The founder mental health and performance snapshot for 2024, featured in Forbes

The latest snapshot on founder health, mental health, psychological state and performance has just been released and featured by FORBES MAGAZINE with data from nearly 400 entrepreneurs – making it the largest study yet of its kind.

Five years have passed since the original founder mental health study that broke the silence on the crippling impact of entrepreneurship on the individuals behind our startups and scaleups. After a pandemic, turbulent politics and transformative changes to the funding landscape, a new snapshot was much needed and the 2024 snapshot is now available.

It does not make for light reading, but this time the research was extended to include cohort analysis to uncover what makes the biggest difference for thriving as an entrepreneur.

“We all know that entrepreneurs are the engine of economic growth. But they’re also human. I’ve seen firsthand how the role entrepreneurs play in society often comes at a cost. Running a business puts unique – and sometimes profound – pressures on people. While these challenges are well recognized, we’ve lacked robust data to truly understand their full impact – until now. This report, drawing on insights from hundreds of entrepreneurs, provides a comprehensive view of the obstacles founders face.”

Philip Salter, founder of think tank The Entrepreneurs Network

Founderhood is still tough on founder health

Faced with high levels of pressure and the recurring need for resilience, founders are struggling, and 93% are showing signs of mental health strain.  While deeply concerning, the high prevalence of mental health strain among founders remains consistent with the results reported in our 2019 study, where results were benchmarked against people in the workplace generally (60%). This lack of improvement prevails despite increased founder health awareness across the ecosystem, perhaps reflecting the challenging events of the past five years. Sleep problems and anxiety are among the most common symptoms, with anxiety amongst founders being more than five times the UK average. 

“I just told myself, you need to keep going. It will get better eventually… The trade-off is real, and I think we all need to acknowledge that as entrepreneurs”

Holger Seim, co-founder of Blinkist

On average, founders are exhibiting an average 4.9 symptoms, with no statistically significant change in the last five years. These symptoms are also occurring more frequently and recently than in 2019, with most experiencing symptoms at a clinically significant frequency: 55% of founders are experiencing symptoms either weekly or daily, and 51% are experiencing at least one of these signs right now. These founders also report that entrepreneurship, as they currently experience it, is negatively impacting their physical health (59%), mental health (61%) and their relationships with friends and family (71%).

High passion, high pressure

Despite these health metrics, when asked how often they feel a certain way in an average week, 64% of entrepreneurs feel ‘high-performing’ more than half of the time and 82% feel motivated. This aligns with the results around passion and drive: our startup ecosystems are filled with individuals deeply driven by a passion to make a difference. 92% of founders surveyed are passionate about what they’re doing, 82% feel motivated most of the time, and despite challenges, 89% are glad to be working on their own business. It’s clear our entrepreneurs don’t want pity, but we have a responsibility to improve the status quo.

Psychological states undermine performance

Performance is being held back by psychological states that hamper day to day productivity and confidence. Half of founders report feeling stressed and worried more than half of their average week, and one in three are overwhelmed and anxious. In the last year, these negative emotions have worsened with more than 30% of founders reporting that they are more stressed, worried, overwhelmed and anxious than a year ago. 

Half the founder cohort are worried, and for one in three this has increased in the last year

The results also show that when experiencing the rollercoaster of emotions so regularly experienced in day-to-day entrepreneurship, 56% have developed coping strategies of pushing feelings away so they can continue to perform, rather than dealing with them more productively. 

Lonely and lacking in meaningful support

Only 62% of founders feel that they can be open about the high pressures that they feel, and this shifts to just one in two founders for funded startups (Seed and above), compared to earlier stage startup founders where 70% feel they can be open. This is consistent with prior findings that only 10% of founders feel they can be open with their investors. The cognitive dissonance that is evident here likely leads to greater tension, and reduced feelings of support.  

Only 43% feel supported as a founder

76% of founders agree running a business is lonely

Considering these trends, it’s no surprise that 76% of founders report feeling lonely, which is seven times the workplace average and 50% more than CEOs more generally. Far more than an unpleasant psychological state, loneliness has proven to significantly raise risks of depression, weaken the immune response and even be a predictor of early mortality. In the workplace, it impacts self-confidence and self-efficacy, contributes to emotional exhaustion, and negatively impacts resilience and problem-solving capability. These are not the conditions we want our entrepreneurs to be facing, as innovators and growth-drivers in the economy.

Wellbeing interventions aren’t easy to execute

Faced with this reality, it is clear that founders might want to prioritise their health more to perform, but it isn’t that simple. For two in three founders, there is a deep-rooted fear of failure which, when split by stage, peaks at Series B and a team size of 50-249 people. There is also a strong underpinning of guilt holding them back. 

57% of founders feel guilty when they stop or take a break

This outlook impacts their performance and self-care habits: 64% find it hard to prioritise their wellbeing over their work, 59% find it difficult to take a break during the work day and 54% find it difficult to exercise regularly. The passion to make a difference, combined with a desire to achieve and succeed, whilst not wanting to let anyone down, makes for a complex founderhood life.

This is part 1 of a deep dive into the Founder Resilience Research Results. With this study, our mission was to close the understanding gap around how and why the life of founderhood is different and learn how we can fuel it effectively. Download your copy of full The Founder Resilience Report here

The full article on Forbes can be found here.