My few days as a war reporter were inglorious and mercifully trauma-free (for me at least). When I was Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times in the 1990s, I reported on two brutal wars in the breakaway Caucasian republic. My respect for journalistic colleagues who spent far more time in Chechnya, and all other war zones, remains immense. Last year, 104 journalists were killed doing their jobs, half of them in Gaza.
The only other thing I’ve done in my career that compares in any way to the nerve-shredding anxiety of being in a warzone has been founding a startup. Both are exercises in dealing with radical uncertainty and unknown risks. Launching a business is clearly not as dangerous as being a war correspondent. But it can still exact a heavy mental toll, as shown by an alarming founder survey Sifted published last week.
Of the 138 founders who responded, 54% said they had experienced burnout in the past year with 46% saying their mental health had been bad or very bad. Two thirds had considered quitting altogether. The grinding reality of running a startup can be very different from the glamourised propaganda. “The juice doesn’t feel worth the squeeze,” one founder told us.
My own experience as a founder is atypical, having launched Sifted in a relatively safe space. Although it has been financed separately and runs as a stand-alone company, Sifted has been backed by some strong, supportive shareholders, including the FT, and is energised by some brilliantly talented employees.
Even so, I spent many a night in the past — especially during the Covid lockdown — lying awake worrying about whether our employees were going to lose their jobs and whether our investors were going to lose their money. Such moments certainly enhance the appeal of a steady corporate job.
I believe two key factors may explain why startup stress can be so intense. And, in my limited experience, two remedies can help alleviate the strain.
The first factor is that when you launch a business you have no idea what the terminal risks might be — apart from the obvious extinction point of running out of money. In Chechnya, I worried most when driving up to sentry posts manned by drunk, scared and trigger-happy teenage Russian conscripts. But the most dangerous moment came when a dozy Chechen farmer swung into the road and smashed into our car. As a founder, you may worry most about your product-market fit and then your tech stack falls over.
That brings us to the second factor: luck. Fate sometimes decides that you are in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time. We are not always commanders of our own destiny, no matter how much we might like to think so. For high-achieving, driven founders, who have experienced nothing but success that can be a particularly hard thing to accept. We can blame ourselves for things completely outside our control.
Of the two things that can help, the first is perspective. As my grandmother used to tell me when I crashed my scooter: “Worse things happen at sea.” No matter how hard a time I thought I was having in Chechnya, the people living there had it infinitely worse. One recommended antidote: read Patriot, the humbling memoirs of the late, jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
The second is solidarity with your friends, family and fellow founders. Some of the most generous, and kindest, people I have met have been entrepreneurs, who have been through tough times and are prepared to share their wisdom. Asking for advice or help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of our Sifted founder survey was that 58% of respondents said they had received no support from investors when it came to mental health. In spite of VCs promising to be “founder friendly,” they only wanted to hear about the money. As Sifted’s sadly departing finance director Allison Yamoyany told us in a team Slack message last week: “companies are not made up of products, they are made up of people.”
The exceptional investors are the ones who recognise that reality.
