VC Minute – quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better.
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Rich Maloy
This is Rich Maloy with SpringTime Ventures, bringing you the VC Minute, quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better.
This week, we’re putting the focus back on you, the founder, and your wellbeing. This is timely. Not only because it’s hard out there right now for startups, but also because the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit is coming up, and I wanted to bring the host of that and Boulder startup OG, Alex Raymond, onto the show.
He’s going to cover imposter syndrome, toxic myths, burnout, and more. Take it away, Alex.
Alex Raymond
I’m Alex Raymond. I’m the CEO of Kapta and the host of the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit. I live in Boulder, Colorado. I’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time, and I know the ups and downs, the ins and outs, and how hard it is to be an entrepreneur.
There’s this view out there in the world that entrepreneurship is all glamor, raising millions of dollars, super success, and up and to the right. But it turns out that behind every overnight success, there’s a 10-year story of how they got there.
I’ve seen this myself. I’ve lived this myself. I’ve worked with a lot of companies and other founders and CEOs as they go through this process. Let me tell you about one of the things that really opened my eyes to the journey that an entrepreneur has to go through.
Several years ago, I was in the Techstars Accelerator here in Boulder, Colorado, and this is a fantastic program. really well put together, very competitive, like it’s a really big deal to be in Techstars. My company, Kapta, was accepted into Techstars, and we’re going through the program.
One night I got home and I’m sitting at the kitchen table and my wife comes over to me and she says, “You know, Alex, you’re supposed to be at the pinnacle of your entrepreneurial career. You’re in Techstars. You’ve got all these people supporting you. You’re doing all this exciting stuff, but I have never seen you more miserable in my entire life. What’s going on?”
And once I let go of the defensiveness that I was naturally feeling about that comment, I realized that she was right, and she was right because I was miserable. And what I was doing was spending all of my time comparing myself to other people, taking everything way too seriously, living in my head instead of in my heart, and doing all these things that were just counterproductive to me and to my journey.
I felt like an imposter. I felt like I didn’t belong, even though I was doing this program.
This reflection from my wife kicked off an entire journey for me, which was a year-long journey of exploration and discovery. I literally did everything to try to figure out what was going on and how to reorient my life.
As an entrepreneur, I have been through this journey, and I know that it’s easy to sit there and say, “Ah, things are hard right now. They’re never going to change.” And the message that I want to provide is that with the right tools, with the right resources, and most importantly, with the commitment to change, you can get through this and overcome the obstacles. You can remove the friction in your life.
It turns out that this is a real area of inspiration and joy for me, and I was able to really change a lot of the way that I was thinking and feeling through doing this.
About The Conscious Entrepreneur Summit
The Conscious Entrepreneur Summit is shaping up to be one of the top Founder/CEO events of the year. This is the only in-person event that is 100% dedicated to the well-being of entrepreneurs. Speakers include world-class executive coaches, best-selling authors, CEOs who are building world-changing companies. Details at https://consciousentrepreneur.us/ and make sure to use code SPRINGTIME for $150 off your ticket.
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