibility. Below are the key takeaways from the sessions:?

1. Wellbeing of startup founders and VCs isn’t a personal matter: We still associate “well-being” with personal self-care or individual mental health only. While this is not entirely wrong, it’s just a partial understanding of well-being. The startup founders and VCs experience the sense of well-being in healthier relationships with themselves, their teams and their social network.
2. Strengthening the intrinsic motivation supports startup founders and VCs to overcome mental/emotional difficulties:?Participants showed higher interest and resonance in the value exercise and envisioning exercise. This may indicate that VCs and startup founders have higher needs for realignment with their values and inspiration through envisioning for their work than general tech workers. This corroborates with the finding from the research done by d.camp and Seoul National University Hospital about the startup founders and intrinsic motivation; the research showed that the intrinsic motivation was critical for startup founders to manage psychological difficulties. Realigning with their values and envisioning the future based on such values helped the participants to remind themselves of the intrinsic motivation for why they were doing what they were doing, in spite of all kinds of difficulties they must overcome in their risk-taking entrepreneurship.?
3. A systemic approach for internal/external support system can go a long way for most startup founders/VCs, rather than therapists and counselors: Excluding ~20% of the startup founders who may suffer from serious mental health that requires the attention from the mental health professionals, most founders don’t suffer from severe cases. However, they still need support and tools to manage their emotions and stress moment to moment in running their businesses. This can be resolved through a systemic approach by helping them build internal support systems themselves and encouraging them to build external support systems around them.?

Start Up Yourself for Startup Founders/Teams

What do you think is the best asset for entrepreneurs and startup teams? Product Ideas? Business Model? Capital? Sure - all that matters but what matters most is people themselves. The entrepreneur who’s undertaking the challenge in spite of everything. The team members who invest their time/effort to realize the mission of the startups. Even in the age of AI, people still matter because AI isn’t sentient as humans (“yet”). I truly believe that we need to learn how to “start up” ourselves in the process of working on our startups.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about the Start Up Yourself program, please contact me via LinkedIn message!?