The Resilient Founder: Lessons in Endurance from Startup Entrepreneurs

Managing your own psychology is the hardest skill for any founder
As acclaimed investor and entrepreneur Ben Horowitz once stated, managing your own psychology is the hardest skill for any founder or CEO. In The Resilient Founder: Lessons in Endurance from Startup Entrepreneurs, Mahendra Ramsinghani gathers insights from over a hundred founders to deliver an intuitive and insightful guide to understanding our psychology and navigating the psychological pressures of startup leadership.
Venture backed companies are expected to grow at high velocity, raise large amounts of capital, build teams effectively to achieve unicorn, no decacorn status. Yet the journey is long, filled with uncertainties, extremities and black swan events. It can wear out the best and the brightest. On the outside, a CEO can demonstrate sheer bravado, an invincible spirit as they behead dragons in the business battlefield. And on the inside, they deal with their dark side, subconscious struggles, emotional barriers, shame or guilt. The role of a founder can be lonely, frustrating and filled with high-highs and low-lows - all of this leading to anxiety, depression even suicide.
This book addresses the fundamentals of understanding our own inner workings and explores practical ways of overcoming our inner hurdles. Filled with simple, yet concrete strategies, lessons and insights, founders and business leaders can work with stress, anxiety, and other mental challenges presented by the life of an entrepreneur.
In this book, readers will learn to: Understand the basics of founder psychology, and how our inner workings can help or hurt us The importance of building a healthy ego, leading to resilience Draw on the lessons of established startup leaders on how to wrestle with their own mental and emotional challenges
Written for founders, entrepreneurs and Chief Executive Officers, The Resilient Founder leads a gentle path to self-awareness, compassionate soul-care and inner wellbeing. Entrepreneur, Investor and author Brad Feld calls this book "dynamite". Case studies, philosophical perspectives and a generous dose of poetry is sprinkled across this book, which can be a companion for all those misfits, rebels and the crazy ones. For all those perpetually hitched on the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurial journey, this book is first of a kind to delve into the dark side and present a balanced approach to building your inner core as you build your company. This is no quick-fix guide, and we are perpetual work-in-progress. Today is Day One. Let us start the journey.
From the Inside Flap
Founders, entrepreneurs and business leaders, especially those who shoulder responsibility for high-growth, fast-moving startups, often struggle with stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental challenges as they race to reach the promised unicorn land.
In The Resilient Founder: Lessons in Endurance from Startup Entrepreneurs, veteran venture capitalist and entrepreneur Mahendra Ramsinghani delivers an eye-opening exploration of the relentless emotional pressure faced by startup founders and business leaders. The book draws on lessons in endurance from over one hundred company founders who share their own emotional difficulties.
The art of building resilience starts with the basics of psychology, and the importance of developing a healthy ego. Be it the pandemic, competition, or cash flow, crises are bound to occur. Why do some founders react differently, while some succumb to pressure? What about therapy and medication? The book provides a simple and a holistic framework towards improving the well being of those under the gun at high-pressure startups. The postscript outlines how to support all those who suffer from depression as a result of their entrepreneurial PTSD.
Filled with insights, tactics, solace, and guidance from those who have already endured the slings of startup life, The Resilient Founder is a first of a kind compassionate companion for e