Founder Burnout Recovery — The Hidden Cost of Startup Success

Jörn Menninger
Oct 23, 2025
47 min read

Updated: 16 hours ago

'Emotional Branding for Startups – The Invisible Growth Engine' on a dark blue tech-patterned background.

What Is This About?

Founder burnout is the hidden cost of startup success — a toll that accelerates precisely when things are going well. This episode examines the recovery journey, exploring how founders can recognize burnout signals, rebuild their energy, and return to leading without repeating the patterns that broke them.

Introduction

Founder burnout is the hidden cost of startup success that rarely makes it into pitch decks or press releases. This episode confronts the reality that many successful founders face serious physical and mental health consequences from the relentless pace of building a company. Drawing from real founder experiences, it covers the warning signs, recovery strategies, and structural changes that can help entrepreneurs sustain their performance without sacrificing their wellbeing.

Founder burnout follows predictable patterns that can be intercepted with structural changes rather than individual coping mechanisms. The most common trigger is not workload volume but the combination of high responsibility, low control, and insufficient recovery time. Effective prevention strategies include scheduled strategic breaks, decision-making delegation frameworks, and physical health protocols. The episode draws from clinical research and founder interviews to distinguish evidence-based approaches from wellness industry platitudes.

When Xaver Lehmann sold his AI startup e-bot7 for $60 million, the world saw a Forbes 30 Under 30 success.

When Xaver Lehmann sold his AI startup e-bot7 for $60 million, the world saw a Forbes 30 Under 30 success. Startuprad.io brings you independent coverage of the key developments shaping the startup and venture capital landscape across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

This founder interview is part of our ongoing coverage of Scaleup Founder Interviews from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

🚀 Management Summary

Most founders dream of a life-changing exit. Few are ready for what follows.

When Xaver Lehmann, co-founder of AI startup e-bot7, sold his company to a NASDAQ-listed buyer for $60 million, he appeared to embody the perfect startup outcome, youthful success, global recognition, Forbes 30 Under 30 status.

Behind the headlines came collapse: physical exhaustion, grief, and the slow unraveling of identity.

This feature explores how Xaver rebuilt his life, why burnout recovery has become a survival skill for modern founders, and how mental-health literacy is shaping the next generation of startup leadership.

📚 Table of Contents

The Myth of the Happy Exit
Inside the AI Startup That Changed Customer Support
Burnout Starts Long Before the Exit
When Success Becomes a Crisis of Meaning
Rebuilding Purpose and The Honest Founder Movement
Frameworks for Founders to Avoid Collapse
Market Lens: Why Founder Well-Being Is a Macro Shift
FAQ & AI Summary Capsules

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1⃣ The Myth of the Happy Exit

Most founders expect relief after selling; many experience emotional whiplash loss of identity, grief, and burnout.

Founders rarely prepare for the void that follows an acquisition. Xaver’s sale should have been the finish line. Instead, it exposed years of overextension.

He was negotiating legal clauses while his mother was dying a collision of personal tragedy and business climax.

“I couldn’t stop. I was too driven. Even when my body collapsed, I kept going.” Xaver Lehmann

The startup world celebrates exits as success trophies, but psychologically they are often breakpoints.

2⃣ Inside the AI Startup That Changed Customer Support

e-bot7 pioneered hybrid AI + human customer-service automation long before ChatGPT.

Founded in 2016, e-bot7 was born from frustration with bad customer service loops.

Lehmann and his co-founders built an NLP system capable of suggesting answers to agents with confidence thresholds a concept years ahead of mainstream LLMs.

By 2019, the startup had scaled to 130 employees across five countries and secured a $6.5 million Series A.

From the outside, they were unstoppable; inside, sleep deprivation and constant fundraising were eating away at the team’s mental bandwidth.

Pro Tip: Early founders should treat mental capacity as a limited startup resource budget it like cash flow.ents are correctly formatted and saves significant time at registration.

3⃣ Burnout Starts Long Before the Exit

Burnout is not caused by long hours alone it comes from working against your values for too long.

Lehmann’s exhaustion didn’t begin after the acquisition; it started when he stopped doing what he loved and became a manager instead of a creator.

The transition from startup builder to corporate operator drains many founders because their identity is tied to creation, not maintenance.

People Also Ask

Q: How can founders spot burnout early?

A: Watch for “holiday paradox”: you feel worse when resting than when working.

Q: Can a founder recover without stepping away?

A: Rarely. Recovery requires detachment from investor and team pressure cycles.

Stat Spotlight: 72 % of startup founders report mental-health struggles according to Startup Genome 2024.

4⃣ When Success Becomes a Crisis of Meaning

Burnout often transforms into an existential crisis the loss of “why”.

After his exit, Lehmann realized wealth did not equate to freedom. He had achieved everything his 20-year-old self desired but felt empty.

“I thought money solved everything. It doesn’t. Freedom does.” Xaver Lehmann

Market Lens: This shift reflects a broader founder evolution from valuation-driven to value-aligned entrepreneurship. Investors increasingly prioritize sustainable leadership as burnout erodes portfolio longevity.

5⃣ Rebuilding Purpose and The Honest Founder Movement

Founder burnout Recovery begins when founders turn pain into purpose and share their truth publicly.

Lehmann traveled to Africa, worked on social projects, and reconnected with authentic human values. Out of that reflection came The Honest Founder, his Substack newsletter helping entrepreneurs navigate burnout and redefine success.

His coaching frameworks now mix psychological awareness, AI productivity, and emotional resilience.

Authenticity has become his competitive advantage.

📌 Key Takeaways

Sharing struggles builds trust faster than success stories.
Founders don’t need a billion-dollar valuation to have impact.
Helping others can be the most powerful form of healing.

6⃣ Frameworks for Founders to Avoid Collapse

Prevent burnout by structuring energy the way you structure capital.

The 3-Layer Energy Framework

Creative Work: High-energy, strategic creation time.
Operational Work: Delegated tasks with clear boundaries.
Recovery Time: Non-negotiable pauses built into fundraising and launch cycles.

Pro Tip: Schedule mental off-sites like investor meetings and treat them as critical company events.

🌐 Market Lens

Why Founder Well-Being Is a Macro Shift

Mental-health competence is now a core leadership skill in the AI economy.

As automation accelerates and funding tightens, founder stress peaks. Investors in 2025 favor leaders who demonstrate emotional stability and ethical clarity. Burnout is no longer a personal issue it’s a business-continuity risk.

🧵 Further Reading

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What is this article about: Founder Burnout Recovery?

