Unveiling Burnout: The True Cost of Passion in Startup Culture | EP 28
Description
In this episode of UNinvested, Sahil welcomes Sarah, a fellow Northwestern alum and co-founder of Beni, a startup focused on sustainability and the circular economy. Sarah shares her journey of founding Beni, a platform that helps people find and buy secondhand clothes online. Despite the success of Beni, Sarah recently stepped down as CEO due to burnout. She discusses her experience with burnout, the importance of managing stress, and the decision to prioritize her health. The discussion also covers the challenges of being a founder, the venture capital route, and Sarah’s future plans.
What we explore:
Sarah’s background and the founding of Beni
The mission of Beni and its impact on sustainability
Sarah's decision to step down as CEO due to burnout
Understanding burnout and its signs
The physiological effects of stress and burnout
The role of passion in contributing to burnout
The differences between venture-backed and bootstrapped businesses
The challenges and realities of being a founder
The importance of managing stress and prioritizing health
Sarah’s future plans and reflections on her journey
Where to find Uninvested:
Website: https://www.uninvested.org/
In this episode, we cover:
[00:00:00] Introduction and Sarah's background
[00:00:14] Sarah's one-minute pitch about Beni and her background
[00:00:57] Sarah's decision to step away from Beni due to burnout
[00:02:04] Signs of burnout and the realization process
[00:02:59] The physiological impact of stress and burnout
[00:03:37] The role of passion in contributing to burnout
[00:04:59] The timing and rationale behind stepping away
[00:06:35] Early signs and moments when burnout started
[00:08:06] The continuous cycle of stress in a startup
[00:10:21] Creating a venture-backable business vs. a lifestyle business
[00:10:45] The decision to take on venture capital for Beni
[00:13:04] Tactical advice to prevent burnout
[00:13:50] The taboo around founders discussing mental health
[00:15:21] The ugly parts of being a founder
[00:16:49] Reflections on the journey and what could have been done differently
[00:18:01] Future plans and what’s next for Sarah
[00:20:49] Adjusting to having a boss again after being a founder
[00:21:09] Routine and habits maintained throughout the years
[00:21:57] Closing remarks and final thoughts
[00:00:00] Sahil: Why do you step away from a successful startup after co founding it and acting as CEO for three years?
[00:00:05] Sarah: The reality is I had to learn the burnout story the hard way.
[00:00:11] Sahil: Welcome, Sarah. Thank you for joining me. Always love having a fellow Northwestern alum on the podcast.
[00:00:15] Sarah: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:17] Sahil: To get started. Do you mind giving myself and listeners the one minute pitch about yourself and what you found it?
[00:00:23] Sarah: I describe myself as a circular economy nerd.
So I'm. Very invested in sustainability and particularly finding solutions to reduce waste. That was the lattice through which I, I sort of started Beni and Beni helps people find and buy clothes secondhand online. We have a browser extension where while you're shopping on your favorite sites, we'll show you resale deals right there.
[00:00:48] Sahil: That's great. That's great. But one thing I was reading on LinkedIn, you recently posted on your LinkedIn is that you stepped away from Beni. So what I want to understand is. Why do you step away from a successful startup after co founding it and acting as CEO for three years?
[00:01:02] Sarah: The reality is I had to learn the burnout story the hard way.
From burnout and from some other things, sort of not in like a healthy enough position to continue in this role. As I said on LinkedIn, I started Batteny because I Care about the circular economy. And I think it's a way to accelerate the circular economy. I'm excited for, you know, for my next personal chapter to, to invest in my health in different ways, and also for the next chapter for Beni, our former CMO is now the CEO.
She has, you know, a lot of the energy and really what I found is that at this stage, 70, 80 percent of the job is having the motivation to just like figure things out. Yeah. Happy to go into burnout more in more depth if it's interesting.
[00:01:49] Sahil: Yeah. A hundred percent want to know about burnout. What are the signs?
When did you really come to this decision? And was this like a long term decision or was it just all of a sudden? Yeah, I think I need to step away for me.
[00:02:00] Sarah: I started sort of really thinking about how I was feeling in, in December of last year and, and started to have the conversations with just, you know, my co founders about my role and, and how I was doing as a person and ultimately how I was able to be leading Beni.
