Top 10 Mistakes on The Founder’s Journey
A lot of the conversation around the future is about digital transformation and what is changing around us. But in order to build new ideas and thrive in the next era, there is another side of transformation that has to happen. We also have to transform ourselves.
The founder’s journey is not just about building a company. It is about becoming the person who can actually hold what you are trying to build. That process can be messy, and there are periods where you feel like you are moving backwards, relationships change, old fears come back to the surface, and things that used to feel easy suddenly become difficult.
There is no perfect way to move through it, but there are definitely some mistakes that make the process harder than it needs to be.
These are ten things to watch out for on the founder’s journey.
1. Neglecting your basic needs
The first mistake is probably the most obvious one, is not meeting your basic needs. When you are building something, it is incredibly easy to let yourself go. Sleep gets pushed aside. Food becomes something to think about later. And enjoying your everyday life becomes something that has to be earned.
There is a tendency, particularly in corporate and founder culture, to treat overworking yourself as a sign that you are committed. It is not.
You need to ensure that you are always meeting your basic needs. These are:
Breathing
Water
Food
Sleep.
Does your environment feel good?
Have you connected with other people?
Have you created something recently?
And on top of those basic human needs, we also encourage you to put effort into your appearance and how you look. Because if you look good, you feel good too.
The point is not to optimise every part of your life. Sometimes you just need to order the pizza and watch the movie. But when everything starts feeling overwhelming, go back to the basics.
Because you cannot build the future while neglecting the person who has to build it.
2. Thinking someone is coming to save you
Nobody is coming to save you.
That does not mean you are alone. You can have guidance, support, mentors, therapists, friends and people who believe in you. But at some point, you have to do it yourself.
Think about the butterfly. Once the caterpillar has gone into the cocoon, there is a process it has to go through to break out. That process matters. The butterfly has to push its way out itself.
And there will be moments on the founder’s journey where someone can take you right up to the edge, but they cannot make the jump for you. That part is yours.
The good thing about understanding this is that it also means you stop waiting for permission. You stop waiting for someone else to make the decision, create the opportunity or tell you that you are ready.
You have to take the leap yourself.
3. Not adopting the mindset of a stripper
This one sounds funny, but it is actually about boundaries. Because why are you doing that for free?
There is a tendency, particularly if you have been raised to be the "good girl", to do everything for everyone else. To go above and beyond, to be available, to give away your time, your ideas and your energy because you believe that is what good people do.
But there is a difference between reciprocity and being exploited. You can believe in a beautiful future and still ask what is being poured back into you.
Do not go above and beyond without asking what the exchange is. Do not make yourself available all the time. Do not keep giving to people who are taking everything and giving nothing back.
Sometimes the answer really is: Girl, why are you doing that for free when others are being paid?
Protect your energy. Your work has value.
4. Mistaking skill regression for failure
One of the strangest parts of transformation can be feeling like you have suddenly lost skills that you used to have.
Things that were once easy become difficult. You might feel like you cannot write, speak, think strategically or function at the level you used to. It can feel like you have lost yourself, but just know that a skill regression can be temporary.
Sometimes there is a period where you have to rebuild from the ground up. You have to use the training wheels again, and you have to take the little crawl steps before you can walk and run.
That does not mean you are going backwards. Sometimes you have to lose a skill in order to understand it properly.
When you have relied on a particular ability for your entire life, losing it forces you to learn the foundations again. You get to understand the mechanics, the ethics and what it actually means to have that ability.
The important thing is not to abandon the vision just because you cannot see how to get there today.
Hold onto the vision. Then ask: what is the smallest step that can be taken today? Learn more about Crawl, Walk, Run Strategy here.
5. Not getting the right support
Having the right support can make a huge difference on the founder’s journey. Therapy is one example of this. A good therapist can help you navigate the parts of transformation that are difficult to hold alone.
But finding the right person matters, and sometimes it is worth finding a therapist before you actually need one. Shop around. Find someone who feels familiar but still has boundaries. Find someone who can hold what you need them to hold.
And just as importantly, know when it is time to leave. You are allowed to break up with your therapist. Support is there to help you move through the process, not to become something you are permanently dependent on.
There is a point where you have to take what you have learned and start walking on your own.
6. Not playing chicken with the fear
Transformation brings everything to the surface. Your old fears, limiting beliefs, negative thought cycles, nightmares. All the things that have been lurking underneath the surface can suddenly come up to be looked at.
