World Mental Health Day: Pi Labs Perspective
Over the past few years, we have seen a growing number of studies highlighting the statistics around mental health, especially related to founders. As a VC, we get a glimpse into the many facets of what it takes to build a company and see the weight that our founders are under. Not only do we see it, but often we are the ones creating pressure for founders to reach certain targets. After all, the role of venture capital is to back promising start-ups and return capital to our own investors.
Financial instability is a significant source of stress for many entrepreneurs. A survey by Guidant Financial found that 42 percent of small business owners listed lack of capital or cash flow as their biggest concern. Venture capitalists get to play a role in alleviating this concern as we decide to invest in them, but that doesn’t always take away the stress and burnout that most founders face.
According to a study by Michael Freeman, entrepreneurs are 50 percent more likely to report having a mental health condition, with some specific conditions being incredibly prevalent amongst founders. This is a statistic that we all need to take stock of as we support founders. Since joining Pi Labs a year ago, I have been impressed with the ways we provide support to our portfolio companies, but also our initiative to invest in companies that are tackling mental health. We still have a long way to go, but it is a journey that we are on as a team and with our founders to understand how to build companies that don’t sacrifice our greatest resource, our health.
To commemorate World Mental Health Day on 10 October, I spoke with members of our community that were able to speak to how they manage their own mental health and/or help others with theirs. They are Alicia Navarro (Flown); Wiktor Warchałowski (Airly); Zoe Stones (Ambr); Wouter Merkestein (Laiout); as well as our very own Victoria Hill and Faisal Butt.
Alicia Navarro, FLOWN
Commenting on her second time as a founder, Alicia said:
“The second time around, I had the benefit of knowing what I was getting into. I *know* how all-consuming, soul-destroying, relationship-ending being an entrepreneur can be, especially if you approach it as a sprint rather than a marathon. So this time around, I invested a significant amount of time *before* I even began putting a team together, thinking about the culture I wanted to create, and that was based on what I largely needed to maintain mental health throughout this second-time journey.
Although being older can make you wiser, it also gives you a *lot* more responsibilities and demands, on your time, headspace, and energy. So you *have* to be incredibly conscious of your mental state, your triggers, and what can provide short-term balance as well as longer-term counterpoints to incredibly stressful periods of time. These include things like: the activities you’ll pursue, the boundaries you set on work time, the people you spend time with… these can be the way to maintain mental health as an entrepreneur.
Founding FLOWN became not only the product of this type of intentional culture-building, but the product itself. What I have learnt about what makes a difference at work — rituals, balance, human connection — is woven into the product itself, so using FLOWN is also a way I maintain my own mental health, and become enriched with what I learn about mental health as I create FLOWN. A beautiful (instead of ‘vicious’) cycle :)
Wiktor Warchałowski, Airly
Wiktor shared honest thoughts on the pressures and expectations he experiences as a founder and what he is doing to stay balanced amidst the stress.
One of the most intense pressures I face as an entrepreneur comes from investor expectations. Ensuring their confidence and maintaining the trajectory they anticipate for the business can be overwhelming. Additionally, the responsibility of making tough decisions, like firing employees, weighs heavily on me. As the business grows, the challenges of scaling up also emerge. It’s always a balance between what is best for the company and meeting everyone’s expectations.
Balancing the myriad expectations on me is indeed challenging. While the weight of leadership can be immense, maintaining a work-life balance has proven to be pivotal. It’s crucial not to lose oneself entirely in the role. I’ve found it beneficial to have a broader perspective on my role, which allows me to prioritise effectively and keep sight of the bigger picture.
It’s essential for every entrepreneur to prioritise their mental health. I cannot stress enough the importance of spending quality time with family. Regular exercise acts as a great stress buster, and for me, diving into hobbies like football and cooking brings immense relief. Additionally, being conscious about nutrition plays a significant role: cutting out alcohol, maintaining a healthy diet, and hydrating adequately are habits I swear by.
