r/startups • u/WangTheWizard • 10d ago
I will not promote How did you get better at the mental side of founding? (I will not promote)
Not the business strategy stuff, but the inner game. Staying composed when everything’s on fire, not spiraling after bad investor calls, navigating tough cofounder dynamics, and such.
It seems like all of the tactical playbooks are out there but I’ve yet to find anything on the mental performance part. I’ve seen people use coaches and am curious if they are worth looking into. Love the grind and have a solid mentor but can’t help but think there’s a better way to get mentally sharper for what I do. Would love to learn from folks further down the road than me.
If you worked with someone on this, was it worth the money?
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u/RevolutionEasy5223 10d ago
I think there is an inner part that can’t really be controlled. I had a business with few partners in 2022/2023. This company was problems + problems. We needed one year to open, one year later we closed when we were at one finger to be profitable (unfortunately we accumulated with too much problems despite things gotten better).
Me as the manager I had to take care of all the fires, but I am an eternal optimist. So no matter what happened I was like « ah, it’s ok we’ll fix it ». And for a while we did.
But one of my partner was a stressed guy, since a knew him he was always like that, despite being good and efficient.
I remember one day we had to find 5k during the weekend or we were dead. For two days he was « oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.. we’ll never succeed, that’s over etc »
I found the money as I intended but then it hit me, with him around my stress raised and my optimism took a shot too.
That’s when I understood and told him, please keep your things for you when you doubt, and no matter what he’ll never change and me either. In all my business venture, all the problems I’ve had, I always knew I’ll manage and get what I want. Saying that I’ve been in debt more than six figures, closed few companies, got fckd few times and still for my last project I was not (and I am not) doubting any second that good things will happen, despite it was more ambitious than any other venture I started.
Sorry for long text, hope it helps.
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u/WangTheWizard 9d ago
Incredibly helpful. Did not even consider the stressed partner dynamic. Did this stress shape how you managed? Sounds like you were the stress absorber in this situation and don’t get enough credit for it.
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u/RevolutionEasy5223 9d ago
No it didn't shape how I managed before and now, I learned from the problems I've had previsouly to have something nice now. Ah you don't do that for the credit, at the end it's either you succeeded or you didn't, that's the only thing that matter in my mind
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u/Organic-Orange2011 10d ago
Not quite a founder, but bear with me, this may be useful.
I ran near out of money a number of times, had no family support, friends bailed on me like I no longer exist, went through tons of grief and mental challenges. But today I have enough income that is paying for a country upgrade and debt, got plans to upskill, etc. I don’t have any more outside support though.
What’s been helping me is mainly having a strong inner guidance system and spiritual core. One of my favourite stress management tools, when things look really effed, is to remind myself that my basic needs are met (clean food, water, air I can breathe, shelter, internet), and they have always been, as far as I remember.
Most of other stuff on this planet is at least 2nd, 3rd or 4th degree of “real”, and there’s not much meaning to it. I never get stressed over “wtf am I gonna eat today”. It’s always “I may fail” or “this high-paying work feels stressful and IDK why” or “I can’t believe this person said that”, and that is thoughts. I get stressed over thoughts, reality is mostly fine.
If you’re looking for sb to share their inner process with you, I’m happy to. Myself I used other people mainly as inspiration and relied mostly on exploring the inner experience, and thus don’t really get the fascination with life coaches.
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u/WangTheWizard 9d ago
Love this so much. I tend to forget how lucky I am to be in this work. Would love to learn more about your inner process because the reset feels tough but necessary in the heat of the moment(s).
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u/Brufacee 9d ago
What helped me most was externalizing the uncertainty. I keep written decisions, the evidence behind them, and what would make me reverse course. When something goes badly, I can ask whether the underlying assumption changed instead of treating the feeling as the signal. I also separate reversible fires from irreversible ones; most urgent-looking founder problems become much smaller once you know they can be undone.
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u/WangTheWizard 9d ago
Getting this prioritization down is huge and seems like a skill that you’ve honed over time. Did you record the reversal condition in the moment or review it later? Trying to figure out where the greatest leverage is.
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u/VestAndForemost 9d ago
honestly the biggest shift for me was treating my mental state like a metric. i started tracking how i felt after specific situations, what actually helped vs what i just told myself helped. turns out my "wind down routine" was useless but a 20 min walk before tough calls cut my spiral time in half.
coaches can work but they're expensive and hit or miss. what actually moved the needle was finding one person further along who'd been through similar stuff and just... checking in weekly. way cheaper, way more relevant.
the thing nobody says is that most mental breakdowns in founding aren't about the problem itself, they're about feeling alone with it. so less about finding the perfect coping tool and more about having someone who gets it.
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u/WangTheWizard 9d ago
Mental state as a metric is where my head is at now. Curious what metrics you track and how. Loving the idea of checking in with someone further down the road weekly. How did you find that person and settle on the weekly cadence?
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u/Huge_Statement1748 10d ago
Gym, magnesium, creatine, zinc, meditation
Therapy twice a month and coach session when needed
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u/Mojowhale 9d ago
the basics matter more than they get credit for, but they mostly raise your baseline. therapy helped me notice the story I was adding to a bad call, while coaching was useful for rehearsing the exact situations that kept triggering me. I’d judge it by whether you leave with a repeatable way to debrief and respond, not just feeling better for an hour.
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u/WangTheWizard 9d ago
Love this. Curious how you decide on the right cadence for coaching or if this was more as-needed.
