Sustainable pace over hustle culture
Critiques of grind-worship and copying extreme-hours founders; optimizing to stay in the game, boundaries, and building a life you can sustain.
34%
Best tweets about Burnout and Mental Health for Founders
50 Best Tweets About Founder Burnout (2026)
Read 50 of the best tweets about founder burnout and mental health, with honest lessons on startup stress, resilience, and sustainable work.
The honest posts about the cost of building something, not just the highlight reel.
- Creators
- 42
- Updated
Original Xholic analysis
What 50 top Burnout and Mental Health for Founders posts reveal
Across 50 posts from 42 creators, founders describe burnout less as a badge and more as a cost hidden behind curated success. The two highest-scoring posts are Marc Lou's first-person account of stepping back after five years of barely taking a day off, and Hubert Thieblot's list of early-founder stresses, including smiling to family while wondering at 2 AM if it will work. Supportive stances lead at 38%, and sustainable pace over hustle is the largest theme at 34%. Disagreement centers on what causes burnout: hours, wrong focus, underperformers, or broken systems.
- Dominant tone
- Negative
- Median score
- 5.60
- Leading format
- Opinion
- Recent posts
- 22%
32% of posts
All-time engagement
42% of posts
Published in 90 days
Conversation map
The themes creators return to
Always-on stress and nervous system overload
No off switch, cortisol and adrenaline addiction, chaos as fuel, decision fatigue, and the slow erosion of clarity and health.
26%
Structural and strategic causes of burnout
Burnout traced to wrong focus, underperformers, broken leadership systems, growth pressure, AI disruption, lost ownership, or lack of autonomy.
26%
Hidden struggle behind the highlight reel
Founders pretending things are fine, faking calm, and the gap between curated success content and the painful, unglamorous reality.
24%
Recovery rituals and stepping away
Breaks, training, sleep, dopamine detoxes, environment changes, trips, faith, and family moments used to recover from or prevent burnout.
24%
Isolation and having no one to tell
Loneliness at the top, inability to vent to cofounders, family, or friends, and the value of therapy, support networks, and feeling less alone.
18%
Emotional rollercoaster and long trough
Years of rejection, highs and lows within hours, runway anxiety, slow progress, and advice to persist through the trough of sorrow.
14%
Exits, success, and emptiness
Earnout pressure, post-sale depression, identity loss, the business becoming a job, and hitting the number yet feeling nothing.
10%
Tone and stance
SentimentNegative leads
Author postureSupportive leads
Performance benchmark
- Median likes
- 26
- Median reposts
- 1
- Median replies
- 8
- Median views
- 1.9K
Posts with media make up 34% of this collection. Their median all-time score is 16.8, compared with 4.57 for text-only posts.
Format mix
- Opinion42% ยท score 3.71
- Story22% ยท score 11.0
- List12% ยท score 12.3
- Other12% ยท score 14.1
Consensus and debate
Where creators agree, and where they do not
Shared view
The highlight reel hides real pain
Many posts argue founders perform calm while struggling privately. Startup Archive quotes Marc Andreessen on pretending you're having a great time 'when you're dying inside.' Brock Mammoser calls most CEO day-in-the-life content BS. Hubert Thieblot describes saying 'things are going well' while wondering at 2 AM if it will work.
Shared view
Always-on mode depletes founders
Posters describe having no off switch. Noah Ryan contrasts a construction worker who can go fully offline with an agency founder who never does. Rob Hoffman describes founders fuelled by adrenaline and stress hormones. Matthew Bertulli lists 'Always On' and decision fatigue among things he hates about being CEO. oliverb recalls being 'Cortisolmaxxed 24/7.'
Shared view
Recovery is part of performance
Several founders frame rest as a practical tool, not indulgence. Marc Lou returns to training, reading, eating well and eight hours of sleep. Kevin Qi says recovery is part of the performance. Austin Walker changes his environment on Saturdays. Danny Buck says spending big on recovery is as important as the work itself.
Shared view
Isolation leaves no safe place to vent
Founders say there is no one they can tell the real version to. Ayush Barnwal says a cofounder gets scared and family just gets worried. Tibo notes most founders hide stress even from their cofounders. Dilip Kumar urges founders to find a therapist or outside listener and stop performing.
Open debate
Is burnout about hours or something else?
Posters disagree on the root cause. Aryan says most founder burnout comes from working on the wrong thing too long, not overwork. oliverb blames covering for underperformers. Jesse Tinsley calls it usually a leadership problem rooted in a broken operating system. Austin Walker, by contrast, links his burnout to working every waking hour.
Open debate
Is the grind unavoidable or optional?
Tibo says the grind is real and building requires it, while still refusing to treat suffering as the default. Gabriel Jarrosson and Florian Darroman warn against copying extreme-hours founders. Will Henry ends his description of adrenaline-fueled work with 'But we keep building.'
Open debate
Is an exit a relief or a trap?
Tibo says three things about his $8m exit, including the earnout, broke him, and he would never sell again. Andrew Gazdecki presents Anna Schramm's sale as a way to get her life back. A sourcery post quotes the Founders Podcast on founders who sold and are deeply depressed.
What performs
Patterns behind standout posts
Two personal-struggle posts lead the outliers
Marc Lou's burnout post scored 346.51, or 61.88x the median. Hubert Thieblot's list of early-founder stresses scored 328.68, or 58.69x. Both far exceed the median all-time score of 5.6.
Media posts outscore text-only
Posts with media make up 34% of the set. Their median all-time score is 16.792, compared with 4.568 for text-only posts.
Lists and stories outscore opinions
Opinion is the most common format (42%) but has a median score of 3.709. Lists (12.27) and stories (10.978) have higher medians.
The long trough theme has the top median
The emotional rollercoaster and long trough theme covers only 14% of posts (7 tweets) but has a median score of 43.664. Sustainable pace over hustle is the most common theme (34%) yet has a median of 3.709.
Exit-related emptiness has a low median
Despite Tibo's exit post scoring 94.95, the exits, success and emptiness theme has a median score of only 2.337 across its 5 posts.
Statistical standouts
- View standout post 1Score 346.5 ยท 61.88ร median
- View standout post 2Score 328.7 ยท 58.69ร median
- View standout post 3Score 116.5 ยท 20.81ร median
- View standout post 4Score 95.0 ยท 16.95ร median
- View standout post 5Score 80.8 ยท 14.43ร median
Creator landscape
Who shapes this conversation
The five most represented creators account for 20% of the selected posts.
1. Alexa | Startup founder
@alexabelonix
2 posts
2. Brock Mammoser
@brock_mammoser
2 posts
3. Gabriel Jarrosson
@GJarrosson
2 posts
4. Henkjan
@henkjan
2 posts
5. oliverb
@oliverbrocato
2 posts
6. Startup Archive
@StartupArchive_
2 posts
Tibo leads with candid exit and sanity posts
Tibo has the highest median score among top voices, at 53.21 across two posts. One covers the cost of an earnout exit, and the other is about staying sane by watching his kid.