Zoe Stones, Ambr
Zoe is tackling the issue of employee burnout as one of the Co-Founders of Ambr. “At Ambr, we’re focused on targeting the root causes of workplace stress and burnout. We provide organisations with insights into the stressors that their teams are being exposed to, and provide actions and guidance for how they can reduce these. Yoga and meditation are all very well, but won’t fix a company’s burnout culture — the root causes need to be addressed.
The motivation for building Ambr came from our time working as leaders in high-growth tech, and seeing the terrible impact of burnout on our teams, both personally and professionally. Protecting ourselves and our teams from burnout isn’t just the right thing to do for our people, it’s also the right thing to do for our businesses.”
Wouter Merkestein, Laiout
Wouter is a leader who believes that he can handle stress really well. He shares some of his thoughts and perspective on stress as a CEO:
It is a tremendous responsibility to run your own business. What started with just an idea 2,5 years ago now pays for the wages of 9 of our employees, of which some have children and a wife to take care of. This is both stressful and incredibly rewarding at the same time. I am able to internalise pressure and stress as excitement and a challenge.
We have very open communication lines within the company, I tend to not feel too much leadership related pressure as we’re still of the size where we’re a group of people all excited to solve a real life problem, less bound by hierarchies but more about responsibilities.
My advice to other founders would be to speak up about it with your co-founders or coaches/mentors otherwise. It is important to speak with people of similar backgrounds or in similar situations. My view is that as an entrepreneur you have more freedom than any other form of employment, leverage this to ensure that you find a good work-life balance.
These are just a few examples of incredible founders we are working with and have chosen to invest in. I genuinely believe that more VCs will choose to invest in great founders building to solve this mental epidemic once they have built an internal culture for their own team. One way this is demonstrated on our team at Pi Labs is through coaching.
Victoria Hill, Pi Labs and Promind Consulting
Victoria Hill, a founder coach, is available to everyone on the team for free sessions to talk through any struggles and challenges at work and in life. She is also available to our portfolio companies for similar support.
Entrepreneurs often neglect shutting down and rebooting their minds by treating rest and sleep as an optional commodity. This can result in overstimulation of the brain during prolonged periods that we’re simply not designed to cope with. At best this leads to ineffective working and an inefficient use of time. At worst this leads to burnout. Reflective coaching helps to clarify the codependent nature of mental well-being and productivity, whilst goal-focussed coaching ensures entrepreneurs refocus on sustainable performance by making practical changes to working patterns.
Faisal Butt, Pi Labs
We also see this demonstrated in our leadership as Faisal Butt leads his own life with daily habits and a lifestyle that influences the rest of our team. Since mental health is important to Faisal, our team is also encouraged to take care of ourselves through exercise, going on holiday, spending bonding time with the team outside of the office and finding balance for what works best in our personal lives. Faisal shares why this is so important to him and what he does to sustain running a company.
Over my years as the founder of a VC firm interacting closely with founders of start-ups, I have found mental health to be among the most important priorities for not only the people around you, but also the long-term vitality of your business. In other words, the health of a business is tied to the mental and physical health of founders and the team around them.
At a personal level, I commit to exercising daily, optimising for 7–8 hours of daily sleep, taking breaks between meetings to go for a stroll, limiting alcohol consumption, and taking ice cold showers in the morning. I also make a concerted effort to develop my knowledge in the area of mental health and performance — including listening to the Feel Better, Live More podcast by Dr Rangan Chatterjee. I would also recommend Why We Sleep by Mathew Walker, and Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate.
More recently, I have briefed the Pi Labs team on my initiative to complete blocks of uninterrupted work on Fridays, which we are referring to as Focus Friday. A number of other team members are structuring their calendar in a way that enables them to do the same without having a negative effect on the business. This reduces the counterproductive burden of multitasking and is a creative way to reduce stress levels ahead of the weekend.
I am excited by the progress we have made to recognize how tolling it is to be a founder. Founders often choose to sacrifice their time, energy, health and relationships to pursue an idea. My hope is that as a VC and the larger entrepreneurial industry, we can find ways to lift founders up so that they can build with transparency and help them find a sustainable way to keep going.