I think for me, one of the things that I realized is I have a lot of people, especially people who are, who are in the Northwestern community, like, I've been stressed a lot of times in my life, like, I tend to do a lot of things, all that stuff, and so I think when people were saying, you know, be careful of founder burnout and whatnot, I, I expected burnout to just feel like stress, stress in terms of your heart is racing, you have a lot of adrenaline, like, there's a lot going on, you're very busy, all of these things, but for me, it felt like almost closer to a depression, which is actually a hallmark of burnout, but I didn't really realize because you've been in a state of stress physiologically for so long and you, and I wasn't taking seriously needing to close my stress response cycle and actually deal with like the stress that I was feeling.
Your nervous system gets so dysregulated. The way I described it was, I felt like my charger was broken. I'm a computer and I just like, I can't, I can't get charged. I can't get my energy back up. And so. You know, really realizing that in the last couple months of last year and just noticing, like, I, this is not good for me and it's not good for Beni and so, you know, worked this first quarter of this year to try to be in this role and not be burdened out, but ultimately just found that it was not right thing and, and I think that, One of the things that somebody told me is being a founder is not inherently a noble profession that you must stay in and you're stuck in, you know, which is kind of how I felt.
[00:03:43] Sahil: It doesn't seem that burnout is really related to a lack of passion at all because you're very passionate about Beni Steele and the circular economy. So is it really just being under constant stress or are there other factors that play into it?
[00:03:56] Sarah: First, I actually think almost for me, the passion kind of contributed to the burnout because I am so deeply connected to the mission and to wanting this to succeed, because I think it's going to add a lot of good in the world that I didn't, I wasn't able to have a healthy level of detachment to be making decisions big and small.
And at a certain point you kind of need a healthy level of detachment to do that without draining yourself. I did have a hard time attaching myself and my passion from Fannie as a company and as a product. I read a book called Burnout by Emily Nagoski, which was particularly. Or women, but a lot of the research is about the physiological reality of stress.
And I honestly just didn't really believe it before that your body is physiologically reacting to stress responses. And if you're not allowing your body to feel safe and secure and you kind restorative state on a regular basis, you're just going to get depressed. So dysregulated and then end up being being in a state of burnout.
[00:04:58] Sahil: As you step away, what do you really tell yourself is the rationale that now is the right time, right? Because it seems like you've been dealing with burnout for a very long time. So what makes now the right time to step away?
[00:05:11] Sarah: Recognizing it and then trying to do my best to sort of say, okay, what can I do to restructure the way that I'm working, the way that I'm approaching this role too.
To not be in a state of burnout. But ultimately I think when I, I listened to a podcast about a book called Quit and just thinking about, yeah, when is the right time to quote unquote quit? And when you're, when I was looking at kind of the path ahead for myself, you know, grit is a great thing if ultimately the end is going to be a net positive and net ROI for you and for your life.
I didn't really see a path for my personal health where being in this role was going to have that. Net positive right now, because I can live with the what ifs of what if I stayed in this role? What if I had changed this one thing about my, the way I approached the role, but I couldn't live with the what ifs of the, the uncertainty of whether or not I was going to be able to be healthy.
Not being able to be the best, kindest version of myself is like an unacceptable thing and everything else. Kind of clicked into place, but it was a really tough decision. It took me a while to kind of get there, but I think trusting my gut and also learning and investing and learning about like, what is burnout?
What is this feeling I'm feeling? I think helped me ultimately make the decision.
[00:06:31] Sahil: That makes a lot of sense. And everyone knows hindsight is 20, 20, but. If you could go back when you started Beni, were there any early signs, watchouts, specific stories or moments when the burnout really started for you?
[00:06:44] Sarah: I do think one of the things, you know, I would always say, Oh, it's just a crazy time right now.
Like, it's just a crazy time right now. And I would sort of give myself leeway or permission to, Not be taking care of myself, not be taking breaks, not be sort of understanding, like, am I prioritizing my time the right way? And my partner who started a company previously, he would always say, like, it's truly always going to be a crazy time.
