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What if we had a passion that consumed us more than our startup?

Being a Founder means thinking about your startup constantly. It’s not just work—it’s identity. And over time, it quietly starts to absorb more and more of our energy, attention, and sense of self.

For most people with “normal” jobs, the solution to burnout is taking a break—a vacation, a long weekend, a few nights offline. That works because their jobs stop when they walk away. But for Founders, our jobs never really stop. Our minds don’t clock out at 5pm. Even when we’re technically away, our brains keep running the simulation—funding, hiring, product, growth.

We can’t pretend like we can just flip the switch and shut it off. But what we can do is create a counterforce—somet...

We need to get back to building the startup that inspired us to begin with — we need to get back to our "Why."

Part of the Founder journey, really for all of us, starts with this amazing inspirational period of hopes and dreams, where we have this idea that we just can't wait to bring into the world. At that moment, all rationale and reason give way to exuberance and optimism — we become completely and utterly intoxicated with what's possible — and it's incredible!

At that very moment, we are filled to the brim with our "Why." Our "Why" is the entire purpose of building our startup. It's different for all of us, but it typically is a combination of personal goals, product vision, and desire to put a little dent in the universe. If you talk ...

No matter how much success we create with our startups, it almost never "cures" our need for validation. If anything, it often makes it worse.

It usually starts with this feeling that we need to prove the world wrong, and when we do, we'll have the last laugh (which is just code for "I need personal validation"). The relationship between building a startup and getting "revenge on something" is particularly strong with Founders because the very nature of what we do is so damn combative!

Haters and doubters are as much a part of our startup DNA as investors and customers. We've all had someone who thought we'd never pull this off, who questioned our ability and idea. Whether we admit it publicly or not, we all want to show them how incredibly...

Entry-level workers are no longer U.S. college grads—in fact, some aren't even human anymore.

The world of entry-level talent has completely changed in the past decade, particularly for startups. Not too long ago, startups raided colleges with an implicit understanding that among college grads, you could find someone who was smart (the college part), willing to work hard (lots of free time), and relatively cheap (first job).

I know this well because I was exactly that—young, relatively smart, insanely hungry, and freakishly cheap to hire. Since then, I've been trying to find my 19-year-old clone every single day of my Founder life. What has changed, though, is that the most fertile hunting grounds for those folks are no longer U.S. colleges...

Our most broken assumption in Year 1 is that anyone will stick around for Year 2.

Spoiler Alert: They won't, and the cost of giving away a ton of equity and responsibility to people who won't be around for long is incredibly expensive.

I see this play out all the time, especially with First Time Founders who naively think that everyone who promised to help launch their startup in Year One will actually stick around to do it. It’s easy to make that mistake — when everyone’s talking a big game and acting just as excited as we are to build something amazing, we can’t help but believe them.

But all of a sudden, people stop showing up. That Co-Founder CTO whom we thought was going to build the whole product for "free" goes MIA. That mentor who ...

At what point do we find out if all of our startup sacrifice was worth it?

The prevailing theory is that as Founders, we can justify our sacrifices of time, money, and emotional energy for the bounty of riches we'll enjoy on the other side. It's almost hard-coded into all of us the moment we take the plunge to start something.

But what happens when we're on the other side and we're forced to come to terms with whether or not those sacrifices were justified? Can we truly replace what was lost in getting here with what was gained through our efforts? What if we straight up made a bad bet?

Let me tell you a personal story about my journey as a Founder over 30 (very long) years of building startups and my assessment of a mountain of sacrifice o...

The startup world is in a "Silent Recession" that no one is talking about, and it's a real problem.

Most of the Founders I speak to in private say the same thing — their business isn't going well. It's a combination of a weird economy, a Nuclear Winter in startup funding, and sky-high interest rates. Economists can tell us that the stock market is at an all-time high, unemployment is down, and inflation means people are spending too quickly. Yet if you talk to enough Founders honestly, they will tell a very different story.

If you're at a point where you're trying to understand why things aren't quite going as well as they should, let me shed some light on things my friends. We're in a Silent Recession among startups, where secretly they ar...

Warning: This isn't intended to be a political statement. It's intended to explore the entitlement of earnings by Founders, regardless of where in the world they live or what system of government they are in.

Do successful Founders deserve the profit for their invested risk?

For a long time, this question seemed almost rhetorical, but in the past few decades, the entitlement of Founder profit in the world has come under serious scrutiny. As the cultural and economic divide among workers continues to increase, the notion of who "deserves" profit has become incredibly volatile.

Not surprisingly, I'm wildly biased on this topic because I’m so passionate about startups! I believe Founders earn and deserve every penny of the profit they make, a...

Everyone loves to glamorize the Founder who risked it all — until they are the Founder who lost it all.

Recently I was watching the History Channel series "The Toys that Made Us" with my kids, where they documented the inventors of toys from Barbie Dolls to Trivial Pursuit. Within the documentary are conveniently scripted scenes where actors dramatize key moments where the Founders "risked everything" to bet on their big dream, which of course, went on to become a huge hit.

When my daughter turned to me and asked if that's what it's really like - to risk everything to become successful — I turned to her and said, "Yes, if you're lazy." I said "lazy" because I didn't want to say "stupid" but when she's an adult, I'll be sure to add that part...

Most startup Founders never get rich — and it's 100% our own fault.

I'm not talking about not getting rich because our startup failed — that one is obvious. I'm talking about having a startup that actually worked and still not getting rich. And when I say "rich" I don't mean "Powerball Rich" I'm talking in most cases, making any money at all. As a whole, we tend to suck at making money for ourselves.

The reason for this is that the startup ethos is riddled with fallacies about how we should approach profit and wealth. We've constructed a narrative that glorifies sacrifice and risk while somehow completely overlooking common sense and profit.

Founders need a reality check. We need to remind ourselves that treading down the most dangerous pat...