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It’s time to shine a light on the emotional and mental challenges of life in the startup ecosystem. Join Dr. Melissa Parks, executive coach for entrepreneurs and former therapist, as she interviews founders, investors, and other professionals supporting the startup world. Learn from their personal experiences, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way, about how to navigate the emotional rollercoaster of life as a founder. To get in touch with Melissa visit her website melissaparks.com
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“You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.” I was reminded of this quote towards the end of last year and made the incredibly difficult decision to end this podcast. Last year was a challenging year for me with lots of collisions between my personal life and entrepreneur life happening behind the scenes. This podcast was an important source of inspiration for me during that time and I honestly don’t know how I would have gotten through the year without it. However, I’ve realized I nee...
In this week’s episode I’m delighted to introduce you to Kelly Redmon Loo, a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) specializing in Autism. We dive into how Kelly developed her passion for working with autistic clients, as well as her journey towards being diagnosed as AuDHD (autism and ADHD). We’ll talk about masking and unmasking, how autism, particularly in women, often goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed due to its unique manifestations. Kelly also shares insights on why neurodi...
In this episode I’m delighted to introduce to you an inspiring founder who is working to revolutionize the freelance industry and improve the working conditions and ultimately help prevent burnout amongst freelancers around the globe. Karl Swanepoel is the CEO & Founder of Revolancer Beta, a platform that aims to help independent professionals and freelancers exchange their skills to build their service businesses. Karl's entrepreneurial journey began at a young age when he encountered th...
In this episode I’m excited to introduce you to Aaron Chatterly, an exited serial founder who, having sold his beauty retailer to Sephora in 2021, is living the dream so many founders aspire to when they start their companies. However, in this episode we’re going to be talking not only about the highs, but also some of the lows he’s experienced along the way and what’s helped him stay optimistic and resilient through it all. Aaron co-Founded beauty retailer feelunique in 2005. feeluniq...
Founders Taboo is a UK-based startup working to increase awareness, access, and affordability of support for startup founder mental health and well-being. They aim to solve the problem of founder well-being at scale in order to disrupt the entire startup ecosystem’s view on this topic. They’re building the world’s largest online community and resource hub offering psychoeducation, online support, and connections to providers specialized in offering treatment and crisis support specifically fo...
In this episode, I’m introducing you to an inspiring femtech founder, Olivia Ochowski. In a previous chapter, Olivia worked as personal trainer, women's health coach, and doula. Today, as the founder and CEO of Femtek, Olivia introduces the first Basal Body Ring designed for women's menstrual health; all while they sleep. I absolutely loved Olivia’s story because it’s not the typical startup founder story, and it’s certainly not the typical story of a tech founder. Olivia’s entrepreneur story...
Your host, Melissa Parks, shares her reflections on the first 24 episodes of the Founders' Fears & Failures podcast. She shares some common themes guests have spoken about, lessons she’s learned as the host of this podcast, and a sneak peak at some of the guests to look forward to in future episodes. The Founders' Fears & Failures podcast will be taking a short break in August 2023, but will be back on September 5, 2023 with more weekly episodes. If you’re an ambitious entrepreneur wh...
This week on the show I’m introducing you to Mike Buonaiuto, exited founder and author of the recently released book, Founder Therapy. Mike is a philanthropic business leader and performance coach, who founded, scaled and exited Shape History, the award-winning social impact agency. He's currently a senior advisor; helping companies nurture their people, navigate growth and negotiate pivotal moments of transformation. His book Founder Therapy was published June 2023 and explores why founder...
Nearly 40% of entrepreneurs have one or more diagnosable mental health condition, 3% of entrepreneurs had made suicide attempts and 1.7% had a history of psychiatric hospitalization. It’s essential that we continue to destigmatize entrepreneur mental health vulnerabilities so that entrepreneurs feel less alone and that treatment options continue to grow. This week on the show I’m honored to share with you my conversation with a leading researcher on the topic of entrepreneur mental health. ...
Successfully navigating cofounder conflict is an important, yet often overlooked, topic which directly impacts the success and sustainability of startups. When conflicts arise between cofounders, it can disrupt the entire organization's functioning and hinder progress. Startups are already operating in high-pressure environments, with limited resources and tight timelines. In such circumstances, the presence of unresolved conflicts among cofounders can exacerbate stress levels, create a toxic...
