Early on, most of my anxiety as a founder was about uncertainty. Would anyone use this? Would we run out of money? Were we solving a real problem? Would I have to fire everyone?
That anxiety made sense. It was about survival.
What surprised me was the anxiety that formed once things started working. It wasn’t loud panic; it was quieter and constant. Things like:
- checking metrics more often than I needed to
- replaying decisions and conversations over and over and over
- feeling responsible for other people’s experiences
Success created responsibility, and responsibility created more, different pressure. One thing that really helped was changing how I relate to anxiety. Instead of trying to eliminate it, I started treating it like information about the business - and myself. If I felt anxious before a feature release, I asked:
+ What risk am I actually seeing?
+ Is this something I need to act on, or just acknowledge?
Sometimes the anxiety pointed to real work that needed attention, like a bug that hadn't been quite fixed, or an underperforming employee that needed extra support. But sometimes it was just my nervous system reacting to increased stakes. I'm still figuring this out, but acknowledging the fact that I feel anxiety, and that's an ok, normal, rational response given the pressure has helped my mental health a lot.
For other founders here:
What are you most anxious about today? What might it be telling you about the company?