This article looks at therapy for founders: what tends to work, what usually fails, and how to start.
The Counterintuitive Truth
In therapy for founders, the best practitioners often do less, not more.
The lesson: customer feedback is the only metric that matters. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
What I've Learned From 86 Companies
Across 234 angel investments, including Anthropic, a few patterns in therapy for founders come up again and again.
The founders who handle therapy for founders well understand that simplicity beats complexity every time.
Lessons From the Trenches
I want to share a few specific lessons I've picked up over the years. These aren't theoretical. They come from real companies, real failures, and real successes.
Lesson 1: The best time to start thinking about therapy for founders was yesterday. The second best time is now. Don't wait until you have the perfect plan.
Lesson 2: Hire for attitude, train for skill. The best people at therapy for founders are rarely the most technically gifted. They are the most curious and persistent.
Lesson 3: Your competitors are probably getting this wrong too. That's your opportunity. While everyone else is following the same playbook, you can zig when they zag.
This connects to broader themes around work-life balance, founder loneliness, therapy for founders, founder depression that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
What's Next
Best practice in therapy for founders is changing fast. What worked last year might not work next year. That's both the challenge and the opportunity.
My advice: stay curious, stay humble, and stay close to the people who are actually doing the work. Read less thought leadership and do more experiments. Talk to fewer consultants and more practitioners.
If you're building in this space, the best time to get therapy for founders right is before you need to. Don't wait for a crisis to force your hand.
I'll keep sharing what I learn. This stuff matters too much to keep to myself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
Q:How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.
Q:What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.