Acknowledging The Value of Coaching and Therapy for Founders
September 12, 2018
Iâve long written about the stigma around entrepreneurship and depression / other âmental health-related issues.â I was delighted to see two articles in the last day about others addressing this.
First, Felicis Ventures is committing 1% on top of every check the firm writes in non-dilutive capital earmarked for âfounder developmentâ in coaching and mental health. I love the way Aydin Senkut has characterized what they are doing and why they are doing it.
âFelicisâ bet is that by making such resources available and publicly known, founders wonât feel too proud, or too much pressure to seem successful, to address personal and team issues. Tactical marketing help can only go so far, Senkut says, when founders arenât telling their investors that theyâre unable to sleep from anxiety, or not speaking to their cofounders.â
Next, Mahendra Ramsinghani has a long article in Techcrunch titled Investors are waking up to the emotional struggle of startup founders. In it, he references a bunch of stuff, including work that Jerry Colonna and the team at Reboot have been doing around this issue. He also points to the survey he is doing for his new book titled Depression: A Founders Companion.
If any of this resonates with you as a founder, (a) go complete Mahendraâs survey, (b) connect with Reboot, or (c) send me an email to connect you with Mahendra or Reboot.
Also published on Medium.