Is entrepreneurship a lonely journey?
it does take a village to raise a startup but who is keeping an eye on the cofounder?
The saying goes “it takes a village to raise a child” but believe me, it also takes a village to raise a startup.
Among cofounders, mentors, program managers, partners, interns…it´s a lot of people involved in startup development, and believe me, we are not even talking about the successful ones yet.
Even though there is this army of individuals doing their individual (or collective) effort for the startup development, there is a group of people who are taking more responsibilities: the cofounders (here we are not even talking about the solo founder, that is a WHOLE NEW STORY!).
The cofounders' team is usually taking most of the hits, including and not exclusive to, projects being rejected, mentors crashing your project, pitches not going as planned… and the thing is: if they fail 6 times, they raise 7.
The main question should be: who is keeping an eye on the cofounders´mental health?
In my personal experience, it is tricky to deal with all the things that happen in the entrepreneurial path: it is a lot of work and a lot of “no”. Of course, with time, you learn how to deal with it but it´s still something that touches you.
As a cofounder, I feel responsible for my startup, my team, and the development of what we do, however, some things are out of my hand.
If I´m fully honest here, I can say that the road on the entrepreneurial journey has been hard on me, and one specific thing that happened marked my soul: a mentor of an important program that I was participating in told me (in screams) that my startup was worth nothing, that the idea was stupid, that we would never do or be anything and that I was wasting people´s time and money.
I cried. For a week.
I have experience being a mentor for other startups and I would never raise my voice to a fellow cofounder or would never say anything like that. It sounds almost like anger against me. But it is ok, people have different styles of mentoring and I guess his way was more “tough” than what I could handle.
The thing is: there is a huge community for entrepreneurs. Among accelerators, incubators, hubs, startup programs, and all that is still with no name, there is a lot of people focusing on developing startups and developing products.
I just hope that somewhere that is someone taking care of the cofounder, because honestly, it is not the ride in the park that the social media, the articles, or even (some) successful people say!
