Why Founder Well-being Matters?
The subject of founder well-being, both emotional and mental, is one that has gained awareness in the tech industry over the last several months. It’s a topic that’s becoming more commonplace in conversations between founders and investors. Having previously been an area many shied away from or regarded as fluffy, it’s increasingly clear that wellbeing is strongly linked to performance. Failure to address the topic has long-lasting repercussions.
At Mountain Hub, founder well-being is a core pillar of our Founder Network. We recognize that early on in the company’s life, founders are the most important asset to the company. Their vision is what secures the initial investment to enable them to bring the early version of the product to life. Their passion and vision is what attracts the founding team. Their ability to sell and persuade is what lands their first few customers. To say that they’re critical to the business would be an understatement. Yet for some reason founders tend not to prioritize themselves and the effect of this is reflected in the research by Courier’s.
How MountainHub Helps?
We are excited to announce the next element of our hub and portfolio services focused on improving founder wellness.
We understand on a very personal level how extremely difficult it is to be a founder. Mental health challenges are commonplace, and often pushed to the back corner, not to be discussed. Being a founder of a startup can be one of the loneliest and most mentally challenging undertakings in the world. Founders may feel like they can’t talk about these stressors with their Board or may feel like their partners, family, and non-founder friends will not understand the challenges they face.
If you ask a founder how they are doing, it’s not uncommon to hear “Great!” or “Killing it” or some other positive aphorism. Sometimes there is intense pressure to be positive, be a cheerleader, be a salesperson—for employees, investors, and customers. Paradoxically this can be harder when business IS great, since the pressure is on to keep doing better. But behind the scenes, we know that anxiety, burnout, sleep issues, and depression can be very real issues for startup founders. And, even if a founder isn’t experiencing these issues, there can still be the feeling of isolation and not knowing how to talk to about and work through that.
As a first step in a larger founder wellness offering, we have rolled out a stipend—separate from our investment in the companies we support–that our founders can use toward professional coaching. We have negotiated specific offerings with two large, well-respected mental health and wellness coaching organizations, Healthy Lifestyle Foundation and Nahlela Sanctuary. These organizations may not be right for all, so we have also assembled a list of coaches that work specifically with startups, and a guide to choosing a coach. We’ve additionally partnered with Healthy Lifestyle Foundation to offer “drop in” coaching for our founders and we are looking into Group Coaching as well as Wellness Talks, Retreats, Fitness Workouts, Book Club , and Movie Nights. We intend to devote a meaningful portion of time for our founder programs to mental health and wellness.
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