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Emotional Costs of a Start-Up Founder

Launching a start-up is considered hip. Everywhere you can hear and read about companies that have made a breakthrough or have been acquired for enormous sums of money. Little is said about failures and their backgrounds. And when you hear someone talking about the cost of a start-up, it is usually personal, capital, acquisition or opportunities costs that are meant. What goes forgotten is the highest cost of building up a start-up: emotional costs.

In a founder’s life, there are many aspects that involve emotional costs. One of them is being alone. Who once worked for a company is used to dealing with colleagues. You eat together, or even make jokes about the boss. Now you yourself are a boss. And especially at the beginning of a venture, when there is no one else working for your start-up, you are very often alone. Coming home to your beloved ones may help here. However, they often do not understand what a founder is going through. It may happen that some relationship exact their toll. What helps many young entrepreneurs here is exchange with other founders who are going through the same thing.

The time you spend waiting should not be underestimated either. At first, everything is going on quickly and without a hitch. First successes are very motivational. However, most start-ups eventually come to the point where time seems to have stopped. The growth is slow, or even comes to a complete standstill. Customer acquisition is going sluggish and sales do not happen. Weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. Of course, everyone hopes that your start-up finally goes off, that is to say: as soon as possible. Not always do things go by far that fast, however, as success stories suggest it. You have to realise that, in some circumstances, you may need a lot of time to build your venture up.

The phase when your growth abates often has financial consequences too. Many start-up founders get worn out by financial uncertainty. Whereas high-riding start-ups keep scooping up millions, you are practically stuck with your business. Your bank account is shrinking from day to day, and the motto ‘We invest in future’ turns into ‘How am I going to pay for my food soon?’. To make their companies survive and thrive, many start-up founders cut back on their personal needs such as holidays or a large car. They live their normal lives to finance their start-ups.

Building up a company costs enormous amounts of time, therefore start-up founders and employees sacrifice most of their time for the sake of work. It is not unlikely that you have to toil 80 hours a week during this phase. This also obviously affects relations with your partners at home. At first the support is usually big. At some point, however, the relationship is worn out by your constant physical and mental absence. Founders have to realise it and explain to their partners that they would have less time for the relationship. Or they accept that their relationship is going to suffer from that.

All these costs represent the emotional price of launching a start-up, which is usually forgotten. They are what bothers founders, but they remain invisible. And the founders of successful start-ups manage to have also such emotional costs well under control. It is important and necessary for soon-to-be founders to set realistic expectations for themselves and know what awaits them. And they have to have the perseverance to get through these phases. For Rome was not built in a day either.

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