What role does creativity have in your life as a founder? Do you make sure you find ways to protect and prioritize it? In this week’s episode I’m introducing you to Tova Safra, a solopreneur turned tech startup co-founder. In this episode we dive into the importance of creativity in her life, why she thinks entrepreneurs should embrace shiny object syndrome, and the importance of having a social infrastructure when you’re working alone. Tova is Cofounder & Chief Design Officer (CDO) a...
This week’s guest is a trailblazer in the field of entrepreneur mental health. She started working to shift the conversation on this important topic nearly a decade ago, when no one else was talking about, and despite receiving some pushback around it which she shares about in the interview. Kristin Darga, is the CEO and founder of Black Label Coaching and Impact Founder. She’s a keynote speaker, award-winning author, and health, performance, global incident response, crisis, executive and r...
Entrepreneur life is full of uncertainty and things that are outside of our control. Being a successful founder requires to you to find ways to thrive amidst this inevitable chaos. In this week’s episode, I’m introducing you to some of the tools that I’ve found incredibly helpful for my clients, and myself, in learning how to cope with this uncertainty - mindfulness and self-compassion. Some people are turned off when they hear about mindfulness or self-compassion, which is understandable, ...
This week on the show we’re mixing things up and instead of interviewing someone else I’ll be speaking on one of my favorite topics to talk about - imposter syndrome. It’s one I’m very familiar with after helping many clients to overcome it, and having dealt with it myself which I share more about in this episode. Imposter syndrome is a deep feeling of self-doubt, very often in spite of having an impressive resume. When you’re dealing with imposter syndrome, it doesn’t matter how much you...
Too often we think about therapy as something to seek out as a last resort, when we’re in crisis and have exhausted all our other options. Even if you suspect that it might help you to pursue therapy proactively, too many of us view it as something optional. Especially when you’re a founder who is acutely aware of how you’re spending your time and money. My guest this week is here to talk about why he believes therapy is essential for founders, why it’s so helpful to seek out a therapist ...
In this week’s episode I’m introducing you to Andrew Douglas, a firefighter turned mental health app co-founder. This episode is an intense one and I want to warn you that there is mention of suicide as well as a traumatic event that contributed to Andrew’s PTSD while working as a firefighter. However, all this serves to highlight the importance of his company’s mission and I hope you’ll feel as inspired as I did about the work he’s doing to share with the world the mental health app that he ...
In this week’s episode, I’m introducing you to Neha Gunnoo, a former tech startup co-founder who stepped away from her startup after realizing how much it was harming her mental health. Neha is now the founder & senior content strategist of Luova Digital Ltd specializing in digital content strategy and marketing with clients and partners globally including the US, Europe and Mauritius. Neha was previously the co-founder and CMO of LeFinTech Ltd – a startup in Mauritius specializing in cha...
In this week’s interview I’m introducing you to Melani Gordon, a founder who realized at the height of her company’s success that she was experiencing burnout. Melani is a highly respected serial entrepreneur and business coach, with a decade-long track record of mentoring and coaching over 200 startup founders via Techstars and Founders First Capital. Melani offers a range of services to ambitious founders, leaders and their teams, including CEO coaching, co-founder alignment, team off-sites...
The rates of mental illness amongst founders are incredibly high. Research out of UC Berkeley found that 72% of entrepreneurs are affected by mental illness. This same study found that entrepreneurs are: 2x more likely to suffer from depression6x more likely to suffer from ADHD3x more likely to suffer from substance abuse10x more likely to suffer from bipolar disorderMany of these entrepreneurs are likely suffering in silence, or feeling like they’re the only one. It’s essential that we have ...
What if you realize that the day-to-day of bringing the vision of your startup to life requires you to ignore parts of yourself that are incredibly important? What if you’re still passionate about the mission behind your company, but realize that life as a startup founder/operator is not the way you want to bring it to life? Today I’m introducing you to a former co-founder who struggled with these same questions. Kat Brendel, was the co-founder of Cowomen, a coworking space and community ...
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