Curated quote clips score well
Startup Archive has a median score of 47.03 across two posts. They package Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk quotes on prolonged founder pain and the Trough of Sorrow.
Posts are spread across many creators
The 50 posts come from 42 creators, and the top five account for 20% of placements. Alexa | Startup founder (median 39.22) writes about recovery routines and sport. oliverb (median 42.11) writes about staying calm and cutting underperformers.
Since the previous snapshot
What changed since Aug 24, 2026
- 60% of the selected posts remained.
- The creator count changed by -1.
- The leading sentiment remained stable.
How this analysis was made
Themes, sentiment, stance, and post format are classified per tweet. All counts, shares, medians, creator concentration, freshness, and performance comparisons are then calculated directly from the published snapshot.
Xholic's all-time score compares engagement while accounting for reach, post age, and creator consistency. It is used for relative comparisons within this collection.
This report analyzes the exact 50-post snapshot shown below. AI identifies editorial categories and drafts explanations; all statistics are calculated from the snapshot, and every narrative claim is checked against cited posts before publication.
Best Burnout and Mental Health for Founders tweets
Top Burnout and Mental Health for Founders tweets from 42 creators
Ranked 01โ50
- 01
@marclou ยท
I overworked myself. For the past 5 years, I barely took a day off. I shipped 30 startups, wrote 30,000 tweets, made 70 YouTube videos, and answered thousands of support requests. The weird part is, it never felt like work. It felt like play. Until recently. For the first time in years, Iโve struggled to get things done. I donโt want to open my laptop. The things that used to make me happy suddenly feel heavy. That scares me a bit, because the playful side of work is what got me here. And right now, it feels like I lost it. So Iโm taking a break. Iโll still do about an hour of maintenance work a day, but the rest of my time will go to real life. Iโm training for Hyrox in Korea on May 25, so Iโll put my energy there for now and train 20 hours a week. I went through a little burnout once before, in 2021. What helped me was going back to basics: training, reading, eating well, and sleeping 8 hours. It brought the hunger back then. I trust it will again!
- 514Replies
- 47Reposts
- 3.5KLikes
- 284.4KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 02
@hthieblot ยท
The early founder years are one of the most stressful phases of life. Most are really not talking about it. - Some friends are climbing the corporate ladder and taking crazy vacations. - Someone just bought their first home - Someone already feels โsettledโ And youโre still trying to turn an idea into a company. At the same time: - Your bank account keeps shrinking - Investors keep saying โtoo earlyโ - users never seem to care and retain on your product - People around you donโt fully get what youโre building - your mom ask when you will get a real job - Nights are full of overthinking - The runway clock keeps ticking - Time feels like itโs moving too fast yet progress is slow And the hardest part? - You smile to your friends and family - You say โthings are going well.โ - At 2 AM you wonder if this will ever work. But remember: - Youโre not behind, you are on a different path - Youโre doing something incredibly hard If youโre in this phase, be impatient for actions, patient with results and donโt give up. Building something from zero takes time. Anyone else feeling this lately? โ
- 165Replies
- 88Reposts
- 1.4KLikes
- 54KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 03
@NoahRyanCo ยท
Entrepreneurs burn out faster than employees because they don't have somebody telling them when to be off vs on. A construction worker putting in 60 hour weeks who drinks beer all weekend has less burnout risk than a 27 year old running an agency because the construction worker knows that he can be totally offline when he gets home. Being "always on" gives you zero time for your stamina bar to fully recover. The work is menial enough that you don't notice you're totally depleting yourself until your nervous system shuts down. You effectively have two options here: - Learn how to shut your brain off (easier said than done) - Change your approach to work The best approach is a mix of the two. You can chad ram your way through work with stimulants for maybe 5 years before it really catches up to you. Effective in the beginning but unsustainable. You need to learn to approach your work in a parasympathetic state. Most of us spend 90% of our time in the sympathetic state when we're really only meant to rely on that fight or flight maybe 10% of the time. You think you're getting "in the zone" but you're really just cortisol-maxxing and burning through all of your body's most important resources. Save the chad ramming for when it really counts. Your day to day goal should be "how relaxed can I be while doing what needs to get done?" Don't waste your life's potential getting burnt out before 30.
- 27Replies
- 45Reposts
- 912Likes
- 239.8KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 04
@tibo_maker ยท
if you're selling your startup - don't I sold my startups for $8m & I'll never sell again quick context: I sold Tweet Hunter and Taplio for $8m in 2024. $2m upfront, the rest as an earnout based on performance - on paper, a dream exit in reality, 3 things broke me first, I gave up my baby. the products I spent years building, the vision I had in my head all of it went to someone else. and now I sit here watching the new owners ship things I'd never ship, kill features I loved, and just make the product shitty looking at Tweet Hunter like this hurts more than I expected it to ๐ -- second, the earnout was kind of a 2-year prison we wanted a high multiple, so we agreed to performance-based milestones that meant 2 years of waking up every single day knowing the only thing that mattered was hitting aggressive revenue targets I was technically still running the company but I had a boss now: the contract ๐ฅฒ hitting milestones used to feel like winning but with an earnout it flips. every win is just dodging a loss and missing one doesn't feel like falling short - it feels like being a loser -- third, the money itself breaks you - nobody warns you about it you have no idea what to do with that kind of money you don't get the time to adjust to it and you start taking bad decisions. you stop identifying as the same person you were before and you go a little crazy, faster than you think and then comes the worst part after all this, when I got back to building, I realized everyone around me already saw me as the "successful guy who exited" and that froze me for months I couldn't ship anything new because I was scared of breaking the perception I've talked to a lot of founders who sold their companies. every single one of them feels this but I got back to it anyway - building is what I love and today I'm building a SaaS portfolio that crossed $1m MRR this year so if you're sitting on a term sheet right now, do me a favor don't read what the buyer is offering read what you'd be giving up and then make a decision
- 145Replies
- 16Reposts
- 678Likes
- 110.2KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 05
@oliverbrocato ยท
I agree with Clavicular 100% on this. Old me got agitated by everything. Slow processes. Employee 5 mins late. Amex rep putting me on hold. Cortisolmaxxed 24/7. The result: Constant reactivity. Zero clarity. Terrible decisions. Then my business coach told me something that changed everything: "Don't react. Respond. Accept what you can't control. Let go of what doesn't matter." Since then? 100x more clarity. Better decisions. Way less burnout. Calmness >>>
- 13Replies
- 19Reposts
- 340Likes
- 19.7KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 06
@Zeneca ยท