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About the Host

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Automated Transcript

1 If you're chasing the startup dream, here's the part no one 2 talks about the crash that can come after the big win. 3 Xava Lehmann built AI startup ebot7 into a 4 130 person rocket ship and sold a gymnastic 5 listed live person. But behind the headlights, he was falling 6 apart, grieving, burning out and questioning everything. In 7 today's episode, we unpack what really happens after the exit, 8 how Xava found meaning again, and what every 9 founder needs to hear before scaling the next company. 10 Welcome to startup Rad IO, 11 your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German 12 startup scene with news, interviews and 13 live events. 14 Today's guest is a rare voice in the startup world, someone who 15 has won big and burned out even bigger. Xavier 16 Lehmann is the co founder and former CEO of Ebol7. By the way,

17 we have an interview with the co founder that we link here. One 18 of Europe's fastest growing AI startups, he scaled the company to 19 130 employees, partnered with major enterprises 20 and exited to live person, a NASDAQ listed leader 21 in conversational AI. The company's hybrid AI plus 22 human agent model pushed the frontier of NLP 23 driven automation. Xava was recognized by Forbes 24 30 under 30 Europe and backed by top tier investors. 25 But the story didn't end there. After the acquisition, he was 26 forced to lay off much of his team. At the same 27 time, he lost his mother to cancer. The mental and emotional 28 toll nearly broke him and made him question everything about startup 29 success. Today he's rebuilding not a company, but 30 movement through the honest founder, his fast growing 31 substack and his work coaching founders.

32 He's turning pain into perspective and lessons into 33 leverage. This is a conversation about what happens when the hype 34 ends and real life begins. It's raw, it's real and 35 urgently needed in today's startup economy. Xava, welcome to 36 Startup Radio. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. 37 That is really an interesting story and 38 I totally think a lot of people will get a lot out of 39 that. So let's rewind the tape. What was the 40 original spark that led to the founding of 41 ebot7? What did you and your co founders believe about the 42 world of customer communication that others didn't? 43 Yeah, good question. I mean, back then, in the days as I was 44 a child, I wanted to be an investment banker actually. And 45 so I did an internship in investment banking when I was like 21,

46 22. And I quickly realized that, you 47 know, it was kind of exciting, it was dynamic. I loved 48 capital markets because everything is unpredictable, everything is new 49 every day. But Somehow, like, getting to the 50 office every day, seeing my bosses, you know, how they 51 work, how they live, it kind of, you know, 52 kind of made me question if I want to pursue that dream. You know, 53 investment banking is something completely different. It's all about numbers. You go 54 to the office every day. It is dynamic, but also it's kind 55 of, you know, the same every day. And so what I did after 56 the internship, I actually studied again because I didn't know exactly what 57 to do. So I studied finance and Maastricht in the Netherlands. And there 58 I met my, you know, oldest friend, actually, who I've known for like

59 15, 16 years. And he coincidentally also 60 studied Maastricht. And on the way to Kings Day, we had a 61 conversation about what we want to do, you know, at some point because he 62 had done internships at Red Bull and Adobe, and I had done some 63 internships in M and A and investment banking. And then we thought, to 64 be honest, like, I can't imagine in life working for someone. 65 I mean, also my parents have been entrepreneurs their whole life, 66 and somehow I couldn't really imagine working for someone else above 67 me. And he had the same feeling. And then on the way to Kings Day, 68 which is kind of the big celebration once a year in the Netherland where they 69 celebrate the king, we kind of coincidentally, or like 70 we just went, we scrolled through his Facebook feed and saw

71 a Facebook developer conference. Really random because we couldn't 72 code or something. We just coincidentally saw this. And 73 what they actually said in that conference was actually that you could, 74 you know, now is the time to actually integrate bots into Facebook 75 Messenger. So people could, or actually companies could integrate 76 into Facebook messenger and then reach their clients through. Through Facebook or 77 WhatsApp. And we found it a really good idea because, you 78 know, everyone knows about the bad, you know, customer service 79 situations where you stuck in a hotline or wait days for reply for an email. 80 And we thought. Did you say yes? No, no, no. 81 Yeah. I mean, honestly, like, like everyone had, had. Has 82 had like an experience with bad customer service, right? And we just thought, 83 like, if customers can actually reach their clients exactly where

84 they are, I mean, all of the people are spending time on what. 85 On all these social media channels, but companies are not present where they actually, 86 you know, spend most of their time. So that was kind of where we thought, 87 okay, that might be a good idea actually, to kind of 88 go to companies, you know, tell them, hey, we have this new 89 technology where you can actually instantly reach your clients through the 90 channels they are already using. Instead of opening A new channel or hotline or email. 91 And that was kind of the initial spark. And to be honest, like, 92 customer service is just really bad. I 93 think if you want to change something in departments and companies, it 94 would have been customer service. Really manual processes, really 95 recurring questions. Always the same waiting days for

96 apply for an email getting redirected into the wrong person. I hated 97 it. And if we can make something better in that kind 98 of field, we are definitely in for that. And so what we did 99 is actually we drafted several emails, was like 10 emails, and we 100 shoot shot them out to different companies like Domino's Pizza in 101 like bigger companies and smaller companies. And we pretended to have 102 the technology already and we just said like, hey, we 103 have this technology. You can create bots. You can link them 104 and connect them to Facebook messenger and WhatsApp, and you can reach your clients. 105 And then all of a sudden from these 10 emails, three or four came back 106 and said like, hey, that's super interesting. And that was kind of the 107 initial spark that led us to founding the company. Honestly, two days

108 later. Two days. Well, that's not 109 a lot for strategic planning. I have to admit. 110 At the time, conversational AI was still emerging. What 111 did, like the everyday look back 112 then for a powered customer support, it 113 was admittedly the time before LLMs and ChatGPT 114 was what was broken and how did you fix it? Yeah, I 115 mean it was back in 2016, so there was no OpenAI, no 116 ChatGPT, no LLMs in this form. So the technology 117 was really basic, to be honest. And the thing was customer 118 support, I always thought like, you know, they have some automation 119 tools already. They must have, like, if you look at O2 120 Germany, for example, there's like millions of requests of support 121 questions coming in every kind of month. So I thought, of course there 122 must have something. But then once we went into like a

123 customer support center and looked at how they work, it was 124 crazy. They, you know, they manually type the answers they 125 have. You know, sometimes they do copy paste, but then they have to go into 126 different systems. Then for different questions, they need to go to 127 different systems and then they needed to copy paste that answer. And in order 128 to make it work for the client, it was a disaster. So once we 129 kind of got a feeling of how the current customer support 130 works, we knew exactly, that's a big pain point. 131 So we can definitely make something work. And so 132 the only problem was that AI or the 133 things that we wanted to build bots were pretty much at the beginning. So 134 the technology was really early, really not working 135 well. It Couldn't understand detailed or

