Building boldly, leading sustainably

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Lisa Mikkelsen is a partner at Flourish Ventures, where she leads the firm’s Founder Wellbeing Initiative and oversees Global Human Capital.

This month marks Mental Health Awareness Month, and while that may seem like a “nice to have” in the high-stakes world of company building, for early-stage founders, it’s anything but.

Building a startup — especially in fintech — is an exercise in long-term resilience. Founders operate at the intersection of constant decision-making, personal risk, capital constraints, and public pressure. It’s not just demanding — it’s all-consuming. 

Markets are volatile. Talent is fickle. Regulations are shifting. Meanwhile, the expectations haven’t let up — lead in the face of these headwinds and deliver exceptional growth.  It’s not just demanding — it’s all-consuming.

This is the new normal. And it’s not sustainable without the right support.

The data says it bluntly

According to Foundology’s 2024 Founder Resilience report: 

  • 93% of founders show signs of mental health strain

  • 69% have a fear of failure

  • 57% feel guilty when they take a break

  • 92% of founders rank resilience as the number one requirement for entrepreneurship

But you don’t need the stats to know it. If you’re close to founders — or are one — you’ve seen firsthand the mental load of running a company while trying to make good decisions, inspire your team, and keep your investors satisfied.

Our take: Founder support is a strategic investment

At Flourish Ventures, we see wellbeing as operational infrastructure for world-class leadership.

We know that healthier founders build stronger companies. They stay longer, scale better, make clearer decisions, and lead with greater consistency. We invest with that in mind.

Over the years, we have thought a lot about how to support founders:

  • We provide coaching and therapy access for all founders and their families through a partnership with Modern Health.

  • We sponsor founder-only peer groups through Foundology, giving leaders space to speak candidly with others who are in the same seat.

  • We hold CEO retreats focused on reflection, personal performance and decision-making capacity because being a great founder isn’t just about shipping a product or raising capital. It’s about how you lead through complexity.

Startup culture is shifting in the right direction

The “grind-it-out” mindset has many limitations in today’s environment. Founders are navigating volatility, complexity, and pressure at a scale that demands real support, not just surface-level talk about balance.

At Flourish, we see founder wellbeing as operationally essential. Our programs aren’t performative — they’re shaped by what we hear directly from founders across our markets. The realities differ by geography, stage, and team, and the support has to reflect that.

Company building will always be hard. But it shouldn’t be isolating or unsustainable.

As investors, we have a dual responsibility: to back great businesses, and to ensure the people leading them can keep leading. In the high-stakes world of venture, the most durable companies will be those built by founders with the clarity, support and resilience to navigate the long haul.

The most sustainable innovation comes from founders who prioritize their overall well-being as rigorously as they do their business metrics. By normalizing these conversations and prioritizing, we can foster a healthier, more resilient entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports the humans behind the headlines.