I've gone through a pretty insane dopamine detox over the last few months, and want to share some thoughts from the whole experience The reason I wanted to do it was that my brain was utterly fried from the constant nonstop dopamine influx from social media, video games, junk food, netflix, email, and of course, the infinite online casino that is almost all of the crypto industry these days It all felt incredibly unhealthy and unsustainable and while I didn't feel "unhappy", I did feel overwhelmed and like my brain was going to eventually explode if I kept going the way I was going I'm not sure if it's just the way my brain works and if lots of people are able to adapt and run with this new world order we're finding ourselves in, or if this is some existential angst that is shared by most of the people reading this But it really feels like things steamroll in one direction when it comes to dopamine and unless you're intentionally taking meaningful steps to protect yourself from the attacks, it's just gonna keep chipping away at your brain until you're forced to find some kind of reprieve Personally, I stopped video games, deleted instagram and youtube from my phone, almost entirely stopped coming on X. I stopped watching TV, stopped scrolling feeds, stopped trading crypto, stopped sportsbetting or gambling. The plan was to do it for 48-72hrs and then come back to reality, but that initial period was so blissful, I couldn't bring myself to come back. Instead I stayed away. I checked in every now and then and kept up with some extremely basic work committments, and would occasionally watch a movie or something with the wife, but my screentime has basically been down 90%+ for the last 3 months While a (big) part of me wishes I could stay like that forever, I also felt like I was missing something - the "productivity" lever of life. I had little projects I worked on, I played golf, I traveled, it was a utopian period really - anyone should be so lucky (and I am aware how lucky I am to have been able to take this time) But it ultimately still left me feeling like I needed to come back to reality, to "work", to be a productive member of the world again - some way, some how I'm not sure exactly what form that takes for me these days - I've tried so many things over the last couple of years, infinite pivots, and haven't quite found my lasting "thing" yet - if that's even a thing i'm gonna find. I've repeated some version of this cycle multiple times too - burnout, work hard, burnout, new idea, go hard, burnout, back to the memecoin trenches, burnout, launch new company, burnout, go all in on AI, burnout, burnout, burnout I'm actually now sure what the point of this post is, now that I have gotten here. Maybe to tell everyone to take 2-3 days away from all the dopamine and rest your brains, see what it's like to live a life without technology for a bit And that it is not "the answer". There is no "the answer" to any of this, we're all just rolling through life one day after another trying to figure it out, and no matter how utopian or good a certain lifestyle might seem, once you live it for a while, you'll usually find yourself wanting something else/different Peace comes from within or something? Go figure, the monks had it right all along, and we all kinda know this deep down too - sometimes even explicitly - but sometimes we also need to be reminded of it again, and again, and again
- 74Replies
- 9Reposts
- 293Likes
- 23.2KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 07
@StartupArchive_ ยท
Marc Andreessen explains why startups are an โirrational actโ โThe biggest thing people donโt understand about what itโs like to be a startup founder is it gets very romanticized. Even whey they fail, it still gets romanticized about what a great adventure it was. But the reality of it is most of what happens is people telling you no, and then they usually follow that with โyouโre stupid.โ No, I will not come to work for you. No, Iโm not going to buy your product.โ Marc explains why: โWhen youโre a founder, you cannot let on that this is happening because it will cause people to think that youโre weak and theyโll lose faith in you. So you have to pretend youโre having a great time when youโre dying inside. Just misery.โ Why do it then? โFor most of these people - on a risk-adjusted basis - itโs probably an irrational act. They could probably be more financially successful on average if they just got like a real job in a big company. But some people just have an irrational need to do something new and build something for themselves and some people just canโt tolerate having bosses.โ Video source: @lexfridman (2023)
Watch video- 10Replies
- 21Reposts
- 206Likes
- 11.9KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 08
@alexabelonix ยท
Build in public Last week of recovering from burnout > dive deeper in my goals and started to build a strategy to achieve them > realised that I was soo distractive because I want to have everything at once > success requires focus > currently I cut EVERY damn noise. only me, only my thoughts, preparing for the future executions > my biggest dream is to make a post in the BUILD IN PUBLIC community like โfolks, I did it, my MRR is โฆโ โโโโโโ 3h of psychotherapy 1h of CrossFit 1h of yoga Sauna Cold shower Meditation โโโโโโ protein, creatine, iron, magnesium
- 63Replies
- 3Reposts
- 185Likes
- 3.5KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 09
@StartupArchive_ ยท
Elon Muskโs warning to startup founders: "it can be very painful for several yearsโ Elon Musk is famous for saying, โTrying to build a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.โ In the clip below, he elaborates on this further: โWhat tends to happen is that itโs quite exciting for the first several months. Then reality sets in: things donโt go as planned; customers arenโt signing up; the technology or product isnโt working as well as you thoughtโฆ It can be very painful for several years.โ He continues: โOccasionally there are companies where thereโs not an extended period of extreme pain, but Iโm not aware of many.โ He advises people starting companies: โExpect quite a long period of high difficulty. But if you can stay super focused on creating the absolute best product or service that really delights your end customer you have a better chance of succeedingโฆ If your customers love you, your odds of success are dramatically higher.โ Paul Graham and the other Y Combinator partners captured this well in a diagram they drew at YC dinner called the โTrough of Sorrowโ. It captures a viscerally truthful thing about the life of a new companyโfirst youโre excited, then youโre not, and if you stick with it, you just might make it work. It could take years. But you may fail too, you never know until you do it. With respect to dealing with this uncertainty, I like a16z partner Andrew Chenโs advice in his โTrough of Sorrowโ blog post: โItโs ultimately the entrepreneurโs personal decision to quit, because thereโs always some alternative scenario, as unpleasant as it might be. You can always dilute yourself more, raise more capital, or reduce the burn rate. It can add more time to the clock, which might be unpleasant, yet it might save the company. Is it always logical to do that? Maybe, and maybe not! But itโs worth considering that thereโs always another move, and an entrepreneur shouldnโt ever feel like theyโre somehow โforcedโ to quit. A lot of entrepreneurs quit when they hit the Trough of Sorrow, struggle for 12-24 months, and face up to the reality that theyโll have to raise another dilutive round. Is this a good time to quit? Maybe. But given that the majority of startups go through this kind of stage, Iโd actually argue that itโs just part of struggle to being successful. Sometimes it just takes 3 years to get through the Trough of Sorrow, but on the other side is something that might really be worth the pain. Maybe :)โ But what I love most about the Elon clip is that it emphasizes that this is something even the most successful entrepreneurs go through. You are not alone.
Watch video- 12Replies
- 111Reposts
- 535Likes
- 119KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 10
@OverdrawGames ยท
Iโm making a video game solo right now and I have to remind myself of the following: The number of wishlists I have is not tied to my self worth. The game is not for everyone, some will love it, others will hate it and thatโs okay. Itโs a marathon, not a sprint. Burnout is the biggest danger of not finishing. Community and fan enthusiasm are big motivating factors in keeping up with development. Itโs important to stay engaged What do you tell yourself to help you stay sane? #gamedev #indiedev
- 44Replies
- 12Reposts
- 237Likes
- 11.2KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post.