136 complex requests. The only thing that it could do, or at least our 137 system could do, is actually FAQs. So there was one question from, 138 from a client and we could deliver the answer. And what we 139 built because of that, because it could only like not understand 140 any context in a conversation. It could just do like FAQs. 141 We kind of build a hybrid solution which means that the 142 technology is not, you know, automating the whole time, 143 but it's only automating if a specific threshold is actually met. 144 So you can set it up yourself. Every company could set it up yourself. You 145 could say, for example, the system needs to be 95% sure 146 that this is going to be the right, that answer. And only then it automates. 147 But if not, then what the system does, it provides a

148 suggestion to the agents so the agent can actually say, hey, that's the 149 right answer, that's the wrong answer, that this needs to be edited. And 150 then the system learns over time through the agent's 151 input, which is, which was back in the days a really, you 152 know, good system. Because if you work with Deutsche Bahn or BMW 153 or something, the big brands, they didn't want any wrong answer 154 sending out to clients, right? And so with our 155 system, they could go live instantly. And through the 156 input of the support agents, the system kind of trained itself automatically, 157 which was kind of quite new at the time. And I think that was also 158 one of the reasons we were. Reasons we were successful. 159 Interesting. What 160 was your, like, one day moment, the 161 turning point where you knew this

162 startup was going to scale really fast? I 163 think there wasn't a specific one moment 164 where I knew exactly now it's going to be, you know, scaling. It was 165 more like, I mean, we were just working day and night. We kind of tried 166 to make it work. And, you know, I think 167 if you are stuck in a moment, if you're working day and night, you don't 168 look left or right. You don't even know what's happening. You don't even know like, 169 that it's actually going in the right direction, you know, 170 back. If you look at it from like two years 171 after that and you look back, then you think, okay, crazy what I 172 kind of achieved. But if you're in the moment, if you're working day 173 and night for months, for years, you don't even realize if there was a

174 specific moment or something. But if you want to pin me down on like a 175 specific moment, it would definitely be, I think, like the Series A. Like once 176 we kind of got the Series A We got 6.5 million in US 177 dollar funding. That was the moment where I thought, okay, now we're going to 178 have and we can spend a lot of money and hire a lot of people. 179 You know, that was the time where I could relax a little bit and, you 180 know, kind of go on holiday also for the first time. So I think 181 that was kind of the moment where I thought, okay, this is going to be 182 scaling fast now because we can hire a lot of people, we can get a 183 lot of clients. So probably in 184 2019 then three years after we founded the company. I was

185 actually, when I was looking at this question, I was going 186 for a picture when you standing there in front 187 of an Excel sheet, seeing all the data and 188 realizing, I need a new scale because it's going so well. 189 Yeah, I mean, honestly, like over the whole 190 years, over the five years, it, it went pretty well. So we had 191 really good growth rates in the beginning, 200% and then it went back to 192 150 and 100% because the, you know, the threshold is 193 higher. But I mean, it was also, 194 you know, planned in the business plan. So like if investors expect 195 something and we expect something from our, like, even 196 if you get a new client and get like 500k in AR, you 197 kind of expected it to happen. Right. And this is also kind of the,

198 the bad thing about it because you need to celebrate more and you need to, 199 you know, once you get a new client, you know, you need to really like 200 do a big party. And I don't know, but we didn't do that. We just 201 expected it to come and we just, once the contract came 202 in, we just, you know, woke up the next day and worked again 203 like nothing happened before. So 204 it's. Yeah, that's the thing. I think in hindsight I would 205 have done it a little bit, you know, different, like 206 celebrate the small wins even more and do a little party 207 or like, you know, do something with the team. But we're just like focused on 208 making this work and making it successful. So any new deal 209 wasn't, you know, moving the needle for us in the

210 sense of now it's actually getting super successful. 211 Let us talk a little bit about the struggle behind the growth 212 scaling from 130 employees across five countries. 213 There's really no joke. What were your toughest operational 214 or leadership challenges as the team grew? Like 215 30, then 60, then 100. Yeah, 216 it's a good question because of course it changes over the time. Right. 217 So I think once you hit like 20 or 30 employees, it's still 218 super cool. It's really startup vibey. You have. 219 Have a couple of people that help you in some directions in some ways, 220 but it's more about creation, right? So you're really like, 221 you know, you build something new, you break something, and you just try it 222 all over again. Once you hit, like, I would say 50, 223 60 people, it changes a little bit because that's the time

224 when you need to delegate, right? You need, you know, to hire people. 225 You know, in my case, I was actually hiring a CFO 226 that takes over the. Or took over the whole financial and accounting 227 processes. And so that's where it changes a 228 little bit. It was still fun, but it was completely different because you 229 delegated a lot and it wasn't more. 230 Much more creative anymore. But once you hit 100 231 people, like 110, 120, the whole game 232 changes completely because you're kind of, you're maintaining, you're 233 managing. You have all these people kind of below you. 234 You're just doing recurring meetings. You have these, you know, 235 like, kind of weekly calls. That's where it kind of. 236 It was still fun, but it was completely different than when I 237 created the company in the first place. So it was kind of a

238 development, not in the, in the 239 best way for me because I thought like, you know, I'm not the perfect 240 manager. I'm a startup founder. I want to be creative. I want to, you know, 241 break things. And once you hit 100 people, you can't 242 break things anymore at that level. And you can't be so creative anymore because you 243 put everything in the hands of your people. But what you get is the 244 worst problems on earth. Like if your team 245 can't handle a specific problem, then it lands at your desk. 246 And it's most likely the worst problems, like the biggest 247 customer threatens to leave, or the best employees 248 threatens to leave, or like big salary 249 negotiations or like, you know, you just 250 handle and solve big pain points, big problems, 251 which you need to like. I didn't like it as much as

252 like building the company from the ground up, to be honest. 253 I actually know how you feel. It's when you get from a founder to 254 manager, right? Exactly. Yeah. That's 255 a big transition, to be honest. And I haven't. Hadn't 256 planned really with that transition because I've never done it before. 257 But it's a completely different life, completely different, you know, 258 kind of working environment. And you also need different kind of people. 259 Right in the beginning you need like, people that are trying things out, being 260 creative and stuff like that, and break things and at some point you need kind 261 of managers, you need people that have, you know, done it before, have done 262 it perhaps like for the last 10 years, 15 years already. You need experience, you 263 need skills. It's not only about so much

264 mindset or attitude anymore. It's more about skills and experience. And that 265 changes a lot. I think personal opinion, before we get into the next 266 question, I do believe entrepreneur is part of your 267 personality. That's what you enjoy. But if you turn into 268 a manager, then personal feeling, it's 269 best if you have seen this. If you worked in a corporate environment, if 270 you've done some jobs there, then the transition can go 271 smooth. You've raised venture 272 capital, signed enterprise customers, and scale tech 273 across borders. What was the first big 274 pivot you had to make and what did it 275 teach you about your assumptions in product market 276 fit? So when we founded a company, we 277 didn't know exactly if we wanted to actually build a product around it. So 278 what we set up the company for was actually an agency kind of