And I didn't, I didn't really believe it, to be honest, because every time felt like a crazy time. You know, you're launching the product, you're fundraising, you're doing this big campaign, you're hiring, like, whatever it is. It truly is always a quote unquote crazy time, and particularly with a startup, there's so many things that could be a great thing to do that you want to spend your time on, and you still have to prioritize within that, and give yourself the room to, to have restore, restoration.
I truly did think like, oh, it's gonna be after I get over this hump, after we fundraise, after we whatever. Then it'll be smooth sailing and that I have found to definitely not be true. And so within all of the ups and downs, kind of making sure that there is sort of a non negotiable of, I need to be managing my stress and not, not necessarily the stressors cause the stressors will be there, but managing my stress and how my body is reacting to it.
[00:08:02] Sahil: And one thing I'd really like to talk about on the podcast, on the show is this idea of creating. A venture backable business where you're going for a billion dollar idea rather than a lifestyle business that, you know, it can make millions and millions of dollars, but maybe you need to take on venture capital.
And I know Beni took on 5 million. Do you think if you didn't go the venture backable route and you went through bootstrapping, for those of you who don't know, it's basically not taking on any outside capital, just funding the company yourself, would have changed the trajectory of how things went for you?
[00:08:32] Sarah: I worked in banking in the first part of my career and actually worked on sort of a venture debt project. And so I really kind of understood venture capital from like a foundational perspective, which I think I will tell anyone, if you're in this position, you're deciding to raise, to not raise, or even just deciding, do I want to take on external capital or not, that's one decision.
And for Beni, in order to build the product that we wanted to build, we really needed external capital because it was such like a heavy investment in the technology, it's, it's designed for the user to be very simple, but the backend is very complicated. So that was one thing. And then you kind of just said, what are my options for external financing?
And sometimes it can be other things, you know, it can be if you're In certain fields, there's, there's grants, there's small business loans, there's winning competitions, like whatever it is. But for us, the product we were trying to build and the potential outcome, we did want to go the venture capital route, but I do think it was helpful for me to really understand what is venture capital.
It is a particular type of financing. They have particular incentives. And so obviously add some stress and you are maybe on the clock in a different way with your cash burn. But if you are bootstrapping, I've heard from some people that that may almost be more stressful because. It's your capital, right?
That you're investing and with venture capital, like this is their job. They're not expecting all of their startups to be successful. And just having that perspective, I think is helpful
[00:10:03] Sahil: That's really interesting perspective. Cause usually you hear people talk about bootstrapping is the more. Chill route less stress free to get all these external pressures, but kind of diving back into this idea of burnout It seems it was more intrinsically motivated by grit and your passion to make Beni super successful Which I think is very important You need to have a grit to make your idea grow Otherwise your first problem the first challenge the second problem second challenge is really gonna stop you in your track Is there any tactical advice you can give to not just founders but anyone out there that has?
insane amount of grit and passion to succeed to Protect yourself against burnout.
[00:10:36] Sarah: Our stress response is very physiological, right? It is designed to be like, there is a lion attacking me. My body is going to do a bunch of stuff so I can run away from the lion. But then it's also designed to say you either then die from the lion.
Or you run away and you get to the village and you celebrate and you make sure your body, which sounds very like woo woo, but like make sure your body knows that it's safe. And so there's ways in which you can kind of regulate your nervous system. It can be, you know, definitely physical exercise, even just like tensing your muscles and then relaxing them.
There's breathing, there's creativity. There's a lot of things that I don't know all of them, but I didn't realize on a day to day basis, you're going to have stressors and you're going to have stress and you need to kind of bring yourself back down to a baseline consistently. It's not like, this is a crazy time and then I'm going to take a vacation.
That is not how your body deals with stress or like, that's really not what the stress response is. And so. I think just recognizing that and recognizing how much kind of restorative time scientifically we need to be functioning humans is helpful in the same way if you're an athlete, you know, okay, these are the type of stretches that I need to do.
These are the types of nutrients that I need for my body to grow my muscles. And you just learn those things. I think it's a similar muscle to build. This is, these are the types of ways that I can deal with stress in a way that brings me back down to baseline. Sometimes we do have to deal with the stress before we deal with the stressor.
I think my reaction to stress was always, this thing's stressing me out. So I'm going to try to get it done or change the thing, but there's always going to be stressors. And particularly to your point, to start a company, you do need a lot of grit and you need to just learn how to like figure stuff out.