- 11
@alexabelonix ยท
running startups, creator-led businesses, SaaS, digital products, agenciesโฆ can make you drown in your own thoughts you start overthinking every decision. losing focus. getting irritated. working more but producing less. the problem is not always your workload. sometimes itโs unused aggression. ambitious people carry a lot of internal force. if you donโt give it a physical exit, it turns into anxiety, mental noise, and self-sabotage. sport helps you convert that energy into something useful: clearer thinking better emotional control more focus less stress stronger decisions sometimes the most productive thing you can do for your business is leave your laptop and go train.
- 42Replies
- 1Reposts
- 153Likes
- 3.7KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 12
@aryanlabde ยท
Most โburnoutโ in founders isnโt from overworking. Itโs from working on the wrong thing for too long. You see no results and feel like quitting.
- 36Replies
- 1Reposts
- 33Likes
- 612Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 13
@iam_daniiell ยท
๐๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฝ๐ ๐ป๐ฒ๐ ๐บ๐ผ๐ป๐๐ต. Q1 was honestly the least productive Iโve had in over 2 years. I moved. Burnout hit hard in the last couple months . Life was loud. And stillโฆ โ 8 figures in revenue โ Personal projects across analytics and engineering kept moving Not bad for a quarter that didnโt feel like my best. Iโm posting it because 2 years ago, I thought a โbad quarterโ meant everything was falling apart. It doesnโt. You can feel off, slow down, lose rhythm, and still build something real underneath it. Q2 starts today. ๐๐ฒ๐โ๐ ๐ด๐ผ. #Datafam
- 8Replies
- 3Reposts
- 72Likes
- 1.9KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 14
@bhalligan ยท
๐จNEW Long Strange Trip episode: David Senra, creator of @FoundersPodcast David has studied the minds of more generational company builders than anyone alive, from Jesus of Nazareth to Jensen Huang. I sat down with him to reverse engineer the psychological frameworks of history's greatest titans. 6 Lessons on the Unfiltered Reality of Iconic Founders. 1. Taste is real, and it starts with shutting up and actually listening. 2. On Negative Self-Talk: Many elite CEOs are fueled in their early days by a dark, chaotic mind and intense self-criticism. They categorically refuse to sleep on their wins, obsessing over everything that is currently broken. I was guilty of this at Hubspot. To survive a multi-decade career without self-destructing, that initial fuel source must eventually convert from negative anxiety into a love for the craft. 3. We need to stop trying to heavily manage or over-advise elite entrepreneurial talent. The greatest founders are irrepressible forces of nature who will relentlessly hunt down the specific knowledge and frameworks they need to win. They are not passively discovered by the market or by venture capitalists; VCs can't help them out of a bad year. They violently force the world to recognize their existence. 4. Small egos don't build big companies. Elite founders are driven by control, not money. Money is just a side effect. 5. Co-Founder Dynamics: Despite the modern dogma that you need a balanced co-founding team to succeed, historical precedent shows that a singular driving force almost always takes over. From Henry Ford operating as an autocrat to Steve Jobs refounding Apple alone, the equal partnership rarely stands the ultimate test of time. Even brilliant minds like Charlie Munger recognized they had to deliberately subjugate their own massive egos to support a singular talent like @WarrenBuffett . 6. Focus is the whole game: "Mute the world and build your own" as he says. True focus is your willingness to say no to incredibly good ideas because they distract from the truly great ones. 00:00 Introduction 01:11 Focus Above All 01:50 Dana White UFC Focus 04:19 Focus vs Obsession 05:05 Origins in Childhood 06:07 Coppola and His Father 08:48 Assholes and Archetypes 11:14 Autism and Originality 14:55 Immigrant Drive and Grit 16:38 Bet on the Founder 17:52 Solo vs Partners 23:20 Negative Self Talk Fuel 26:39 Platform Shifts and Founder Mode 28:07 Dell Versus IBM 30:02 Infinite Leverage Edge 31:38 Focus Versus Speed 34:20 Taste And Listening 40:52 Founder Traits And Balance 54:22 Closing Takeaways (link to episode in comments ๐)
Watch video- 12Replies
- 18Reposts
- 127Likes
- 84.3KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 15
@mbertulli ยท
10 things I hate about being a CEO: 1. The Echo Chamber Repeating myself is a daily ritual. It's like Groundhog Day. I've seriously considered recording my key points and playing them on loop. This is probably why I write. It lets me communicate things in one place that can be referenced later. 2. Always On Remember the last time you truly unplugged? I don't. Even when I'm off duty, my brain is like a hamster on a wheel, always running through business scenarios. Work-life balance is a term that's thrown around a lot, but in my experience it's as elusive as a unicorn. 3. Shit Rolls Uphill This might come as a surprise, but in any leadership role, shit rolls uphill. And guess who's sitting at the top of that hill? It's like being the goalie in a never-ending penalty shootout. 4. Pressure Cooker Lifestyle I donโt think about pressure like itโs just a setting on my Instant Pot because what it REALLY is, is in my constant companion. You might think CEOs are wired differently and immune to stress, but we just get better at hiding it. 5. Boardroom Blues Board meetings can be a mixed bag, ranging from insightful discussions to glorified babysitting sessions. Managing a board of directors is like being in Squid Game, except the rules change every time you get together. If you're lucky, you have a great board and they are useful. Worst case, they are self-serving and will create negative value. 6. Days of Mystery Ever get home from work and ask โwhat the f-ck did I do today?โ That's a question I often ask myself. Some days it's all about putting out fires. Other days it's strategic planning. But ask me to describe a typical day and I'd be stumped. 7. Loneliness at the Top They say it's lonely at the top. I don't know who "they" is, but holy sh-t they were right. Sure, I have a team, co-founders, a board, advisors. But at the end of the day, the buck stops with me. It's like being on an island where you're the mayor, the handyman, and the only resident. 8. Decision Fatigue This is the idea that the more decisions you make, the worse they become. My day is a series of decisions, from the mundane to the monumental. Sometimes by the end of the day I can't even decide what I want for dinner. If I'm being honest, I still haven't cracked this one. 9. The Constant Learning Curve The learning never stops. Just when I think I've got a handle on things, the business world throws me a curveball. Staying ahead means being a perpetual student, and it's exciting but also exhausting. This might be one of those parts of the job I love most too. Weird how that works. 10. The Weight of Responsibility Being a CEO means carrying the weight of the entire company on your shoulders. It's about people's livelihoods and their dreams, not just profits. This responsibility can keep you up at night, pondering the "what ifs." Whenever I think I might be an emotionless monster, I remind myself that I have many sleepless nights wondering if I'm letting my team down. I'm not complaining. I chose this. But you should know this before you take the leap.