279 system. So we just wanted to be the middleman in 280 between companies that wanted to connect and 281 build bots or integrate bots and developers who could actually build 282 bots. So we just wanted to pay, you know, get a commission and, you know, 283 to connect them, and then we're out of the game. But then at some point 284 we thought like, okay, we actually need to kind of create our own 285 product, because AI is much more difficult to scale 286 and much more difficult to build. It's not like a setup system where 287 you can, like a website. You build a website for three weeks, it's finished, you 288 hand it over to a client and then it's done. With AI, with chatbots, it 289 was more like a continuous process which you needed to optimize. 290 You know, every time something broke, every time some, some wrong

291 answer got out and stuff like that. So the agency problem or 292 the agency company kind of concept didn't really work. So what we did, 293 because we didn't have a developer yet, we didn't have a CTO yet, we 294 kind of transformed it into a consulting company where we did 295 monthly workshops in different cities across Europe 296 just to get insights on how customer support actually works. So they 297 paid for their tickets to spend a day with us talking about AI. 298 And for us, it was really valuable because we could get their feedback in 299 order to build a product that's actually worthwhile. So in the 300 meantime, we hired a CTO who was then also one of our co 301 founders, and we kind of built a product. So from that point in 302 time, it was Clear. We wanted to build something in customer support,

303 but we also had some shift sometimes. You know, at some point, we wanted 304 to build something in E commerce because we thought it's a better, you know, 305 kind of vertical. We didn't want to spend too much time in customer support 306 centers. But, like, at the end of the day, we knew 307 customer support is the biggest pain point, so we actually went for customer support at 308 the end. But it taught me that, you know, when you start a 309 company, it's not only about the first idea that's going to 310 be successful. You will change it a lot of times, and probably you have 311 to change it over time because you get more knowledge, you get more, you know, 312 people that actually test your product, and you will kind 313 of change it in different directions more than you think

314 and more than you want to. But it's a good process. It's. It's good actually 315 for the company. I think if you turn around a little bit and, like, adjust 316 it on different ends. So for me, it taught me, like, 317 you know, it's actually good to pivot. I think you should 318 pivot if you feel like it's. It's worthwhile and gives you 319 a better direction. And we've done it a couple of times and was really successful. 320 Successful at the end. 321 I was. I was wondering, when you 322 scale that rapidly, if you promise that to investors, 323 you get some. You get some pressure to scale 324 rapidly. The faster, the better. How did 325 this affect you personally as founder and human being? 326 Was there something like a moment where you felt the 327 warning signs of a burnout creeping in? I

328 mean, so the thing is, the first three years we've 329 worked day and night, to be honest, like, every day, every weekend, 330 every birthday, you know, every kind of family event. 331 So we didn't have one time off. But then at some point, after three years, 332 you know, my body was pretty, pretty bad. So, like, 333 my kind of. My parents forced me to go on holiday, 334 and that was the first sign where I thought, okay, 335 because on holiday I didn't recover. And that is always 336 a bad sign. Once you go on holiday and you feel like it's actually 337 getting worse than better, that was kind of the first sign that I needed to 338 change something. So once I came back, I felt a little bit better. But 339 I thought. I talked to my co founders and said, hey, I can't do that

340 anymore. Let's, you know, try to, 341 you know, break, like, do the weekends off. I can't do it on Saturday, on 342 Sunday, every week. You know, let's also put in some holidays. For 343 the next couple of months. And that was the first kind of 344 change that I did in the company. And 345 then we kept on working. We did some holidays, we did some take, you 346 know, some time off on the weekends and was much better. 347 And then it kind of hit me when we were 348 actually doing our CSB. So we wanted to raise capital 349 around US$30 million. And we had done a fundraising 350 process for a couple of months already. And at the end, we found an investor 351 who wanted to invest 30 million from the US but then at the same 352 time, an offer from Life Person, the company that had

353 bought us at the end, came in. And so we had to decide 354 what to do now, right? And, you know, at the end of the day, we 355 had a gut feeling that kind of selling the company was actually a much 356 better decision than staying and getting that funding in. 357 And so for a couple of months, we were super 358 uncertain what to do. And at the end of the day, we kind of 359 declined the investor. And the investor was gone then, of course, because the 360 investor didn't want to wait for weeks and months until we decide. 361 So this investor, who we found after a couple of months was gone. 362 And so we put everything at stake to make that M and A 363 happen, to actually sell the company. But of course, we needed money. 364 That's why we wanted to fundraise in the first place. So it took longer.

365 And the problem was that we needed extra funding in order to make that M 366 and A process happen, right? So it was a really uncertain kind 367 of time because we also needed to come to our old investor and 368 say, hey, we want to sell the company. But our investors said, like, why do 369 we actually want to sell the company? So we had kind of an internal conflict. 370 Our investors wanted to keep moving. We wanted to sell a company. And so 371 our investors didn't want to really, like, you know, support us, help us in, like, 372 selling the company. And so it was a little bit of a struggle, but at 373 the end of the day, they, you know, pushed in some money so we could 374 actually do the M A. But 375 honestly, every day we felt like the

376 acquirer, the potential requirer, he could always, you 377 know, go, you know, retract from. From kind of 378 buying us and like, you know, we would have been bankrupt within 379 a couple of if, if. If they had done it. So having 380 this uncertainty for months, and then in parallel, my mother 381 got sick and got worse and worse by the week, and I had to kind 382 of, you know, kind of take care of her too. And all of this 383 happened in kind of the same months. And weeks in the same 384 time. And then my mother died. And like, you know, there 385 was some time where kind of the life person actually 386 wanted to get out of the deal and then they went in again. So it 387 was, was always a back and forth and we almost lost the whole company

388 having to fire 130 employees at the end of the 389 day. We were lucky and, and it happened. We actually reached the point where 390 we went to the notary, but I was completely burned out. Like I was 391 completely done after, you know, six, seven, eight 392 months of, you know, fundraising and a process taking care of my mother. 393 And so after that, after we sold the company, I was just 394 completely, you know, destroyed. I couldn't like sleep 395 anymore, I couldn't work anymore, I couldn't read 396 any books anymore. I was completely destroyed. And 397 it took ages until I got better. So that was kind of the 398 burnout, you know, situation. It took me a couple of months to actually feel 399 better and be able to work in and to work again. 400 What no one saw was that during the four year of our

