If a founder thrives, the business thrives. Why mental wellbeing is essential for entrepreneurs.

Mental health in a fast-growing and dynamic environment

Speed, innovation, impact. As a founder or leader in a scale-up, you often find yourself in the eye of the storm. Your team looks to you for direction. Your investors for results. And yourself? You just keep going because your passion is so great and giving up isn't in your vocabulary.

Many entrepreneurs and 'early employees' recognize this pattern. The engine keeps running until the tank is empty. Yet the taboo remains strong. We still too often associate leadership with invulnerability.

Why founders' wellbeing is under pressure

Data from IDEWE shows that 16% of managers face high burn-out risk, up from 2020. For younger leaders, that risk is even higher, partly due to the double pressure of work and personal life.

Some underlying dynamics:

• Constant growth: your organisation is professionalising, structures are changing, but you still have to carry everything
• Proving yourself: especially among young founders, perfectionism leads to overdrive
• Remote work: blurs the lines between work and life, so you never truly disconnect
• Loss of connection: rapid growth or remote work erodes informal team connection
• Unclear role division: as a founder, you're visionary, people manager, and executor all at once. That's demanding.

When do you need help?

You rarely cross the line all at once. Often it's small signals ignored for months.

Do you recognize yourself in (a combination of) these signs?

• You sleeprestlessly or wake up feeling frantic
• You feel more cynical, empty, or easily irritated
• You have lessfocus, forgetthings, or procrastinate
• You feel responsible for everything yet powerless
• You can't find mental rest anywhere, not even in your free time
• You sense something's off but don't know where to start

Warning: many founders minimize or rationalize these signals. "It's temporary," "it comes with the territory"... But mental wellbeing isn't a nice-to-have. It's a basic requirement for healthy growth.

5 challenges for founders (and how to handle them)

1. You're wearing (too) many hats, with no time to evolve your role

As a founder or early employee, you're often everything at once: visionary, product owner, people manager, customer support... And while your company changes, you stay stuck in that 'all-rounder' mode. Until your own growth stalls.

Tip:

• Create reflection moments (with a coach or external sounding board)
• Ask yourself: "What does my role need today, and what do I let go?"
• Anchor mental support not just for your team, but for yourself too

2. Your workload keeps rising, but your energy doesn't

Burn-out rarely comes from one peak. It's the result of structurally doing too much. Especially if you rarely say 'no' or overestimate yourself. In a culture where 'go' is the norm, stopping feels like failure.

Tip:

• Schedule recovery time in your calendar like it's a board meeting
• Use your energy level as a compass for decisions
• Dare to explicitly state your boundaries to your team or co-founders

3. Remote work & team closeness blur boundaries

In a start-up, your team often feels like family: you share successes, pizzas, and late nights. But precisely because of that close bond, boundaries blur quickly—between work and life, between colleague and confidant. Your laptop's on the kitchen table, your inbox overflows, and while picking up the kids, your head's full of investor pitches. And then a team member faces personal difficulties. Where does your responsibility as a leader end, and where does the need for professional help begin?

Tip:

• Work in your workspace, live in your living space
• Turn off notifications outside work hours
• Encourage your team to set boundaries too: "If I don't reply at 8pm, that's okay"

4. You're the face of your culture, but you're still human

Founders often say it: "It's lonely at the top." As a founder, you set the tone. Your people look to you when things get tough. And that's a tricky paradox: because who takes care of you?

Tip:

• Find an external network or safe space to vent
• Surround yourself with people who strengthen your vision, and seek support from those who are where you want to be
• Get guidance from a coach or psychologist experienced in leadership
• Share your own doubts or struggles with your team occasionally. It makes you more credible, not weaker

5. The team grows... and you lose touch

At first, you know everyone. You lunch together, you sense how things are going. But as the team grows and structures change, connection threatens to fade.

Tip:

• Cherish informal moments, especially (or precisely) in remote settings
• Accept the discomfort that growth brings: it's temporary and paves the way for stronger structure and new connection
• Monitor not just performance, but energy and wellbeing too
• Create space for peer support and anonymous help via external partners

Support for Start it founders through BloomUp

At Start it @KBC, we know founders carry a lot. That's why we've partnered with BloomUp to offer accessible mental health support to our community. Because when a founder thrives, the business thrives.

Through BloomUp's platform, you and your team get access to:

• Recognized psychologists & coaches (online & offline) with experience in leadership, stress, and personal growth
• Growth programs at your own pace for extra resilience and skills
• Fast and confidential access, no waiting lists
• Data & insights if you want to embed this in your broader policy

Part of the Start it community and want to know more? Discover here their offer for our community.

Workshop: Build a culture where people thrive

Tired of the classic hierarchy playbook? Join our hands-on workshop to design a startup culture where people thrive, make autonomous decisions, and stay motivated as you grow.

What you'll learn:

• How to spot where your startup stands in its organizational journey
• Practical tools from Reinventing Organizations to move beyond traditional management
• How to use team assessment tools (like Lumina Spark) to leverage individual strengths
• Alternatives to rigid hierarchies: self-managing roles, circles instead of departments, and decision-making without endless approval chains
• Concrete ways to create psychological safety, handle conflict constructively, and build real feedback systems

Why join? If you're a founder building your first team (2–10 people) and want to avoid burnout and "big-company" traps, this is for you. You'll leave with strategies you can apply right away to keep your culture strong as you scale.

Your expert: Clovis Six, CEO & founder of BloomUp, has transformed his own company into a thriving self-managed organization. He'll share honest insights from BloomUp's journey—the wins, the struggles, and how these methods shaped a sustainable, people-centered business.

Practical details:

• 🕒 3-hour interactive workshop
• 📍 Start it @KBC Brussels
• 👥 Bring your challenges, your team context, and an open mind

Community only!