- 12Replies
- 2Reposts
- 66Likes
- 4.2KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 16
@kmr_dilip ยท
Nothing matters more in entrepreneurship than being honest with your employees, investors, and family. When you screw up, take the responsibility and admit it. You will feel lonely and depressed at times but thatโs the cost of being an entrepreneur. The moment you start faking or selectively hiding reality, you create parallel worlds. And trust me, that life becomes suffocating. Most founders struggle because they want the upside of leadership without paying the emotional cost. I've been there and it's not worth. It will be extremely tiring and will disconnect you from the very people who could help. The fear of being judged is normal if you choose to be an entrepreneur. The real danger is in you pretending. Get help from a therapist or someone outside the business who will listen to you without any interruption. You need help but you also need a space where you stop performing and be just you. Honesty isnโt a virtue in entrepreneurship but a survival skill. The title of being an entrepreneur is precious.
- 12Replies
- 10Reposts
- 122Likes
- 7.2KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 17
@BigBrainBizness ยท
Jessica Wu, Co-Founder & CEO of Sola, on the emotional whiplash of being a founder and how to survive it: "Building a startup is really really unimaginably difficult." @jess123555 describes the founder's journey as a compressed cycle of extreme highs and lows that can unfold within hours of each other: "You're on a roller coaster and you're constantly experiencing very high highs and very low lows and then it's also compressed. Morning might be your best day ever and then 2 hours later you're suffering from probably the worst news you've ever heard." And this isn't a rare occurrence. It happens "pretty much every day," maybe every week. So how do founders survive this? According to Jessica, they eventually develop a mental anchor: "As a founder you really just learn that things sort of return to the norm. You have this comfort in your head that things will be okay even if they don't feel okay because they always end up being okay." But she adds two important conditions to this resilience: "Provided that you are building in the right market and also that you have the right people around you." The takeaway: the volatility of startup life never really goes away. What changes is your relationship to it. Founders who persist learn to trust that the lows are temporary, but that trust only holds if the fundamentals are right: a viable market and a strong support network.
Watch video- 6Replies
- 17Reposts
- 52Likes
- 5KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 18
@tibo_maker ยท
google searches for "burnout" are at an all-time high ๐ฑ we have collectively decided that's just what building looks like and we're still calling it the price of ambition the grind is real, I'm not here to tell you otherwise building a startup requires it, you can't escape it I have 5 products, a fully remote team across multiple countries and every day I have at least 3 fires to stop - some days it's 10 ๐คฏ and somewhere in the back of your head, you're also watching AI companies swallow up entire categories overnight, wondering if your product is next that's the deal you sign when you decide to build but nobody talks about the real cost - burn out, anxiety and other countless mental health issues and most founders hide their stress from the people around them - even from their own co-founders we've made suffering the default setting and we wear it like a badge I refuse to do so ๐คท๐ป today I watched my kid navigate an obstacle course in the trees - fully focused, figuring it out step by step, no help needed nothing better than seeing your kid achieving little big things ๐ that moment didn't fix anything on my to-do list, but it reminded me what i'm actually building for that's my way of staying sane ๐ you need to find yours
- 38Replies
- 0Reposts
- 72Likes
- 5.8KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 19
@henkjan ยท
"Founding has always been isolating; removing co-founders removes a built-in check on bad decisions, burnout, and blind spots that AI doesn't replace"
- 10Replies
- 0Reposts
- 24Likes
- 206Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 20
@austinxwalker ยท
as a founder, my default is to work every waking hour, 7 days/week. it catches up eventually. burnout, relationships slipping, running on 2 hours of sleep and calling it discipline. but taking full weekends off never worked for me either. too much guilt and momentum lost. i love getting shit done on weekends when the world is quiet. recently i've been trying something different. not simply "taking a day off", but changing my environment completely. on saturdays, I drive 2 hours outside san francisco. lunch on a ranch. look at cows. visit a local bakery or cafe. go to random farmers markets. nothing about it feels like my normal life. it feels like a small taste of what i'm actually building towards. and when iโm back, iโm more clear on what actually matters, and i end up working harder because of it.
- 22Replies
- 0Reposts
- 80Likes
- 5.1KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 21
@dannybuck ยท
I am so back in the game. Three weeks ago, I had my second bout of burnout in ten years. Funnily enough the last one was five years ago. What did I do? I turned off my work phone, took only my personal one and told the team Iโm going away. I booked a family trip, paid for everyone, hired a plane and a villa and reminded myself why I do it. Was it expensive, fk yeh, would I do it again? Fk yeah. Now Iโm sat in a beautiful, quiet hotel reading books and listening to podcasts on my personal phone by the pool. Now I feel recharged and ready to go again. Burnout is real, the world is changing fast and to run a successful brand you have to be on your game. Being on it, requires recovery so never feel bad for spending big on recovery, itโs as important as the work itself.
- 6Replies
- 3Reposts
- 45Likes
- 3.6KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 22
@thekevinqi ยท
Most founders brag about working 16 hours a day. But they're also sleep deprived, unhealthy and burned out. I train 6-7x a week while building a startup. Strength training teaches the same lesson startups do: recovery is part of the performance. What about you?
Watch video- 13Replies
- 1Reposts
- 17Likes
- 494Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 23
@brock_mammoser ยท
Yesterday was a rough one My nervous system was just completely on edge all day and I couldn't figure out why I went to bed early Woke up this morning feeling like a completely different person Then I checked my phone My mom had texted me a prayer she said for me that morning Specifically asked God to protect me from burnout, stress, and anxiety She sent that right as I was waking up feeling better than I have in weeks I'm not gonna lie, it got me a little emotional It's easy to feel like you're carrying everything alone as a founder This was a good reminder that you're not
- 10Replies
- 0Reposts
- 59Likes
- 2.7KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 24
@JesseTinsley ยท
A lot of companies talk about burnout like its totally normal. But it is usually a leadership problem. Unclear priorities Fake urgency Too many meetings No ownership Constant context switching Leadership changing direction every week and calling it being "agile". You can give people meditation apps and mental health days all you want. But if the operating system is broken people will keep burning out. You do not fix burnout with perks. You fix it by removing the nonsense.
- 12Replies
- 1Reposts
- 25Likes
- 1.5KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 25
@sourceryy ยท
.@FoundersPodcast on why the "start, scale, sell" script is making founders miserable:โฃ โฃ "I've talked to so many founders that started, scaled, sold and are unbelievably depressedโrealizing that was my best idea."โฃ โฃ "How many people can say they built something truly great?"
