How building a company nearly cost me the people I love most
In startup culture, we celebrate the hustle, the all-nighters, the resilience.
We glamorize the founder grind. We even write Medium posts about how it broke us and rebuilt us.
But here’s something we don’t say enough:
Startups don’t just break founders. They break families too.
When the first version of Quantl began to unravel, I thought I was the only one suffering.
I was drowning in stress, uncertainty, and self-doubt. Every investor rejection, every product bug, every false start took its toll.
But it wasn’t just me who was un-ravelling.
My daughter started asking why I was always working. My partner felt the growing distance both emotionally and physically.
I was present in the room, but not really there.
Start-up pain doesn’t always show up in failure metrics or churn rates.
Sometimes it shows up as silence at the dinner table. As irritability. As guilt. As burnout that no one sees.
As a founder, you’re expected to lead with strength.
To be the calm in the storm. To protect your team. To keep pushing.
So you put on the brave face.
Even when you are struggling inside.
I kept telling myself it was temporary. That all the long hours, the pressure, and the sacrifices were for my family.
But how do you explain that to a child who just wants your attention?
Or a partner who hasn’t felt truly heard in months?
Founders often talk about their own mental health.
But we rarely acknowledge that the people around us carry our emotional weight too.
Our families become silent co-founders.
They absorb our stress, our absence, our unpredictability.
They do it quietly because they believe in us, sometimes even more than we believe in ourselves.
But belief has limits.
And the emotional toll they carry is real.
It took time and painful honesty, but eventually, things began to shift.
We need to normalize emotional honesty in the startup world.
It is okay to say:
“I am not okay.”
“I am afraid this won’t work.”
“I miss my family.”
“I need help.”
You can be vulnerable and visionary at the same time.
You can protect your company and still protect your relationships.
If you’re a founder living through what feels like your hardest year, please know this:
You are not weak for feeling the pressure.
You are human.
And the people who love you deserve the same care you give your company.
If this resonates with you, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or here. You’re not alone in this.
Success means nothing if you lose yourself — or the ones who believed in you before the world did.