401 acquisition, I was also watching my mother die. That's 402 not a headline, but that's a real story. You actually wrote very 403 powerful about losing your mother during the exit and hitting burnout post 404 acquisition for board members. You'll take us behind the scenes. 405 What you hid publicly and how did that 406 disconnect shape your recovery? 407 I actually know the feeling. It's kind of like all 408 your energy get drained out when you see somebody getting worse and worse and worse. 409 Right? Yeah, exactly. It was horrible. To be 410 honest, it was the worst time in my life because it was almost like 411 losing like not only my mother, but also the company that 412 I've been building up for five years. It was also kind of my baby that 413 I sold. Like it was just horrible, the whole process

414 and also having this uncertainty around my mother, but also around the company 415 that it might not happen. And at some point, you know, it felt like it 416 didn't happen and like they we kind of needed to kind of 417 decline the deal at some point. But then they came back after a week, but 418 we didn't know that. So it was an, you know, honestly it 419 was back and forth, but we were pretty open like with how we 420 were feeling. I was super open with my co founders, how I'm feeling, how, 421 you know, the thing is I couldn't really take a time off when my 422 mother died. So I jumped straight into lawyers calls and 423 stuff like that. So it wasn't like I could, could some could do some 424 time off or like I could Recover a little bit. It was in the midst

425 of. And the M and A process. I couldn't just, like, leave for two or 426 three weeks. It was crazy. And I'm pretty 427 open about it because I think that's part of who, you know, 428 who. Who I am and, like, part of the entrepreneurial journey. Right. 429 It's not only about the highs and the best things that happen and the good 430 things and, you know, it's also about the bad things that can happen. And, 431 like, for me, it's also kind of a relief to talk 432 about it. The more you talk about it, the more you write it down. 433 That's why I also started the newsletter. The more, 434 you know, kind of I can also hear from it. So 435 I'm. That's why I'm pretty open with it. I'm super happy to talk about 436 it, and I've been that, you know,

437 so open from the beginning on, and I think it's a good thing. 438 Next question would actually be to ask you how you felt 439 after the exit. But I think we already talked about it. 440 You've once said that the burnout didn't start after the exit. 441 It started long before. What were signs you 442 ignored? What can you give others, other founders, 443 as a warning system? And what should founders watch for 444 before it's already too late? Yeah, it's a very good question. 445 And I've been thinking about this a lot, and my 446 essence, or my kind of resume is actually that it's not about 447 the hard and long hours that you work it. That's. 448 That's not the reason why I got burnout. Burnout you get 449 once you do something for a long period of time, which you actually

450 don't like to do. Right. Which is completely against your will, against 451 your values, against everything you actually stand for. 452 So for me, that was the M and A process. So that's where it actually 453 started. I had some burnout symptoms before, too, but 454 I always could actually recover by making holidays, by, you 455 know, you know, kind of doing sport and meeting friends and stuff like that. 456 I was never, you know, kind of, you know, in that 457 kind of feeling that, oh, I might get burnout now and I need to really 458 stop. It was actually only when, you know, 459 the whole fundraising process turned into an M and 460 A process. My mother on, you know, in parallel. That's 461 where, you know, the burnout signs actually started. And, 462 you know, this. The signs are like, you know,

463 for me, it was like doing something of a month. Like, 464 anyone who has done a fundraising round knows what I'm 465 talking about. It's not nice. Like you're talking to a hundred 466 investors, you always asked or you know, 467 reply to the same questions. It's always about negative things. Why you. 468 And look at this competition. And you know, then it's about term sheets and 469 contracts and it's always about negative things. And also during the M and A 470 process, it's always about, you know, how can the buyer protect itself from, 471 like if something happens, how can we protect ourselves? And something bad 472 happens. You know, it's always about, you know, protection, about 473 bad things that could happen, about worst case scenarios. So that's, 474 and if you do that over like nine months or so and 475 you don't, you're not creative, you're not working on your startup, you're just

476 purely in these processes, talking to lawyers the whole time, talking to investors 477 the whole time, you get, you know, really drained from these 478 conversations and from these processes. So at some point, you 479 know, I just thought, like, I'm, I'm just a machine. Like I'm, I'm, 480 I don't live anymore. I just, I'm just running these 481 processes. On, on the other hand, I had to take care with my mother. 482 It was horrible. Like it's, you know, and, and the 483 signs are like, you feel like a machine. You don't recover anymore. You, 484 you're super drained. You wake up and you have this like 485 clouds in front of your eyes and you can, you, you can't 486 breathe. And I had heart problems during that time. I had, 487 you know, like headaches all the time, but really strong 488

headaches, which I've never had before. And I had them for months, like 489 every day for months. So that was pretty, pretty bad. And 490 so that was the time where I thought, okay, this is definitely going 491 in the wrong direction. But I couldn't stop. I couldn't just leave the process and 492 leave everyone behind. I was too much driven. I 493 wanted to actually then, you know, make it successful and sell the company at some 494 point. So I couldn't stop, even though I 495 needed to. But 496 going a little bit down the road, you once stepped 497 away from the second company that he founded. 498 What was your first real step toward 499 healing and clarity and what began to 500 change? Yeah, so after the first company, after I 501 sold it, we were in that company for another two years because of

502 Arnold and because, you know, they of course wanted to stay. Even though we were 503 pretty bad in terms of energy levels, we kind 504 of kept on being in the company. And after two years we felt actually a 505 lot better. And we thought, what about now? You know, what can we do now. 506 And we thought like, perhaps we feel better 507 by, you know, founding the next company just because 508 we wanted to go somewhere. Like, you know, perhaps that's kind of a way 509 to heal ourselves. And we kind of were a lot better already 510 after two years. So we founded the next company which was called 511 Vidlab 7. And the thing was, we did exactly the same. 512 We hired people, we built up the product, we got investors 513 on board like eqt, so really strong company

514 again. And we did everything from scratch again, kind of similar 515 playbook than we had in the first company. But then, you 516 know, during that time my body just really kind of 517 told me to stop. Like I had headaches again, I had burnout symptoms 518 again. I was really in a horrible place at some point. And after 519 round about a year, I just needed to leave. I gave everything 520 back and I just needed to drop out and do something 521 completely different because my brain, my, my, my body, 522 my, my mind was just telling me to stop and not do this any 523 day further. So it was a tough decision. I talked to my co 524 founder, I talked to my investors and, and it was really hard to actually make 525 that decision. But at some point, you know, I just couldn't do it anymore. And

526 it was the best decision that I've ever taken, to be honest. And 527 then I went to Africa. I spent a couple of months in 528 Africa doing social work. So I'm. I support 529 an organization called Amos where we support animals 530 in the field and we build fences and so to protect them from 531 poaching. And then there's other social projects in Cape Town that I support. 532 So we visited some kindergartens and disability homes which I 533 support now. So that kind of, you know, 534 was an eye opener for me because I've, you know, I 535 was just all of a sudden with people that have nothing, but they were 536 super happy. And I always thought like, you know, being 537 successful, having money, being wealthy is like the way to go 538 and be, you know, to be happy. But then I thought, saw all these