Watch video- 0Replies
- 2Reposts
- 21Likes
- 2KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 26
@Col_ASY ยท
nobody really tells you this part you can't fully vent about the business to anyone. cofounder hears it and gets scared, starts doubting the whole thing with you. family doesn't get the context, just gets worried. friends give generic advice bc they've never actually built anything so you just... don't say the real version out loud to anyone not "i'm stressed." the actual thing โ "i don't know if this works, i don't know if i'm wasting years, i saw the numbers today and they scared me" that stays in your head. every time and people wonder why founders seem either weirdly calm or randomly explosive. it's bc there's no safe place to just say the real thing at the volume it actually exists in your head
- 8Replies
- 1Reposts
- 13Likes
- 599Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 27
@ItsWillHenry ยท
There is a specific kind of burnout that only exists in startups. Especially nowadays where Claude can finish your company with one update. - You are working harder than you have ever worked in your life. - Every day is urgent. Every week is important. Every month is the month everything changes. - nothing feels like it's moving fast enough. Because these days nobody is just shipping a feature. They are changing the whole tech Nobody is just having a bad week. Nobody is tired. They are rebuilding the whole thing. The company runs on adrenaline and somewhere between the all nighters you realise you cannot remember the last time you did something that wasn't for the business. But we keep building.
- 6Replies
- 0Reposts
- 29Likes
- 1.9KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 28
@RobHoffman_ ยท
I know a Founder who works 1/10th as much as me but earns 10x as much he thinks about productivity different than most founders if you can relate to this statement from my friend @mike_rama7, you're probably among this tragic majority (like me): "you're addicted to chaos because your nervous system doesn't want peace. It wants what's familiar." this is how I, and most Founders I know, operate: we're fuelled by adrenaline and stress hormones this works great short term because we get a lot done in short bursts so we repeat the cycle and for a while we get results so we get addicted but eventually the stress accumulates and your body rebels you develop unexplainable health issues, exhaustion, anxiety... most importantly: your productivity suffers because you can't think clearly or be consistent the best founders and CEOs get leverage from making great decisions and focusing on the right things lately I've been trying to build habits that fuel clear thinking and consistency...not short bursts of chaotic output my theory: reduce stress to increase productivity let me know if you can relate!
- 6Replies
- 1Reposts
- 17Likes
- 1.6KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 29
@henkjan ยท
"I'd expect 2027 to bring more visible burnout stories and more "founder support" infrastructure (peer groups, coaching, fractional co-founder-as-advisor arrangements) as a response"
- 5Replies
- 0Reposts
- 13Likes
- 189Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 30
@kzitouni1 ยท
most people think startup stress comes from things not working. some of the worst stress comes from everything working at once and having to deal with the growth that brings.
- 6Replies
- 0Reposts
- 11Likes
- 243Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 31
@Njuchi_ ยท
We have a 1.5M community. We train thousands of students. Instagram feed that screams "living the dream". But here's what actually happens behind the scenes - 8 painful truths that don't make it to the feed: ๐ญ) ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ Day in, day out. For YEARS. Just me and my laptop. No glamorous co-working spaces. No "crushing it" moments. Just sitting there, grinding, when nobody was watching. ๐ฎ) ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น ๐ฐ๐ผ๐๐ The "no's" were brutal. Friends asking to hang out. Family events. Opportunities that looked shiny. We chose the work instead. ๐ฏ) ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น๐๐ต ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฒ-๐ผ๐ณ๐ณ๐ I skipped workouts. Skipped sleep. My body paid for it. I'm finally fixing that now, but it took years to realize I had to. It's still a daily battle to prioritize it. ๐ฐ) ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ธ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐ถ๐๐บ People smiled and nodded. "YouTube? Cute idea." Creating video tutorials that got 100 views instead of dedicating more hours to my high paying freelance job. Nobody believed it would work. Nobody would've traded places with us. Now that we're successful, everyone claps. But back then? We were the crazy ones chasing something impossible. ๐ฑ) ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฟ๐ถ๐๐ธ We quit our highly paid full-time jobs to bet on this entrepreneurship thing. No safety net. No guarantee. And that risk never really disappears. It just changes shape. โณ Launching a new program? What if nobody enrolls? โณ Hiring someone? What if they're the wrong fit and we wasted months? โณ Choosing a direction for the business? What if we're going completely the wrong way? โณ Expanding into a new market? What if it flops and we burned the money along the way? Every business decision is a bet. And you're betting with real money, real time, real people's livelihoods. ๐ฒ) ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐บ๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ๐ ๐๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐ Going from just the two of us to a team means we're responsible for their income, their families, their lives. That weight is heavy. And the fixed costs keep increasing The business expects a certain income just to run. Every single month. The pressure doesn't ease up. ๐ณ) ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ "๐ฎ๐น๐๐ฎ๐๐ ๐ผ๐ป" ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น๐ถ๐๐ 5PM shutdown? Doesn't exist. Weekends off? Nope. Vacation means having the working laptop with you, Discord notifications on. A student stuck on Kubernetes at 9PM? We're there. Not because a boss tells us to. Because real customers from around the world expect it. ๐ด) ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐น๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐๐ต๐ถ๐ฝ ๐๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป Nicole and I? We discuss. A lot. About direction. About hiring. About timing. "Should we pivot?" "Is this even working?" "Are we making the right call?" Every decision still feels massive, like it could make or break everything. Co-founding isn't pretty. But having a partner who's the ying to your yang? That's the best thing you could have. ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฟ๐๐๐ต: Yeah, it's easier now than when we built this next to full-time jobs. But we just traded old problems for new ones. Bigger team. Bigger decisions. Bigger stakes. We mess up. We don't have all the answers. We're figuring it out as we go. But honestly? I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm a full blood entrepreneur. This is what I'm built for. Everything gets built in silence. The unglamorous grind nobody sees. The work that gets zero likes. That's the real work. โณ You see the US trips. You don't see the 12-hour work days before and after. โณ You see the Instagram posts. You don't see the late nights fixing problems or the stress of managing a team across time zones. If you're in that silence right now - questioning if it's worth it, wondering if anyone will care, hearing "maybe you should quit" - you're exactly where you need to be. What are you building in silence right now? ๐
- 3Replies
- 0Reposts
- 35Likes
- 3KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 32
@spiderboyis ยท
Took a break from twitter. โBalancing a degree and a startup led to massive burnout. We talk a lot about consistency here, but forcing it when your brain is fried just leads to bad code. โTrue discipline is knowing when to log off and reset. Back to building.
