Depression, founders and enterprise sales people
This post was inspired by Sam Altman’s recent post on Founder depression. Sam’s post was brief and didn't really cover new ground. It did get me thinking though about the causes behind depression. (BTW I’m thinking of ‘depression’ as a temporary state of affairs not the more serious medical condition) Why is a Founder more likely to end up being depressed compared to someone who has a very important, stressful occupation at a technology company?
Having lived in both world’s I think there are two key differences. Firstly, when you found a company it becomes more than a job. Friends, family and your extended network view you differently. Therefore success and failure are amplified. Think of it this way. How do you respond to hearing a friend didn't like their job and quit and now works somewhere else? Compare that to hearing your friend’s startup burned through all the money they raised and then failed. Or hearing that a peer you worked with in the past just got a big promotion vs hearing another peer’s startup got acquired by Google/Facebook/Cisco etc. So Founder’s are acutely aware that the spotlight is shining brighter and that nothing is ever “left at the office”
The second main issue is the velocity of momentum swings. I think this is the single biggest issue that overwhelms many founders and is perhaps least discussed. In Sam’s post he states “The world can be falling down around you—and most of the time when you’re running a company, it is” If that were really true you would most likely be put out of your misery within a few months. Secondly, human’s seem pretty good at managing steady state environments. It’s unpredictability to unsettles people more, at least in my experience.
The real challenge is that most of the time your company is succeeding really well in some areas, failing miserably in others and treading water in others. It’s not unusual to spend the morning really pleased with a new customer win to then spend the afternoon reeling from an investor who’s backed out of your next round at the last minute. Or to have a major design improvement measurably improving conversion stats only to have a key engineer hire decide to stay where they are and not take the leap after sleeping on it over the weekend. All these things regularly happen over the course of a week/day/hours.
Startups are an extension of the Founder’s being and as Founder’s you're exposed to all areas of the business simultaneously. It’s this one two punch that creates incredible stress and sustained stress can result in depression.
We experience these velocity swings at Spreedly. In the past I was an enterprise sales person. I’m regularly thankful for that experience when it comes to managing the velocity of momentum swings.
In enterprise sales usually 50% of your salary is tied directly to your performance. And often the difference between missing, meeting or beating your number comes down to closing or not closing 1, 2 or 3 deals per year. This experience helps you as a Founder in 2 major ways. Firstly, due to the amount of your salary tied up in performance your career extends further into your personal life. Most of the downpayment on our first house came after closing my first major deal as an outside salesperson. And 24 hours before that deal was supposed to close the buyer got cold feet and tried to push it out 100 days. Try telling your wife and extended family that you in fact won’t be making an offer on a house for 90 more days and you begin to understand your professional success and failure bleeds into your personal life.
As a sales person heading into the end of quarter/year there is one deal that’s looking really good, one that could break either way and one that had committed now falling to pieces at the last minute. All in the same day. The first time I had all 3 come in at the same time I was on cloud 9. My then VP of Sales patted me on the back and said “Never let the highs get you too high or the lows get you too low.” That was good advice next quarter where I turned in a zero.
This might be one reason why failed founders succeed on later startups. There’s nothing that trains you for dealing with the stress of momentum swings quite like doing them. If you havent’ experienced that before and you have the chance to add someone to your founding team that has I’d strongly recommend it. And as that VP said “Don’t let the highs get you too high and the lows get you too low”
