Dying Young: The Dark Side of Being a Founder
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- Опубликовано: 12 янв 2022
- Startup founder mental health is a seriously under-addressed issue. Elon Musk famously said starting a tech company is like eating glass.
Entrepreneurs are 50% more likely to have a mental health condition than the rest of the world, and twice as likely to suffer from depression. Founding a tech startup is the most stressful job I'm aware of. I feel lucky to count many startup founders as my closest friends, and I work with dozens of successful founders as a venture capitalist, and in this video I’m going to share the 7 biggest stressors I’ve seen startup founders face.
I’m hoping not to sensationalize founder stress, but have an open dialogue that normalizes discussing mental health and the dark side of being a founder. In any case, I think it’s important to be open about the enormous challenges founders face, in the hopes we get better at identifying them and helping founders deal with them more effectively. Then maybe founders won’t have to give up so many years of their lives while trying to make their dent on the world.
About me:
I’m a Silicon Valley based venture capitalist at multi-billion dollar fund SignalFire, and an investor in companies such as Uber, Ro, Grammarly, and others. Before that, I spent years bouncing between stints at Google, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Harvard Business School, before finally finding my dream job as a VC.
I was raised by parents from a farming village in Taiwan, who left everything behind to become engineers in America and build a better life for their kids. I’m inspired by a world with no gatekeepers, and my personal mission is to raise the collective level of empathy in the world. Today, I do this by investing in early-stage startups that are breaking down the barriers to a more connected, open and educated society.
#mentalhealth #entrepreneurship 
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What's the biggest source of stress founders need to manage? Am I missing any other challenges that founders face?
Hope that helps!
This may sounds minuscule, but having to subscribe to this ‘go big or go home’ mentality is quite taxing. Especially when gurus and spiritual advisors you’re subscribed to advocate the opposite. It’s a beautiful tug of war sometimes 😂
@@rickykynd Interesting. Thanks Ricky!
Can't agree more with ur point on 'Loneliness'
I think it's one of the more surprising things I've heard/seen about founding a company!
Wayne, thank you so much for sharing this. So true on many levels. Grateful for the work you are doing.
Thanks so much for the support Ilona, really appreciate it!
such an important issue, thanks for sharing this!
Love your content, Wayne. ❤️ I'm so happy to see your channel grow. It's the best channel out there for any founder who's planning to raise money.
Thank you so much Alexander!! Great to finally see some growth, hope to keep creating content that resonates with amazing founders!
@@nogatekeepers It's just a matter of time, Wayne. You are doing an amazing job! Your text content, video & sound effects, the choice of music and video content - everything is on point. Thank you for putting in so much work in producing those videos!
wonderful video, You opened my eyes Wayne Hu !!
Thank you for the kind note!
Hi Wayne! This is so true, I feel the same even in creator and RUclipsrs e.g. Love your content and edition, really inspiring! Cheers =)
Thanks Eze! Totally agreed, content creation has a lot in common with entrepreneurship. Really appreciate the kind note!
As a founder myself, you’ve uncovered a deep issue in entrepreneurship Wayne. The psychological effects over a long period of time is quite revealing, particularly the expectation to build a billion dollar company for most entrant founders. This is an absurd expectation and one that cripples exploration and curiosity into real world problems that actually need solving, yet most founders start a company in a saturated or trendy market to seek the title of a Unicorn, 😔. This is a crying shame frankly and it reasons why some investors focus on younger and perhaps more naive founders to invest in - where money doesn’t mean much to them, though in molding them, value may be actualized in some way (sorry, my cynical bias without any basis). These are just my observations, experiences and fears as a founder constantly barraged with this narrative but I don’t see it all as a negative, however.
Anyway, all points you have mentioned are true - at least in my experience. I’m still hoping to see 80 if this works out as planned.
Love your work Wayne, as always. Hope you’re doing well and know that the support is here.
Thanks so much for the incredibly thoughtful comment Ricky. I do wonder if entrepreneurship defined by the Silicon Valley go big or go home model is an unhealthy one. That said, I think this could be said of many people who try to make large scale impact across other professions as well, so on some level it might just be a fundamental tradeoff we need to live with...
Really appreciate the support!
I love this guy.! thanks for this
Glad you enjoyed! Thank you for the kind comment!
First thanks Wayne for the video, an excellent one. My own experience as a founder, thinking about something that may shorten my life, no kidding, is every time when I received a letter from IRS, my heart rate just double😀
lol! thanks for the kind note Paul!
@@nogatekeepers Thanks Wayne for the reply, basically my point is that a founder has so much to learn that he or she will keep on getting all kind of surprises, IRS is just an example. Most surprises, which I know will cause extra effort and time, probably will not benefit my health :)
Got it - totally makes sense. I think being a founder is the steepest learning curve out there!
I’m a founder that is working to revamp medical training globally. It is such a sacrifice but I love the challenge and everyday I wake up and get straight to it. Definitely startup life is not as glamorous as it’s portrayed
Agreed!
Rejection is often a part of Life one must be prepared as a founder to be rejected quiet often
Absolutely
Keep it up sorry I got late to watch.
all good, thanks for watching and the support as always!
Ohhh! Good!
thanks! glad you liked it!
You forgot the lack of sleep
Yes you’re right!
Great content well presented - I'm watching all your vids for sure. This is scary sorry.
Thanks so much! Agree it’s scary
@@nogatekeepers I was curious re: non-VC founders. We are aiming to be a say 100 person Conversational AI/Open Data focused company within 5 years. So cool stuff but not changing the world like a Tesla. Do you think your advice still holds for companies like this? I admit it is stressful at times.
@@helloara7733 A lot of it does in my opinion, although if you don't raise from venture capital, you definitely will be prioritizing measured, highly efficient growth - whereas often VC funded companies are prioritizing growth and capturing market share much more aggressively, even at a loss - Tesla took billions in capital expense upfront to really commercialize and Amazon didn't turn a profit till many years after going public in the name of scale
How many years does being a VC take off hahaha
lol it’s intensely competitive right now but I’d never pretend it’s as crazy as founding a company :)
2:02 did you just say mandalorian
I did, whoops! How could I mess up the good ol' DeLorian
Seed funding wayneeeeeeeee!!!!
Haha sorry!! There's so much going on in the funding world right now, and so many topics on my list to cover. Can you remind me, are there specific questions you had about seed funding? If I recall, was it about how to raise money for deep tech pre-milestone type companies?
@@nogatekeepers no how to find seed funding? What to do if FFF isn't available? How to build an mvp especially if ur mvp needs a little capital to be developed? What do angels look at before making a pre seed /seed investment? Because from series A onwards the structure is clear, but before that, the seed and pre seed rounds, the terms are not that well defined right? There is no traction to show, no mvp and so on...
@@saikeerthikumarpoolla1917 Got it - the principles from my video on How to raise venture capital still apply to seed funding. I have to admit, I'm probably not the best person to comment on angel funding - I think it's very individual taste and relationship driven. In terms of building an MVP pre funding, I'm a fan of Bubble to prototype without needing to hire an agency or hire engineers!
I am ceo of my phone 😶 now what will happen to me!
lol