- 2Replies
- 1Reposts
- 8Likes
- 93Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 33
@brock_mammoser ยท
I'm going to say something that might be unpopular Most "day in the life of a CEO" content is completely BS If I filmed my actual day today, it would be a time-lapse of me stuck to a chair staring at a screen for 9 hours There was no aesthetic morning routine or perfectly timed workout That's the reality of scaling a company fast And I think the reason so many founders burn out is because they're comparing their real life to someone else's highlight reel and wondering why they don't measure up You're not behind The other guy is just lying
- 4Replies
- 2Reposts
- 28Likes
- 1.8KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 34
@floriandarroman ยท
Make sure you get inspired by founders who are living the life you're dreaming about. Not just for the MRR. So many "successful founders" are living a mediocre life. Unhealthy habits, no social life, no hobbies, no sport. If you copy their habits, you'll probably end up in the same position. Only a few are able to get a healthy life/work balance. For me they are the only ones I want to listen to. It doesn't mean you should not work your ass off. I love my work and sometime I'm totally unbalanced. But the end goal should not be to grow your revenue as much as you can. Your daily life should become your dream life (work involved). And you should be able to keep that pace for more than a decade without burning out.
- 10Replies
- 0Reposts
- 15Likes
- 2KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 35
@pirwot ยท
๐๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฏ๐ถ๐ด ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐น๐ฒ ๐น๐ผ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐บ๐ถ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฏ๐ผ๐๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ. Founders always think if they slow down, everything falls apart. That was me. Never off. Each ping felt urgent. If I didn't answer, I'd lose ground. If I didn't hold the pieces, we'd collapse. I became the single point of failure. No one could move without me. That's not leadership, that's a trap. The real shift came when I got ruthless about boundaries. I hired a virtual executive assistant, not to pile on tasks, but to get my brain back. Five rules saved me: ๐ญ/ ๐ฃ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ฑ๐ผ๐๐ป ๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ต๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฑ. No exceptions. Sleep isn't optional. ๐ฎ/ ๐๐ป๐ฏ๐ผ๐ ๐ถ๐ ๐ผ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ป ๐๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ฎ ๐ฑ๐ฎ๐. Not 200 times. Your business won't collapse. ๐ฏ/ ๐ ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ป๐ถ๐ป๐ด๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฝ๐ต๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ-๐ณ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฒ. First 30 minutes. Decision fatigue starts early. ๐ฐ/ ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐ฎ ๐ด๐ฎ๐ฝ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐๐๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ป ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐น๐น๐. Fifteen minutes, minimum. Your energy isn't infinite. ๐ฑ/ ๐ฃ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ถ๐บ๐ฒ ๐ถ๐ ๐ป๐ผ๐ป-๐ป๐ฒ๐ด๐ผ๐๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ. Family comes before deals. Don't wear burnout as a badge. Build a business you can actually enjoy. What boundary changed your life?
- 2Replies
- 3Reposts
- 7Likes
- 90Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 36
@oliverbrocato ยท
You don't burn out from working long hours. You burn out from covering for underperformers you should've fired yesterday. This hits you in the face the second you try to scale. You have new directions. New standards. Higher stakes. But you're still dragging people who can't keep up. So what happens? You rewrite their work, sit in calls fixing basic mistakes, double-check everything before it ships... That's the real burnout. Scaling means raising the bar. Cut underperformers fast. Hire A players who make you look slow. And let them pull the whole team up. Being "understaffed" might feel unstable for a week. But keeping the wrong people? That's how you waste the time you don't have.
- 8Replies
- 1Reposts
- 27Likes
- 1.3KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 37
@Alexfeinberg ยท
Your game plan should not be optimized for the fastest path to success It should be optimized for avoiding burnout Because the person with the best plan doesn't win The person who doesn't give up wins And you can't win when you burn out I am constantly urging my clients to optimize for staying in the game long enough to lucky, rather than having a "foolproof" gameplan
- 2Replies
- 2Reposts
- 18Likes
- 1.3KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 38
@oliviaakory ยท
The @lennysan survey data is super interesting. โevery well-being measure in this survey improves as company size shrinks, and founders are the happiest group in tech. More autonomy and control is the most reliable buffer against burnout and pessimism we find.โ
- 0Replies
- 1Reposts
- 9Likes
- 929Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 39
@ericdjav ยท
There should be a word for this: You build a thing to escape your job. The thing works. The thing slowly becomes a job. Not burnout. Not success. The exact moment the dashboard you refreshed for joy becomes the dashboard you refresh from fear. What do we call that?
- 4Replies
- 0Reposts
- 12Likes
- 400Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 40
@GJarrosson ยท
Stop trying to be Corgi. Everyone points to them as the model to copy. Here's what they don't mention: the team works 7 days a week. Most founders think extreme hours are the price of a great outcome. But burnout kills more startups than slow growth ever will. Admire the results. Don't copy the method.
- 6Replies
- 1Reposts
- 12Likes
- 3KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 41
@OptiMindInsight ยท
There's a founder archetype I see constantly on X. Trains before 6am. Works until midnight. Proud of how little they sleep. Heading for a burnout I've watched professional athletes with the same identity. "I don't need recovery. I'm built different." They're always the ones who get injured. The founders version of this is burnout. Or the slow decline in decision quality they don't notice until a bad quarter.
- 6Replies
- 0Reposts
- 6Likes
- 486Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 42
@GJarrosson ยท
Everyone points to Corgi as the founder playbook to copy. The hustle, the grind, seven days a week without stopping. It looks impressive from the outside, like pure dedication. But most people can't sustain that pace without burning out completely. Working nonstop doesn't automatically mean working smart. Rest isn't laziness, it's what keeps decision-making sharp. Admire the results. Don't copy the burnout that got them there.
- 9Replies
- 1Reposts
- 16Likes
- 3.6KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 43
@agazdecki ยท
Anna Schramm recently got successfully acquired on @acquiredotcom. She built a brand with great reviews and customers that genuinely loved her products. From the outside the business looked like it was crushing it but running it was a different story. The bigger the company got, the more time it demanded. PPC, rankings, reviews, inventory, account monitoringโฆ Amazon never really lets you relax. She compared it to adopting a tiger - fun when itโs small and slightly terrifying later on. So she sold the business on @acquiredotcom. One thing that she did really well during the process was making the company easy for someone else to understand step into it. She had clear docs, organized operations, and put together a simple handoff. Buyers notice that stuff immediately because most founders keep the entire business stored in their head. A good reminder that sometimes selling a company isnโt about burnout or failure. Sometimes you just want your life back or youโre ready to build something new. That's a huge win too. Check out the full podcast interview here: https://t.co/7An0ERZ1lM
- 5Replies
- 3Reposts
- 18Likes
- 1.9KViews
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 44
@terencebuilds ยท
Vanity metrics: Followers, likes, impressions Sanity metrics: Hours slept, days without burnout, relationships maintained Build the business. But don't break the builder.
