Founder Wellness:
Strategies for Thriving, Not Just Surviving

The entrepreneurial journey is a balancing act of passion, pressure, and persistent challenge. For startup founders, the path to success is often paved with intense psychological demands that can quickly lead to burnout—a mitigator of innovative potential. Recent studies suggest that over 50% of founders experience mental health challenges, with burnout being a primary concern that can derail even the most promising ventures.

Operating Energy: The Founder's Most Valuable Resource
Understanding "operating energy" becomes crucial in this context. Unlike physical energy, operating energy represents your cognitive and emotional capacity to make strategic decisions, navigate complex challenges, and maintain leadership resilience. When founders continuously operate in high-stress environments without intentional recovery, they deplete this critical resource, leading to diminished creativity, reduced problem-solving capabilities, and increased vulnerability to exhaustion.

Mindfulness as a Strategic Leadership Tool

Mindfulness and strategic self-care are not luxuries but essential survival skills for entrepreneurs. Building robust habits around mental fitness involves creating deliberate boundaries, practicing regular meditation or breath-work, maintaining consistent exercise routines, and developing strong support networks. Successful founders like Arianna Huffington and Brad Feld have publicly shared how prioritizing mental health transformed their leadership effectiveness, demonstrating that vulnerability and self-awareness are strengths, not weaknesses.

Empowered Delegation and Support

Effective delegation is another critical strategy in managing founder burnout. Many entrepreneurs struggle with the misconception that they must personally handle every aspect of their startup(this is one of my worst habits). In reality, learning to trust and empower team members not only distributes workload but also creates opportunities for team growth. Resources like executive coaching, peer founder groups such as YPO and Founders Forum, and professional therapy can provide structured support in developing these leadership skills and maintaining psychological equilibrium.

Building a Sustainable Performance Ecosystem

Generally, preventing burnout is about creating a sustainable performance ecosystem. This means regularly assessing your mental state, recognizing early warning signs of stress, and proactively implementing recovery strategies. By treating your mental fitness with the same strategy you apply to business operations, you create potential breakdown into breakthrough—ensuring that your entrepreneurial journey remains not just successful, but fulfilling.

==========================

Fractional Openings

Growth Marketing Manager @ Tinybeans
Chief Product Officer @ Token
Head of Growth @ Measured
CFO @ The Healthy Back Institute

==========================

Navigating Funding Rounds as a Founder

==========================

Startup Story

Novy Ventures

Founded in late 2023 by Eric Engelmann, Dave Tominsky and Krista Martin with the mission to turn great ideas into valuable companies, Novy is a first-of-its-kind, Iowa-based venture studio that provides the direct capital, expert guidance, and executive talent to build innovative healthcare software companies.

Novy, meaning ‘New’ in Czech, was designed to partner alongside founders in a way that’s a fresh departure from the traditional investor model. They offer both capital investment and proactive mentorship from the very beginning.

Helping to build the business from the ground-up, Novy is a co-founder for each of their portfolio companies. This hands-on involvement ensures efficient launching and scaling every step of the way, mitigating much of the risk and unknown that comes with early-stage startups.

This model also allows founders to focus on their passion, while benefiting from Novy’s structured approach and resources, leading to a higher likelihood of long-term success. In fact, venture studio startups have a 30% higher success rate than traditional startups (GSSN).

The team at Novy has designed a playbook that dramatically accelerates businesses over 24 months through their six stage process spanning Ideation, Validation, Creation, Growth, Spinout, and Exit. 

Any ideas that reach the Creation stage will receive around $2M in total investment across: 

• Proven knowledge and frameworks

• Up to $1M in direct capital

• Two full-time executives

• In-house product development

• Full suite of back-office support

Novy is currently looking for early-stage healthcare software ideas for their second round of Ideation. If you have an idea you’d like to share with the team for consideration, please submit an application HERE.

==========================

EVENTS

1 Million Cups Des Moines
11/27
Maple Studios
1207 Maple St, West Des Moines, IA 50265
Apply to Present

Raising Capital for Startups
December 3rd
700 Locust Street, Suite 100
Des Moines, IA 50309

Network, Leads and Sales for Fractional Professionals
A Virtual Event
November 26th

==========================

Connect with Me!
X - LinkedIn - Threads