How starting a company at 17 made me depressed for a year.

Not Everything About Startups is Glamourous.

Entrepreneurship always sounds so glorious. Rarely, if ever, will you hear entrepreneurs complaining about how tough their life is or how much they wish they had stayed in school. Never will you read an article in Forbes about how starting a company is a terrible life decision. Everyone seems to glorify how great entrepreneurship can be. Nobody wants to focus on the dark side of entrepreneurship, and the many hardships that come with building a startup.

Today, I do.

One year ago, I started my second company, Leangap. (http://leangap.com) It was a summer program designed for high school students to start their own companies in one summer, a concept that I am incredibly passionate about. When I first started Leangap, I felt amazing. I would meet the biggest names in entrepreneurship and tech on a regular basis, talk with Boston’s most well-regarded investors, and exchange stories about startup life with other teenagers like me. For months, I lived with two startup friends in an apartment on MIT campus, where we partied and hustled our way to the next funding round, partnership, or other milestone.

As the weeks went by, I started waking up later and later in the day. My energy decreased, and I lost most of my appetite. Gradually, I went out less and less and eventually stopped seeing my friends altogether. By February, I had completely lost the motivation to socialize. Too blinded by my startup to notice the obvious signs, though, I continued to work without telling anyone about my symptoms or seeing a medical professional. It was only one day, when I went for a routine checkup, that my doctor noticed the clear signs of depression and assigned me to a therapist. Although I was supposed to see her twice a week,

I completely rejected the fact that I was depressed and continued to work on my startup as if everything was normal.

My ignorance only made my depression worse, and as the months passed my loss of energy and feelings of hopelessness deepened. Things got worse until one day, I woke up at 3PM in the afternoon and had absolutely no motivation to work on anything, including my startup.

I decided to finally go to my therapist. At first, the sessions didn’t help because I couldn’t accept the fact that I was depressed. After all, I thought, how could it be possible? I thought I was doing exactly what I loved- building a company that provided value to others. Why was my body acting this way?

After more sessions and a prescription of medication, I started to slowly accept the fact that I was depressed. I still didn’t have a clue as to why, but I knew that it was there. My therapist said that I was making progress, and after a few months things started getting better. I’m lucky that I found her, because without her guidance I don’t know where I’d be today.

Months passed, and it felt good to talk to her every week about life. At the time, she was the only person in my life that wanted to talk to me about things that weren’t work-related. Before I met her, I had never realised how amazing a deep conversation about life could be.

Today, I’m still not 100% cured. I still take medication everyday, and I still Skype my therapist every week. The fact that I’m able to muster up the courage to write this post, though, gives me hope that I’m making good progress. So now comes the important question:

Why was I depressed?

When you first enter the startup world, you are given a load of propaganda that you initially accept without question.

Change the world!

Create value!

Be selfless!

I completely believed in all of these things. I put my heart and soul into these values that startup books and shows taught me. As a result, I put an immense amount of pressure on myself and those around me to be completely selfless and contribute to society. I completely forgot to take care of my own physical and mental health because I thought the only thing in the world that mattered was my startup. I acted as though my startup’s success would solve all the other problems in my life. In the end, though, thinking this way just screwed me over. Building a company is a marathon; not a sprint. I treated my entire life like a sprint. Although it seems almost comical, I have learned that I still need to perform basic human functions like eating healthy, exercising, and spending time with my loved ones. I’ve realised that passion is not an excuse for not taking care of yourself.

The thing is, I have never told anyone before writing this post that I’m depressed.

I’m doing it now in hopes of inspiring other entrepreneurs to open up about their struggles because in hindsight, depression is nothing to be ashamed of. It certainly is not, however, something I can easily admit. Writing this post took all of my courage, and then some. With that said, I hope this little piece has helped you in some way or another as we enter the new year. Feel free to contact me or ask me questions about anything, as I’m always glad to help fellow entrepreneurs.

Happy holidays.