And it can be really scary. But the mistake is thinking that you need to run away from it. Instead, we like to play chicken with it (with the help of a therapist) and ask why it is there.
What is it actually trying to protect you from? What does it believe is going to happen? Does it still serve you?
You do not necessarily need to get rid of your fears. They are part of you. The goal is to integrate them and redirect them somewhere useful. Write about them. Make something from them. Turn the fear into creativity. Give it a new direction.
The things that have kept you small can sometimes become the things that make you stronger.
7. Holding onto the wrong relationships
Relationships change when you change. This applies to friendships, romantic relationships and partnerships. And the wrong energy or people in your life will derail you faster than anything else.
Friendships:
Sometimes your friends will tell you, "Why would you do that?" They might play devil's advocate. They might question your ideas. They might encourage you to stay where you are because that is where they know you.
That does not necessarily make them bad friends. But you do need to ask yourself whether the people around you are helping you become who you want to become.
There is a reason for the idea that you are the sum of the five people you surround yourself with. Sometimes your friendships are your biggest mirrors. Sometimes they are your biggest barriers.
But you cannot be afraid to move forward simply because you are afraid of being alone.
Romantic relationships
Sometimes people come into your life to help you transform.
A breakup can be a release. It can be the thing that allows you to become who you need to become. That does not mean every relationship needs to end when you grow. People can transform together and meet each other at a new level.
But you cannot spend your life waiting for someone to catch up with you. Focus on your own journey. If someone is not willing to come with you, let them continue on their own path.
Co-founders and partnerships
Building is not a solo process either.
There are people who will come into your life and help translate ideas, complete pieces of the puzzle and build things that could not have been built alone. But you have to know what your own puzzle piece looks like first.
Get clear on your own work. Get clear on what you bring. Have your piece ready. Then the right people can find where they fit because the future is built through collaboration, not in isolation.
8. Forgetting to play
There is a tendency to make the work the entire point of your life and the mission becomes everything. But there needs to be something outside the work that is creative, playful and completely yours.
For some people, that might be painting. For others it might be writing, music, cooking, fashion, making things, travelling or simply doing something that has no obvious commercial purpose. The technical and the creative need each other, and this is particularly important when working in technology. Technology changes constantly. Businesses evolve. Products become obsolete.
But creativity always remains. Think about Leonardo da Vinci. He was an inventor and an artist. We may not use his inventions anymore, but his art continues to matter. So find the balance because the work gives structure, your play gives expression, and when those two are in balance, you finally have union with yourself.
9. Fighting the timing
Timing is annoying because you can have the vision, you can know exactly what you want to build, and you can feel completely ready to go. And still, sometimes, it is not time yet.
The founder’s journey does not happen entirely on your schedule. Other people have to arrive, external circumstances have to change, and technology has to catch up. Other pieces have to fall into place.
So sometimes a project needs to go back on the shelf for a while, but that does not necessarily mean the idea was wrong. It might simply mean the conditions are not ready. The important thing is to hold onto the vision without becoming attached to exactly how or when it has to happen.
And with that, we also need to remember that there is no perfect decision for anything. There are decisions that move you towards the future you are trying to create and decisions that move you away from it.
But if you get clear on the vision, let that guide the choices.
10. Being afraid to be seen
This might be the hardest one. Because if you are building something new, eventually you have to be seen doing something different. People might think you are crazy; they might not understand it, and people might disagree with you.
And you might become the person who is doing something before everyone else understands why it matters. But that is what happens when you break the status quo.
If you want to bring new ideas into the world, you cannot constantly wait for everyone else to approve of them first. And being seen starts with seeing yourself. Seeing what you are capable of and the person you are becoming.
Once you can actually see yourself, it becomes much easier to let other people see you too.
The founder’s journey is the transformation
The founders journey is often described as building something new, but building something new usually requires becoming someone new. That is why the process can feel so uncomfortable.
The old and the new are being blended together. Old beliefs come up. Old relationships change. Skills might temporarily disappear. Fear gets louder. Your vision becomes clearer at the same time that the path towards it can become less obvious.
The answer is not to do it perfectly.
Meet your basic needs. Ask for help. Protect your energy. Take the leap yourself. Play chicken with the fear. Let relationships change. Make space for play. Trust the timing. Hold onto the vision. And eventually, let yourself be seen.
You are not lost just because you cannot see the path yet; sometimes you are just in the cocoon.
We explore these mistakes our founder made and more in this podcast episode: