A project to help founders that have shutdown their startups stay in the innovation space by helping them land roles as software developers/engineers, UX designers, product managers, EIRs, entrepreneur support program managers, and more.
Although more than 80% of all startups shut down for a multitude of reasons, many of their founders (especially women and founders of color) experience feelings of shame and guilt. These founders tend to withdraw from both personal and professional circles.
In Silicon Valley startup culture, however, failure is celebrated and worn as a badge of honor. Failure indicates that those founders took a risk, learned a bunch of important lessons, and are better positioned to be successful in their next venture. The US innovation economy can’t afford for these talented founders to withdraw. And diverse tech communities certainly can’t withstand the loss.
We need to be intentional about helping these founders find the next role in the innovation ecosystem – whether that’s working for a tech company, startup, accelerator, or tech community building organization.
At Goodie Nation, we take founder mental health seriously. In fact, our first-ever in-person experiences were informal, small group sessions that allowed founder to vent about entreprenuer-specific challenges among a group of other founders. Those sessions are called All Founders Need Therapy and are heled every month.
We’ve also put together a list of founder mental health resources.
Chantel Cohen is the Founder and CEO of CWC Coaching & Therapy, which provides therapy and coaching services to entrepreneurs and professionals alike. In particular, Chantel is on a mission to empower entrepreneurs of color, women business owners and co-founders.
Cohen is a licensed therapist who provides mental health services with a business coaching lens to help her clients find prosperity in the broader sense of the word. In particular, she and her team support founders in alleviating the mental stresses that come with entrepreneurship while coaching for optimal leadership performance.
CWC Coaching & Therapy offers online counseling sessions. Their team consists of licensed therapists, life coaches, and counselors. They assist clients with self-improvement, career development, negative self-talk, psychological pain, self-sabotaging behavior, past hurts and finding your purpose. Click here to schedule a FREE call with them.
We are a proud partner with Founder Mental Health Pledge. Their mission is to destigmatize mental healthcare for founders and the greater startup community. Together, as a community of founders, startup leaders, investors, business coaches and therapists, we’re advocating for the proactive care of founder mental health, endorsing it as not just a personal imperative, but an essential business investment. Started at the onset of the March 2023 banking crisis as a simple Google doc, investors and startup leaders representing over 23,000 portfolio companies joined the pledge. In response to overwhelming support for the pledge, we’ve evolved FMHP into a growing organization that furthers our mission through measurable initiatives in research, education, grants, and events.
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