Three tips on founder resilience

Founder resilience, to me, is not only about managing stress-related issues but mainly also about finding a workable way of running a start-up and increasing its chance of success. It’s about developing the skills to be able to keep pivoting and grinding in the early make-or-brake days of a new company. In later stages, it helps keep laser focus on doing the right things right without getting sidetracked by the latest natural disaster trying to ruin your organization (figuratively), cool new unvalidated product improvement idea, or any other shiny object popping your way.

Dealing with mental health issues or stress shouldn’t just be part of the founder game; it's often a sign that we're struggling to handle the challenges thrown our way. It's about setting up a sustainable pace that keeps you and your startup moving forward, no matter what comes your way. It's about getting ahead with a sound personal resilience plan, setting achievable goals, and holding yourself and your team accountable.

An exciting start

The beginning of a startup is really exciting. It’s not a coincidence “venture’ is literally a short version of adventure. At this stage, rejections to your sales pitch or idea don't hit as hard because everything feels new and you're just happy to be making progress. You celebrate the small wins like your first sale or the first piece of positive feedback. It's a time for quick learning and making fast changes to your product based on what people are telling you.

During this phase, many founders join accelerator programs that help with these early steps, offering guidance and resources to get those first few customers and some quick wins under your belt. But then, the program ends, and suddenly, you're on your own. The initial excitement gives way to the realization that it's time to get serious. You're no longer just playing around with an idea; you have a growing business and real responsibilities. It's time to step up and make things work on a bigger scale.

My resilience journey

As a founder, I've always tried to keep myself aware of the challenges and understood that adapting to them is crucial.

I've spent countless hours scrolling through the internet, seeking advice from mentors, and exchanging stories with fellow founders to find the best ways to train myself for the journey ahead. In this article, I want to share three practices I've adopted to stay resilient in the face of any challenges or complexities that come my way. I don’t think these are groundbreaking ideas, but they're strategies that have made a significant difference for me and might offer some valuable input for you too.

1 - Taking Control of Your Day:

If you don’t structure your day your start-up will end up structuring it for you.

Without a clear structure, you're constantly reacting to whatever pops up, and by the end of the day, you might not even know what you've accomplished. I've learned from many successful entrepreneurs that having a strict routine can help keep things under control, no matter how hectic it gets.

It also helps you with focusing on making some key right decisions and this interview piece of Jeff Bezos strikes it perfectly for me:

For me, setting up a quite clear daily routine is key. It includes simple things like drinking water first thing in the morning, making my bed, or laying out my clothes for the next day in the evening.

As our team grew and things got busier, I spent a few months tracking my activities down to ten-minute increments (I used paper but there are very nice apps for it nowadays), comparing what I did with what I had planned to do. This also helped me tune into how I was feeling throughout the day. For instance, I discovered that eating fruit during lunch made me crash during the afternoon, and cutting off coffee completely after 3 p.m. improved my sleep. I also found that a grilled cheese sandwich with mayonnaise and a quick workout or walk after lunch made a huge difference in my happiness and productivity.

If you want a strategy to set up your work routine I would recommend reading “grip” by Rick Pastoors.

2 - Communication structure set-up for Success:

Good communication is key for overall happiness in life, period. It will also help you with identifying small wins and celebrating as well as identifying challenges early on. Setting clear targets, and goals, and assigning responsibilities, and consequently staying in contact with your entire team on it is crucial. I can't stress enough how important it is to have an effective communication system in place. Staying in touch, particularly during tough times, is key to understanding and supporting each other. In better times, it's about recognizing and celebrating the small wins, which can be just as rewarding as the big, headline-making successes.

Whatever communication structure you choose make sure it can grow with your startup Every new team member increases the complexity of communication lines exponentially, potentially leading to exponential misunderstandings and headaches. I would recommend reading "Scaling Up" by Verne Harnish and implementing a good chunk of its principles early on. It's a game-changer for managing communication as your team expands. This will help you stay in control, or at least let you know exactly when and where you need to step in to play firefighter.

3 - Sharpening the Saw:

Something I took to heart was Stephen Covey's seventh habit in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". I knew when I started as a founder I definitely did not have enough experience just coming from university so I needed to learn as fast as possible. Whether it was tackling a problem, dealing with scaling issues, or understanding a new market segment, I always looked for resources to increase my knowledge. This could be a YouTube channel, blog, or book relevant to the specific challenge. At events, I tried to sit down to listen to other founders and experts and have notebooks full of interesting insights from many experts.

I took this approach maybe a little bit too seriously, even challenging myself to read a book every week for a while (which is a lot I can tell you if you don’t cheat and just find a few smaller books). Reading also gave me the chance to step back and think more calmly, allowing ideas to flow more freely. Well, at least it felt to me like that.

A nice anecdote for this was when a colleague, aiming to improve our online marketing, recommended a specific book telling me: "Read this, and you'll understand,". When I had finished the book he was willing to sit down and present his strategy and we quickly put those ideas into action. It was a direct and effective way to learn and implement new strategies.

Concluding:

One critical aspect I haven't touched on here yet, which plays a significant role in the journey of a startup founder, is setting personal goals and consistently monitoring progress toward them. If you're curious about this topic, I'm more than happy to share my view on this at a later stage.

I'm also eager to hear about your strategies for maintaining resilience. If this discussion sparked any ideas or inspired you, I'd love for you to connect with us and continue the conversation. For those interested in diving deeper, we're planning a series of workshops, with the first one scheduled for March 21st. It's a great opportunity to learn more tips and tricks to strengthen your resilience as a startup founder.