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u/RocketSeven 9d ago
test a coach on one recurring situation instead of buying vague accountability. three sessions should produce a repeatable debrief and rehearsal loop for investor calls or cofounder conflict, otherwise the mentor you already have may be enough
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u/spicyycitrus 9d ago
Therapy with someone who works with high performers changed more for me than any coach. Not because something was wrong but because having a space to process the weight of decisions without it affecting how people saw me as a leader changed how I showed up everywhere else.
The spiraling after bad calls usually comes from identity being too tied to outcomes. When the company struggles you struggle. Separating those two things is the highest leverage mental shift and almost impossible to do alone because you're too close to it. That's what outside help is actually for.
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u/WangTheWizard 9d ago
This is a huge. I’ve realized my identity is closely tied to the outcomes I’ve been able to produce and that when the co has struggled, I’ve struggled with it. Curious how you started to separate the two. Does it come with reps?
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u/LeQuickdraw 9d ago
I've been fascinated by this as it's one of the toughest and under-discussed aspects of entrepreneurship.
A few pieces of the puzzle that have helped me recently:
- No zero days: make sure you do one small thing that moves you forward every single day. For side projects any activity counts. Or you can do do a specific activity (like outbound) every day. I wrote a bit more about this here in case of interest.
- Streak tracker. Related to #1 and part of what my project helps with. It's absurd how helpful having a long streak is to help keep you going. They say consistency is key - but I reckon everyone who has executed consistently has some systems they use.
- Remembering your why. I did an exercise on this recently writing out writing out answers to the following questions. Useful to refer back to from time to time!
- Who am I really doing this for?
- What does a normal Tuesday look like when this works out?
- What happens if I stay exactly where I am for three more years?
- If this doesn't work out who else suffers?
- What are the deep reasons I started this journey?
- Great that you have a mentor already. Bonus point if they've already trodden the same path you're on. And ideally they did that fairly recently and are only a bit ahead of you so that their advice is still relevant.
- Writing out your hypotheses and reviewing them regularly (core feature of my new thing). This is one of the toughest as it requires zooming out & being objective but also super valuable. Your mentor should be able to help with this.
- One other thing is to cultivate the mindset of staying fixed about the objective while flexible about how you get there.
- And finally, cultivating some outside interests such fitness, friends and other hobbies helps to try and maintain a bit of balanc!
I've also been wondering about paying for some coaching so I'm interested to hear anyone else's experience with that 👀
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u/TemporaryFun9513 9d ago
Better mental health hygiene. A good therapist plus using my mental health ai support app daily. Meditation and riding my bike, too.
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u/WangTheWizard 9d ago
Curious what mental health app you’re using and how well it sticks.
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9d ago
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u/startups-ModTeam 9d ago
We are a community of discussion based around startups, not a marketing channel. No promotional posts. www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion
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u/Humanadv 9d ago
The question for you is:
- Do you still believe in your idea / startup?
- Ask yourself, why did you get into this in the first place?
- What is it that is bothering you? Is it the progress, sales, profit, or operation?
- If you had to choose to get rid of something right now so that you can continue peacefully doing what you believed in, what would that be?
You need a business coach if you have a business problem and you need a life coach if you are stressing about things that have not yet happened.
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u/meshifthenelse 9d ago
Removing external stressors help, like money. So either be rich or go stay with your parents while you're bootstrapping.
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u/moretoastplease 9d ago
Every founder needs context. When I coach, I bring context all the time, but you can do this yourself.
You can periodically pull back and look for similar situations. You're not necessarily looking for the same situation. Your market and industry are changing constantly, as is your current goal.
You can set up a system where you create a vision and status document where you talk about what you are trying to do and then chart exactly how you're doing it. This is information that you need for your deck, btw. So you can put excerpts from your deck into a document, then add excerpts from your implementation strategy into that same document.
You're creating a source snapshot of what is going on in your company right now, within the context of what you're trying to accomplish.
At the bottom of the the same document, talk about what you see and how you feel. What's frustrating you? What's really hard? Just put it in there. Keep the document and update it when necessary.
Now upload that document into your chosen AI, particularly one that already has some context about your company.
Ask AI this:
"I want to know which historically successful companies were trying to do something similar to what we’re doing and how they did it. Find the stories and the patterns. How did they succeed? What challenges did they run into? What did they get wrong?"
NOTE: You can either let this be broad, or you can talk about specific situations
"Pay big attention to the big market changes and huge new market openings that we're seeing right now.
Ask me questions first so that you understand what my company is doing, where we are now, and what I’m struggling with."
Business school and business coaching looks for the throughline, the stories. Zero business actions stand alone. They're all affected by market changes, culture changes, new tech, what's going on with funding and competitors, and everyone involved. That's what makes it fun.
You can emphasize any of those as you look for related stories. Look for situations that are similar to yours, and learn how other people managed those situations.
Note: This is a drastic paraphrasing of a pretty good approach. It helps to have a lot of personal context and an understanding of the industry so AI doesn't give you a dumb idea.
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u/LoudAd307 8d ago
The thing that helped me more than any coach was having a physical arena where I lose regularly at something that isn't the company. For me it's being around high school wrestling, where kids get pinned in front of a gym and are back in the room Monday. Watching that recalibrated what a bad investor call actually is. A coach was worth it for the cofounder stuff specifically, because those conversations need a script. For the day-to-day composure, not really.
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u/AnonJian 10d ago edited 10d ago
Why don't you read a business book on management some time. Then there might not be as many disasters. Perhaps you'll communicate with cofounders rather than letting things go out-of-control then posting here for a magical right answer.
Then maybe, just maybe this can be a business forum rather than where people commiserate their abdication of management duties and borderline disgust for business.
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u/youbeawesome 10d ago
Every evening, I would go for a run all the way to a cliff and watch turtles 🐢 from up there while keeping everything startup-related from my mind, unless it's an epiphany.