539 people that had literally nothing. They were living in a shed, like in, 540 you know, like, like, you know, a tree house or something. Like it 541 was crazy. And they were super happy, super friendly, super open. 542 And so that's where kind of my mindset shifted. So I came back from 543 Africa and then I thought, okay, what could I actually do to 544 help also people, right? Like not only do something for myself, but also 545 do something to contribute to the society, to help Hope, 546 you know, someone actually built something because I have done it 547 over 10 years. I know how to build A company. I know how to get 548 investors. And that's where kind of I thought, okay, how about I write a book? 549 That was kind of my initial idea, but writing a book takes you like one

550 and a half or two years, and you need to really be motivated to sit 551 down every day and write a book. You know, 300, 400 552 pages, even more. And I thought, like, how about, you know, just 553 sharing quick and small stories every week? Because through that I can 554 reach more people earlier, but also I can get feedback on 555 the stories really early, and then at the end, I can actually write 556 a book about it. Right. And so that's how I started Substack and from 557 Substack, which is a newsletter where I reach a lot of founders and 558 CEOs, kind of coaching evolved. So 559 people would ask me, like, hey, you've done it already a couple of times. You've 560 scaled companies. You sold your company for 60 million. Could you actually help 561 me in the M and A process? Could you help me in fundraising? Could you

562 help me in go to market? So that's when I started to actually consult companies 563 and then consult founders and actually, you know, making these 564 transitions or these challenges happen. And from 565 that, I thought it's nice to help people one on 566 one. But how about I create products that can actually help a thousand or 567 million people straight away? So now what I'm doing is actually building 568 products like frameworks and digital courses, like a 569 fundraising course to actually help people at scale. And that's what 570 I'm currently doing. And I'm super happy by, you know, doing that. And 571 it's been a relief. And, you know, like, 572 I just want to don't go back anymore into like building a B2B 573 AI company. It's just not anymore for me. 574 Many founders talk about reflection, but few were 575

built as publicly as you did. Why did you choose 576 to create the actually a newsletter? 577 And did it help help your own recovery? 578 Yeah, I mean, it links to the things a little bit that I said, like, 579 I mean, of course, like, my goal was actually to write a book 580 because you could put down your thoughts and you can think about 581 them a couple of weeks and months and you can write down your story and. 582 But the problem is with a book, you take ages until you write a book, 583 and it doesn't really like you. You could create. 584 You create value at the end once you kind of publish the book, but you 585 can't create value during the process. 586 So. And all of a sudden substack came up. I think a 587 friend of mine told me, and I Looked at Substack and what's good about Substack

588 or in general newsletters is actually that you can just share 589 tiny stories every week and reach a lot of people. And 590 that in connection with my LinkedIn where I had already like 15, 000 591 followers, I could, you know, kind of link all of these 592 together to actually get a lot of following and then, you know, help a lot 593 of people through that. So I didn't need to start at zero. I started at 594 already, you know, quite a, quite a good following. So I just needed 595 to kind of, you know, tell everyone that I'm 596 actually, you know, helping them through a newsletter and at the end then 597 through coaching. And that's why I started all of this. Yeah, 598 I see that actually. Very interesting choice. 599 I was wondering for our audience, what was this one success

600 moment that nearly broke you? Feel free to share it with us 601 and tag us on X or LinkedIn. Guys, 602 we will be back after short ad break where Xava 603 reveals the playbook shift that made him a better coach, 604 better founder, and a better human. 605 Hey guys, welcome to our 606 part of the interview with Xavier Lehman. The 607 co founder of Ebol7 talked about his 608 experience with Exit Burnout and a lot of other private stuff. 609 We are now talking about frameworks, coaching and clarity. 610 After stepping back, what changed in how 611 you think about success, team leadership and productivity? 612 Are there some frameworks that now guide you coaching sessions with 613 founders? I mean, what 614 changed was actually I always thought success is about 615 wealth, is about like, you know, being on stage 616

and in Forbes 30 under 30 and staying in luxury hotels and having 617 sporty cars and stuff like that. But actually, like, you know, 618 my kind of definition of success completely changed 619 throughout the last years and especially throughout the last couple of months when 620 I spend a lot of time in Africa. So I think it's much more valuable. 621 I mean, of course I have, I've had the success and I've, you know, I 622 think for me it was important to have had success already. So 623 I know it's actually not the solution. Right. I think what's 624 more important and what I learned is actually spending a lot of time with your 625 family, with your friends, you know, doing the things you love, being free, 626 you know, just waking up and, you know, working on something fulfilling 627 and, and it doesn't need to be a big startup, it doesn't need to be

628 a unicorn. It can be anything. Right? And so this is kind 629 of what changed for me in terms of success. And I'm using 630 different tools now that I've kind of developed over the last 10 631 years to help founders on their journey. Right. I 632 also kind of try to, you know, kind of 633 get new ideas and more ideas through different coaches. So I 634 spent some time with Tony Robbins two weeks ago. I spent four 635 days, actually day and night with the guy. And. Which was 636 crazy and was a really good experience. And, and you know, also 637 there a lot of really good concepts can come into 638 play and I kind of can use them on 639 my journey and also in my coaching sessions. But it's most of, most 640 of the stuff that I'm kind of teaching is like,

641 my stuff is, you know, the things that I learned over the last 10 years. 642 But also in addition, I take some things from Tony Robbins and other 643 great coaches actually into it. 644 You're now also a coach 645 helping early stage founders 646 post burnout. What patterns do you see that repeat? 647 Are there mindset traps specific 648 to founder? For example, of AI SaaS or tech in general? 649 I mean, the mindset trap is probably like that you 650 need to be really quick and need to raise money as much as possible. 651 I think these kind of. It 652 changed a little bit. Times changed. So I think today with, you know, 653 all the vibe code coding tools, like lovable, like, you 654 don't need to have a big team anymore, right? You can, you know, test 655 out different technologies, different products, you know,

656 in within a couple of hours even. So I think the 657 founder journey, you know, completely changed in a different direction, I 658 think in a better direction. But like, you know, the 659 trap is to think that you always have to raise money, you always have to 660 be successful, you always have to kind of build a unicorn. That's actually not true. 661 It depends what you actually want in life. Like, you don't even, you 662 know, of course investors want unicorns because they need to pay back their 663 fund, right? So they need outliers, like billion companies to 664 actually return their funds. But as a founder, of course. And that's 665 why, you know, kind of sometimes the values and 666 also kind of the goals are different from investors and 667 you know, like, compared to founders, because founders are happy with, you

