The Impact of Mental Health on Founders and How to Improve It

72% of founders report an impact on their mental health. We are going to highlight the impact of mental health on founders and how to improve it, especially related to startups, so you can feel better and perform better. However, improvements don’t occur overnight, so it’s important to set the expectation that it can take some time.

This article by TechCrunch talks about the need for investors and entrepreneurs to address the mental health crisis in startups and they couldn’t be more right.

What do Founders Experience?

The TechCrunch article shares that founders are:

• 2X more likely to suffer from depression
• 6X more likely to suffer from ADHD
• 3X more likely to suffer from substance abuse
• 10X more likely to suffer from bi-polar disorder
• 2X more likely to have psychiatric hospitalization
• 2X more likely to have suicidal thoughts

Founders who are emotionally healthy are more likely to make better decisions rather than the opposite, where the inverse occurs.

And based on my research, mental health affects so many of the decision-making processes that will determine whether or not your startup succeeds or fails – being that 90% of them do fail, a lot of it stems from lapses in judgement, communication, and decision-making. These are all mental health-related.

8% of founders reported failing, in part, due to burnout from CB Insights’ first study on why startups fail and now in their second study, that number has dropped to 5%. But that doesn’t mental health in founders isn’t still an issue.

The following stats show that founders are suffering from one or more of the following (also displayed in the image below).

• High stress, 44%
• Anxiety, 37%
• Burnout, 36%
• Depression, 13%
• Panic attacks, 10%

The data doesn’t add up to 100% because participants were able to select multiple answers for what they experience.