And that's challenging and it's going to be stressful on your mind and on your body. And so back to kind of the athlete thing, right? Like, if you want to be an Olympic athlete, if you want to be kind of in this high stress situation, you also have to really take your restoration and your recovery really seriously.
And I sort of saw it as, you're a founder, you need to have grit. I am so passionate about this thing. Like, I'm going to just go for it, be like, running running running.
[00:12:47] Sahil: Being a founder might be one of the most stressful things, and kinda like athletes, it's almost taboo to talk about mental health when it comes to founders. Andy Dunn, another Northwestern alum, founder of Bonobos, he regularly talks about how his mental health deteriorated as he was building this ginormous company, but Why do you think it is so, you know, taboo for founders to talk about their mental health?
Does it reflect poorly on the, the company, perhaps?
[00:13:14] Sarah: Even with our board, for example, like, I was very friendly with them, they were, they're great, very supportive people, but I didn't, I did not confide in them about this very much, and I do think, and even, And they understand, right? They have two hats on.
They're like, I'm your friend and I care about you, but also I'm invested in the business. And especially early on, the reality is when you're like, if you are going to venture backdrop, for example, pre seed seed, they're largely investing in you. And so it makes sense that then the incentive would be, well, you're investing in me, I want to make sure I'm showing you the best side of me and the best version of myself, because.
You're kind of constantly selling to people, right? You're kind of constantly saying like, you can trust me. To figure this out, right? You're not really saying like, here's this beautiful product, but like this iPhone to sell you, right? That's not the stage of company you're at. So I do think it can be challenging to have some of those more nuanced conversation.
I think that there's more room to maybe have it with other founders, but even with that, there is kind of this sense of you're trying to depict yourself in this way, because sort of like selling an inflatable asset in a way, like you're the one who's supposed to be telling the future and having this vision.
And so. It's challenging to, to have those nuanced conversations, but I do think now that I've left, you know, being really open about burnout, I've been able to have a lot of conversations with people, and I really truly want people to not burn out, because I want people to be doing these cool things. Yeah, I'm, I'm willing to be open about it now, after the fact, but I was not very open about it before, and, but I have since.
Is that sort of just a flaw in the incentive structure for VC backed?
[00:14:54] Sahil: Being a founder is always seems like such a glamorous thing from the outside, but as we've talked about, you're always under stress. You can lead to burnout and there's always a problem. What are some of those ugly parts besides burnout that no one really talks about in a founder's journey?
[00:15:09] Sarah: I found that the skills that were required for that initial founding, that initial kind of idea generation, getting, doing the customer research, understanding like, could this even be a thing? We're very different from the actual job of being a CEO, which is make sure the company has money and make sure it has people to do things, you know, and building a company like a corporation is a very different thing from taking an idea from conception to product.
And a lot of your job as a CEO is the company stuff. You gotta like, Do the census report and we have to have a payroll system and pay payroll taxes. And what's an employee, what's a contractor, like it's, it's stuff that's required to like be a. Being a corporation and managing a company is very different from building a product.
I was very aware of that and I think I was comfortable with that being my job. But what I set out to do was to bring this product to life, but then in order to sort of In order to bring that product to life, you need to hire people. In order to hire people, you need to be a company. In order to pay those people, you need money, right?
And so it ends up being your focus is on these other things. And I definitely think that if I've learned anything, you know, being, I think being a founder, Is very much put on a pedestal, but it is just, it's a very particular job. There's a lot of benefits. You learn a lot, but it's also, there's a lot of downsides.
In fact, thinking about how you're, you want your life to be structured, where you think you can have impact before jumping into it, I think it's important because yeah, it's, it's a weird job.
[00:16:43] Sahil: Is there anything you'd change about the journey you went on?
[00:16:45] Sarah: I think I probably should have invested in like having a coach more.
I had one in school because it was part of the program that I was in. Like, I think. You know, because I started at Northwestern Business School, there was a lot of infrastructure around me that I don't think I fully, fully appreciated at the time. You know, there was, I was like in an entrepreneurship fellowship and I was doing some things through classes and stuff.