- 2Replies
- 0Reposts
- 6Likes
- 108Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 45
@sylviahchannel ยท
A lot of startup advice assumes you have unlimited capacity. Post more content. Reach out to more people. Network constantly. Attend every event. Launch faster. Do more of everything. But most solo or bootstrapped founders are building inside the reality of limited time, limited energy, family responsibilities, client work, health challenges, financial pressure, and no team to share the load ๐คฏ When those playbooks feel impossible to sustain, it does not mean you are falling behind. They were often written for founders with very different resources and circumstances. A business that depends on you working at full intensity every day is not a business that can support you for long. ๐ก Instead, ask yourself: โ What can I deliver consistently without burning out? โ What sales activities can I realistically repeat every week? โ What visibility habits fit my actual schedule? โ How can I simplify my offer or delivery without reducing customer value? Then build your offer, sales rhythm, delivery, and marketing around those answers. You are not here to build the busiest business. You are here to build one that keeps creating value, customers, and momentum without exhausting yourself to the ground. As always, keep going and growing. ๐ Follow @bMightie for more founder intelligence for solo founders and bootstrapped businesses on the journey from day zero to takeoff. #startupshowup #startupbusiness #startupgrowth #businessadvice #solopreneur
Watch video- 2Replies
- 4Reposts
- 7Likes
- 410Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 46
@htmleverything ยท
AI is making me finish more work, but feel less satisfied with it. I can ship faster than ever, clear tasks quickly, and keep momentum during the build. But the second a project is done, I feel weirdly disconnected from the result, like I was involved in it, but not fully responsible for it. That lack of ownership makes the win feel smaller. And when every task starts to feel like that, burnout gets a lot easier to slip into. AI can absolutely make us more productive. But if we let it remove too much of the struggle, problem solving, and decision making, it can also remove a lot of the satisfaction. Iโm starting to think the goal isnโt just moving faster. Itโs staying connected to the work while you do.
- 2Replies
- 0Reposts
- 10Likes
- 640Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 47
@thewayofkaizen ยท
I left God at 13. Found him again at 40. In between I made a lot of money and felt nothing. Grew up in a Christian household. Church every Sunday. Rules for everything. And by the time I was a teenager I looked around and thought none of this is real. These people are performing. So I walked out. Spent the next twenty-seven years building. Companies. Revenue. The whole rรฉsumรฉ. Got the Cisco salary. Got the startup that went viral. Got every external marker that's supposed to mean you've made it. And I was empty. Not broke. Not failing. Empty. The kind of empty where you hit the number you circled three years ago and feel absolutely nothing. Where your body shows up to the office but your soul checked out somewhere around year three and you've been running on caffeine and momentum ever since. At 40 something cracked open. Started studying Gnosticism. Sufism. Started sitting in silence instead of filling every minute with strategy. And for the first time since I was a kid I felt something move inside me that wasn't ambition. It was my actual self. Waking up. That's the part nobody in the founder world wants to talk about. You can optimize your funnel and fix your operations and read every leadership book ever written. None of it matters if the human being underneath the pitch deck left the building years ago. Every founder I work with now, I ask the same question. When did you stop feeling anything while you were doing this? The silence after that question tells me everything. Stories first. Then systems. Then the soul wakes up. That's the order. Skip to systems and you're installing a new engine in a car that's pointed at a wall. I didn't find God again in a church. I found him in the silence after I stopped running. And the company I'm building now comes from that place. If you've hit the number and felt nothing. If the dashboard is green but something inside you went dark a long time ago. That's not burnout. That's your soul telling you the story you've been living isn't yours. It never was.
- 0Replies
- 1Reposts
- 6Likes
- 577Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 48
@sylviahchannel ยท
The early days of a business is so much about disciplined, focused testing, as there are so many possible directions. Trying to sprint down all potential paths would burnout the team and deplete resources. So important for founders to pick their one main bet at a time๐โจ
- 0Replies
- 4Reposts
- 7Likes
- 928Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 49
@sarah_carusona ยท
Being a founder isn't as sexy as it looks. It's late night after late night. Barely having a life. Working holidays because that's the only day quiet enough to think. It's making the hard calls. Trying to do everything right and still feeling like you're failing someone. It's being in every decision, every conversation... then slowly learning to let go while scared shitless to do it. It's making mistakes. Owning them. Making more. Getting better, slowly. Am I talking about me? A little. But I see it in every founder we work with. They're all in. Their life and their livelihood are tied to the business, for better or worse. They care about their team. The business winning means their team wins. They care about their customer. One minute they're in a spreadsheet, the next they're talking brand guidelines like it's personal. Because it is. I'm a baby founder in this world (a little over a year in). But the founders we work with inspire me daily. They are my motivation. The founders we work with, and the team at BA? We're not building something to make a quick buck. We're building something we believe in. Because we give a damn. And that makes the work a whole lot more rewarding.
- 0Replies
- 0Reposts
- 7Likes
- 382Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post. - 50
@martinsoorjoo ยท
The dangerous phase of burnout is not collapse. It is competence. You are still delivering. Still making decisions. Still hitting the number. From the outside, you look solid. Inside, the signal is different: shorter fuse, worse sleep, less clarity, more drag. That is shadow #burnout. #Founder #Leadership
- 0Replies
- 0Reposts
- 0Likes
- 183Views
Rewrite this post in your own voice and angle.See the hook, structure, and reusable template behind this post.
Best Burnout and Mental Health for Founders tweets
Write posts like these, in your own voice
Xholic studies what works in your niche, drafts posts in your voice and schedules them for the hours your audience is online.
Start 7-day free trialTry the live demoTake a 2-minute tour of a sample account in the real app. No sign-up or login needed.
No card needed ยท Nothing to cancel
Browse all tweet collectionsLive demo: no sign-up or login needed ยท takes about 2 minutes
Keep exploring
From the blog
- X (Twitter) for Business: The Complete 2026 GuideSet up X for business, build an organic and paid strategy, use DMs responsibly, and track the metrics that connect X activity to revenue.
- Twitter Growth for SaaS Founders: A Practical PlaybookTwitter growth for SaaS founders explained with proven X strategies. Profile optimization, content cadence, replies, threads, metrics, and templates that work.
- X Analytics for Brands & Businesses: A Practical GuideHow brands and businesses use X/Twitter analytics to track reach, engagement, and ROI โ with the KPIs that actually matter.
More topics like this
- Best tweets about ProductivityA curated collection of the sharpest, most-shared X posts about productivityโsaved so you do not have to dig through the timeline yourself. Updated every two weeks.
- Best tweets about Remote WorkA curated collection of the sharpest, most-shared X posts about remote workโsaved so you do not have to dig through the timeline yourself. Updated every two weeks.
- Best tweets about Venture CapitalA curated collection of the sharpest, most-shared X posts about venture capitalโsaved so you do not have to dig through the timeline yourself. Updated every two weeks.
- Best tweets about FreelancingA curated collection of the sharpest, most-shared X posts about freelancingโsaved so you do not have to dig through the timeline yourself. Updated every two weeks.