668 know, like a few millions or 10 million or 50 millions or 20 669 millions. Like, it depends on who you are and what you want to want to 670 do. Right? But that's where the interests are not really aligned. 671 So the trap is to think that you always have to build a unicorn, which 672 is totally not true. It depends on what you want. You 673 can also build a cool bootstrapped company which is, you 674 know, successful because you're waking up every day and you feel like, 675 you know, you're really interested in working for it and are really 676 thriving and exciting. And so it doesn't 677 need to be, you know, investors money. It doesn't need to be a 678 unicorn. It can just be a small kind of company that you're 679 building over the years. And, you know, I

680 think that that's, that's kind of the trap that everyone kind of could 681 go into. I'm 682 curious, looking back now with us, the most 683 valuable decision you made during your time, for example, at Ebol 684 7, that wasn't so obvious at the time. 685 I mean, perhaps it's obvious, but for me it wasn't. 686 Back in the days, I was really drowning in work after 687 like two or three years at working at ebot7 because I'm. I was kind of 688 the guy for everything. I did finance, I did operations, I did admin, I did 689 hr, I did sales, I did fundraising. So almost everything kind of. 690 And what was a big relief for me was actually when 691 we raised that Series A and I could finally hire 692 people that could take over my work, which is 693 redundant, which was kind of repetitive and always the same and didn't

694 create that much strategic value in our company. So there was the time, 695 you know, getting the money, but also spending the money on really 696 strong people who have done it before was. Was a game changer for me 697 because I. Because back in the days, we didn't have a lot of money and 698 we needed to find ways to get people on board which were 699 probably not, you know, the most skilled, the most 700 experienced people at the beginning because you needed to train them a lot. 701 But at some point we could just take money, get the best 702 people on board. And this changed everything for me. Who was 703 the most impactful customer or partner for 704 EBIT 7 and why? What made 705 their relationship really transformative? Definitely O2 706 Germany, I would say. So they were kind of the first customers we got

707 on board. They were also the ones that shaped our product. They 708 kind of offered us also to visit their customer support center. They were 709 super helpful, super easygoing. They were one 710 of the best customers. And in connection to that, Vayra, 711 which is kind of the accelerator of O2 Germany, which 712 kind of we, yeah, we got into Vayra first and then we got 713 actually into O2 Germany. That's kind of their vehicle to look 714 for innovative startups. And so I think Vira, in 715 connection with O2 Germany, was definitely, you know, kind of 716 the most important partner for us at the time. I think back in the 717 days until, you know, five years later, they were the 718 biggest customer of ours. So yeah. 719 And whenever there was any problem with the technology, they were the first

720 ones to tell us, but not in a bad way, in an angry way. 721 They were super, like productive and just telling us what to do. 722 And yeah, that was amazing. Actually. 723 You scale it quite impressively with this company. But 724 many founders to hit a wall when scaling somewhere between 30 725 and 100 people would advise that do 726 we give today for managing culture and energy at that stage? 727 Yes. I'm a little bit torn between two worlds because on the one hand 728 you kind of, you need to, to grow the startup into 729 something like a corporate, right? You need people, you need different kinds 730 of people for, for a bigger company because you need 731 skilled people, you need experienced people who have done it before because you add at 732 another stage you're also working with different kind of companies.

733 So. But also, on the other hand, you shouldn't lose your 734 startup vibe culture because that's essentially why 735 actually people decide to work for your startup, right? To have, you 736 know, cool people around you who, you know, you can go for 737 lunch with them and they're not colleagues, but actually friends. So this 738 is kind of, you know, it's, it's quite hard. You need 739 hierarchies, but also you don't want that many and too 740 deep hierarchies. You don't want to be a corporate, but you also want to 741 kind of keep the startup culture. That was also kind of 742 a little bit of difficult to find a balance between those two. 743 So this is what I would actually say, you know, 744 you know what, I. Personally have always Google in mind 745 when I saw this, because under the founders, it was big company

746 with listed companies, was a very successful company, but it still 747 had some startup vibe to it. But then at one 748 point under new leadership under Alphabet, it completely changed. 749 And a lot of the stuff that made the startup feeling at least 750 watching from the outside disappear, then that's the point where I 751 thought you cannot keep it for 752 eternity if you want to be big, if you want to be growing. 753 Yeah, probably. I don't know if it's possible. 754 You need to change your startup, your environment a little bit. But, but 755 I would always suggest not to do it too much and just, you know, 756 to keep the startup culture. Because I've seen it a lot, founders growing 757 into like big companies, like having 100 or 200 and 300 758 people and getting these, you know, corporate structures because they

759 hire corporate people at some point and corporate people are, you know, kind 760 of, they expect corporate structures and they establish 761 corporate structures. So at some point, you know, all of A sudden 762 you're getting, you, you're becoming a corporate and I think that's 763 where you have to be careful not to be too much of a 764 corporate, you know, and have too much processes and too much structures 765 and. Because at the end of the day that's why you were successful, because 766 you were quick, you could, you know, break things and you, you could hire 767 people that, you know, really like a different mindset, different 768 attitude. So yeah, that's kind of the, the different 769 balance that you need to keep actually. 770 Personal experience, personal feeling is you're still a startup. If you 771 do the management decision at a stand up in the morning, like 10, 15

772 minutes, you're fixed, everybody's on the same page, we keep going 773 and you're corporate. If you have to track all your decisions in an Excel 774 sheet or something like that. Yeah, probably. I mean, 775 he's smiling. That's one of the things you can, you can say. Yeah, but it's, 776 it's, it has a lot of different variations to it. Right. So 777 yeah, but probably if you have a lot of recurring meetings and a lot 778 of, you know, hierarchies in your companies, then that's a bad, 779 bad sign. I guess for the vault members. 780 You walk us through your founder hiring diagnostic and the 781 early signals that tell somebody's building the wrong team. 782 Everybody will be able to find the link to the founders Vault 783 down here in the show notes. We'll start it pretty soon for subscribers only

784 and we already very excited about it. Looking 785 now a little bit forward, what excites you most about the 786 intersection of mental health coaching and 787 the next generation of founders? Yeah, so 788 I mentioned it a little bit earlier. So a lot of things have changed 789 over the years. Right. So you've got LLMs now like ChatGPT where 790 you can literally build something from nothing. You don't 791 need big teams. I think you will definitely see unicorns, like 792 really big companies with just a few people on board. 793 So it's really exciting. But also I hope that, you know, 794 founder teams can actually incorporate some of the mental 795 health strategies and like recoveries into their 796 daily practice, because that's super important. I didn't do it, I went into 797 burnout. So I hope, you know, founders will not take the same route.