So there's, there's sort of some built in like, A, friends and some of that things that do relieve your stress. And then just resources, you know, having a coach, having things like that. And I think when I. When I left, I knew that I needed to have built some of that infrastructure for myself, especially because we're a remote company, but I, I didn't prioritize that and I think I would have done that going back.
I don't know if it would have. Changed the outcome. It's hard to say like if I would change anything, cause I truly, I think it'll take me a long time to really recognize how much I've learned in this role. And if there's one thing that like, I feel like we did really well and I'm really grateful for is bringing incredible people into the team and I just still blown away investors, like it's their job to invest in companies, right?
So it's cool that they invested in us, but still it's their job. The people. in Beni that are choosing to spend the majority of their life working on this thing that was just an idea three and a half years ago. Like, I'm so grateful for and I'm so grateful that we respect that. I think a lot of early stage startups are toxic and people are accepting of that and I think that's dumb.
I don't think early stage startups need to be toxic. They are obviously like A different cadence, but I think you can have a really incredible team, a really incredible culture, and that's something that I'm very grateful for.
[00:18:38] Sahil: So looking over on a future note, a more positive note here, what are you going to be doing next?
Maybe it's coaching, thinking about building another idea.
[00:18:44] Sarah: I'm going to take a little break and go backpacking, sit in some dirt, you know, do, do a little bit of that. But yeah, I think for now I, I am so, you know, from the beginning of Since 2018, I sort of have like committed my career to working on the problem of waste.
That is my, my goal. And particularly in the circular economy. And, and I think what's cool about that guiding light for me is that that can mean a lot of different things. And it can be previously I was at a perfect foods and, and that obviously was, was towards that. Beni was towards that, but I think for now probably going and, and trying to do that.
At a more established company, just to have, have some of that infrastructure around me, not be. Kind of pursuing this idea, these ideas and building the company to have some of that. That grounding so I can invest in my health as well post this experience.
[00:19:40] Sahil: You think it'll be weird going from being your own boss to having a boss at a big company.
[00:19:45] Sarah: Actually, one of the things that I'll say, I Never wanted to be my own boss, and I actually did not like being my own boss. I think some people like that. I have no attachment to that thing, that like part of the job. What drove me into entrepreneurship was my passion for the space and sort of having this idea and almost at the beginning of Beni, I was kind of trying to convince myself not to do it.
And then, But I ended up sort of realizing that there was a lot of potential and, and I'm so glad I did it, but I'm not particularly, I think, one of the entrepreneurs or founders who sort of have always wanted to be my own boss or things like that. I actually, there's politics everywhere, right? There's politics in startups.
There's politics in big companies. There's politics in politics. And so. I think it's kind of just what types of battles you want to fight. Like there's always going to be battles to fight. And I, I worked at large companies before. I'm not as, as drained as some other folks of like having a boss and, and dealing with corporate politics.
We'll see. I haven't done it in a while, but honestly, sometimes having a boss is great because Making all the decisions and having the buck stop with you is tough. So I'm kind of excited for that.
[00:21:00] Sahil: I have one final question that I ask every guest that comes on UNinvested. Has there been any routine that you've kept throughout the years?
[00:21:08] Sarah: I listened to a lot of podcasts pretty much every day. And that, I don't know if that's good or bad, but I've always listened to a lot of podcasts and bolt sort of news podcasts, entrepreneurship podcasts, things like that. And I think it's a nice way. I, I have. Don't have as much time to like read books, but I think that especially in this, in this experience of being a founder, you can kind of get so myopic of like just being in the world of VC and just being in your world of your startup.
But I think. Just kind of like listening to things that are going on in the world, listening to things, the book like Quit, for example, kind of gives you, gives me a good perspective to, to keep me, keep me grounded, not to be self serving and like listen to this podcast, but I think listening to podcasts is great.
[00:21:52] Sahil: Perfect. Well, I think that's the perfect ending. Thank you so much for coming on, Sarah. I really appreciate it.
[00:21:56] Sarah: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
[00:21:58] Sahil: And with that, this has been UNinvested . Thank, this is a personal video. Any views or opinions represented in this video are personal and do not represent those of people, institutions, or organizations we may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity.
The views expressed are for entertainment purposes only and not to be misinterpreted as actionable investment advice.
