Can you share an experience of a Founder burning out?
I once had a team who were all super stressed out. One day, the co-founder said, “Forget it, I’m done, I’m leaving” and left the co-founder and staff freaking out. He just left because he could not take it anymore.
I had to step in almost like the temporary co-founder. In retrospect, I came in pretty late to the scenario and was just about to give them funding. However, I have since learnt that if I could have come in earlier in the process results would have been different and that has made me changed my methods – I spend a lot of time advising and mentoring before I give funding now because looking at the documents for due diligence can only give a small picture of what is really going on, so when mentoring I have a clear picture of the team along with their products, and how to build a strong collaboration so that the stress of getting investment does not crowd them out.
How did this affect your founders, and how did you help them?
I had one company who had a great product and the challenge was marketing. They were based in China and decided to take an international approach to marketing, so they were talking to the US and Europe time zones and due to that, they were working around the clock.
They stopped sleeping, and as a result, they executed their plans haphazardly. They could barely remember the script or how to present the material. They could not think on their feet during discussions. The overall presentation was just bad.
I had to stop them and make them sleep! And to work within reasonable hours. Fortunately, they listened; they went from 100+hour work weeks to about 45 hours a week. And simply by sleeping properly again and refocusing their energies on a plan that was reasonable and achievable, they went from USD1500 a week in sales to landing 4 million a month
Samuel Doe
二十六度纬度創始人及首席执行官
在中国居住7年
Samuel Doe
Founder & CEO, 26 Latitude
7 years in China