798 And because of AI, because it's super dynamic and super fast 799 past the probability that you go into something like a 800 burnout and like something like a depression is much, much higher than if 801 it's like a low passed environment. Right. And so 802 I would strongly suggest to keep your body and mind in in 803 balance and you know, kind of try to, 804 of course try to take advantage of the whole development around AI 805 because you can build something from nothing. You don't need a big team anymore, you 806 don't need big fundings anymore. And that's the beauty of it. And at the same 807 time you have to keep, keep, keep, keep, you know, your body in balance. 808 A discussion that I had with some friends recently 809 was one should 810 move the school into teaching more about mental health, about

811 meditation practices than actually writing essays. Because right now you 812 just need to talk to an AI and we'll spit out a perfectly structured 813 essay. But nobody takes care of your mental health. There's 814 just food for thought for the people out there. I was 815 wondering, don't worry. I know predictions are always 816 difficult, especially concerning the future, but what predictions would you 817 make about AI startup culture over the next three to five 818 years? Are we heading for more founder, 819 Are we heading for more founder attitude or a 820 healthy research? So I hope, 821 of course it's going to be a healthy environment, but there's 822 a high probability that it's going in the, in the other 823 direction. So the thing is with AI, it's really 824 fast paced. You know, it's, with technology you 825 get, you know, not happier, but lonelier I would say,

826 because you don't meet you, you meet less friends, you are 827 less in public, in, on the outside. And I think you 828 can see it already with the current generation now. You 829 go to a coffee place and then everyone's on their phones and 830 especially like, you know, seven, eight years old already like with phones. And 831 you know, back in the days we went playing football and we went, 832 you know, going out with friends and stuff like that. We didn't have devices. 833 So there's a lot of things that change and I think it's going to get 834 worse and I just hope that there's like kind of a 835 contra movement towards like more, you know, 836 spending more time in nature, spending more time with family and friends 837 because at the end of the day it's about, you know, being

838 healthy and not being lonely, you know, being 839 happy. And if you just spend your whole time, 840 your whole life on devices, it's not gonna be, it's not 841 gonna be good for you. Yeah, I also have 842 a, something for myself, like my own 843 rule. I also use all the 844 information that I put in different AI tools because I've worked with them 845 for hours and hours because I'm basically here by myself. Chris is in 846 New York, we're in different time zones and editor and 847 VA are also in different time zones, who help me with all the publications and 848 the back office and stuff. So I basically here 849 just simply with my AI, I'm actually, I made a habit 850 out of it to ask them what they know about me that will 851 be useful for me, plus give me regular

852 reminders and practices to stay mentally healthy, to 853 stay fit and so on and so forth. So 854 basically you can also make the AI work for you 855 in that respect. And there's a lot of stuff out there, what you can do 856 just food for thought and start your own research, 857 but not doing research. Asking you here, what's a 858 popular belief in startup land but you 859 would firmly disagree with. 860 I would say it connects to something that I talked about earlier. It's 861 about like the belief that you have to build a unicorn. And you know, 862 investors always expect to build a unicorn because of course they need to 863 return their funds. But like, deep down honesty, it depends on what you 864 want to do in life. Like for founders, you know, unicorn doesn't need to

865 be the perfect outcome because there's also a lot of dilution, a lot of funding 866 rounds. Like, you know, unicorn is something that startup lands kind 867 of startup land kind of wants and expects and something like 868 that. But it's actually, you know, something completely 869 stupid because you don't need to build a startup that's worth a billion or something. 870 You don't need to do that. Like, I know that, you know, some 871 founders, like, you know, they, they're trying everything they can 872 to, to build a startup in that area and then expect like, or actually demand 873 higher valuations, higher valuation. Then at some point they dilute and they, 874 you know, they have at the end of the day of like 1 or 2% 875 on the company and then it's a billion worth. Like it's, it's better to 876

bootstrap your company to 1 or 2 million. It's. You've got more than 877 you know if you have a billion and like nothing left. So 878 I would say that's something like a popular belief, but I would not say 879 it's true. Only agreeing with you here 880 without any external investors in startup radio. But 881 I was wondering when you've been talking about that, is this 882 a firm belief of startup land or is this a belief of investment 883 land pushed into startup land? 884 Yeah, probably the second. Yeah, I 885 mean they need to return their funds. So they of course expect startups 886 to perform really well and like, well means higher valuations 887 and higher exit volumes and stuff like that. Right. So it's 888 interesting for our audience. I was wondering 889 if you Guys could redo your startup journey with just one

890 lesson from today. What would you change? Tag us on social media 891 startup rate IO and use startup reset. 892 Sada Final two questions we're talking about almost 893 for an hour now. 894 Some final reflection, some final 895 reflections here. If a first time founder 896 stopped you at cafe so not playing with his or her device 897 and asked you what's one thing you wish you knew earlier, 898 what would you say? I would probably say that 899 mental health is more important than you think. I mean 900 I've done the whole journey and always neglected it. I 901 kind of worked my ass off day and night and I didn't pay 902 too much attention, you know, towards, you know, meditating 903 and I mean I did my sport the whole time, I did my workouts but 904 you know, having enough pauses, you know, doing lunch

905 breaks, having weekends off, that's super important and I, 906 that's something I would definitely say, you know, take that more 907 seriously. Weekends off is also one of my 908 rules. What's the boldest, most 909 honest thing you've learned about yourself through 910 like the complete journey? Everything you went through? 911 Honestly, I would say that, I would probably say, 912 and I wouldn't have admitted it back in the days, but 913 I think I thought that money solves all problems, but 914 it definitely doesn't and I think freedom solves most 915 of the problems. Like my values changed a little bit in the sense 916 of first I wanted money, I wanted to be, you know, 917 financially free and now it's about freedom of work, 918 freedom, whatever I can do whenever I can with whom I want. 919 So my kind of feeling of like

920 my values changed a little bit in that direction. So 921 I thought money was kind of the answer, but it's not. 922 Awesome closing words. Ksava, thank you very much. Was such a 923 pleasure talking to you. Actually we had such an intense and long 924 conversation. We need to have a second interview 925 session just for you to give to give us your wisdom 926 in the founders world. Everybody would like to learn more. Go down here in the 927 show notes and subscribe to the Founders World and we'll see you back 928 shortly. Answering a few questions for our 929 audience there, Sara, was a pleasure having you as a guest. Thank you very 930 much. Best of luck and keep us updated and of course everybody will 931 find your substack newsletter down here in the show notes as well. 932 Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure and

933 see you next time. See you next time. Bye bye, bye bye 934 bye. 935 That's all for find more news streams, 936 events and 937 interviews@www.startuprad.IO 938 Remember, sharing is car.

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