How to better handle stress in a startup?

I’m typing this a few minutes after we coaxed our production database out of read-only mode. Lights are off, cleaning crew is bumping their trolley into the doorframe again, heart rate is still somewhere around deploy-roulette levels. Good moment to talk about startup stress.

You’ve already pulled off a bunch of things most people just tweet about — solid grades, then jumping into a young company instead of chasing yet another credential. That move tells me you don’t wait for permission. (Side note: I don’t hand out gold stars easily; I’ve watched too many résumés evaporate under real pressure.)

I flirted with dropping out myself. Not quite for your reasons — I honestly thought the professors had nothing left to teach me. Spoiler: they did, and I stayed. Still, that itch to ditch the safe path never really leaves, and it’s useful ammunition when the next all-hands turns into a fire drill.

I’d love to say I “mastered” stress, but that feels like marketing copy. What actually happened: after a few panic-induced migraines and one collapsed vacation, I started collecting tiny tactics that kept me functional. Some work every time, some fail loudly — your mileage will vary.

Getting shit done is absolutely trainable, though the training looks less like a TED talk and more like shovelling snow during a blizzard.

Hard truth: you will push code that takes the site down, hire someone who flames out in month two, forget a tax filing. Each bruise rewires the fear circuits a bit. What surprised me is where the stress actually hides — not in the ambitious roadmap items but in the “boring” operational glue: data cleaning, release notes, payroll exports. Nobody warns you that ML infrastructure is the small part of running an ML startup. (I could be wrong, but every founder I know nods vigorously at that.)

More mistakes = less terror of total collapse. After a dozen faceplants the worst-case scenario stops feeling mythical; you’ve already survived flavours of it.

Travel helps, sure. A week in rural Sri Lanka taught me more about resourcefulness than three product retros. But don’t romanticise it — sometimes what you need is a glass of water, a 20-minute nap, and real food rather than another “eat, pray, pivot” pilgrimage. Quick physiological reset beats philosophy when cortisol is spiking.

The only compass that never jammed on me is the why. Mine: dozens of people depend on the company’s payroll, and I’d rather not tell their kids we messed up rent day. Your motive will be different, but it should hit you in the gut, not just look inspirational on a hoodie.

Support systems: I rotate between a mentor, a peer mastermind call, and a therapist. Therapy feels like a personal trainer for the brain — works wonders for some, placebo for others. If the first session feels useless, try a different modality before writing the whole thing off. Bi-weekly mentor chats still clear my head fastest, but I keep the therapist on speed-dial for bigger storms.

Structure helps the chaos cooperate. I sketch 1-, 3-, and 6-month targets, then trace backward until the next actionable commit. Nothing fancy — pen, paper, ugly arrows. Important caveat: define what failure looks like too, otherwise everything drifts into “still in progress.”

Watch for burnout markers: decision latency, doom-scrolling, snapping at teammates. Someone on my team clawed back sanity after lining up weekly counseling calls; by week three he was shipping calmly again instead of rage-typing at 1 a.m. That said, I’ve also seen founders book therapy, skip half the sessions, and still crash. There’s no silver bullet here.

Your path will stay messy. Some days you’ll feel like the main character, other days you’ll wonder why the credits haven’t rolled you off the set. Keep the core purpose in focus, patch the stress with whatever combo of naps, mentors, or mindfulness apps gets you to tomorrow, and remember the company can’t fire you for taking a walk around the block.

Courage on the keyboard,

Vadim