Pivot in progress, raising a $10m seed.

Cheers Chris :)

Thanks - we're very happy with the reaction and all this amazing discussion - it's exactly what we wanted!

The bottom of the FAQ did me in, but that's a perfect place: the people who are about to bounce anyway.

I agree on this. When you have big businesses commercially incentivised to promote addictive behaviour it's going to be hard to change the collective behaviour and its potentially harmful impact

Hope they release a "My Startup is Killing It" package.

This sounds like a perfect LinkedIn premium tier

Hey everyone,

As we all know, everyone "doing a startup" is "killing it" or "smashing it", or "crushing it".

Yet what we all really know, is that nobody ever really is and working life in general can be really fucking hard and has a huge impact on your mental health.

My startup (@SanctusLDN) has produced a podcast with Spotify called "Killing it" that shares real stories from people in startups that are being open and honest about their mental health journey.

The first episode is legendary Alex Depledge who sold Hassle for £24m, but this podcast doesn't talk about that - it talks about her human journey and her mental health.

I would say this, but it's really valuable and well worth a listen.

https://open.spotify.com/show/449We08a4Ja7A4UuLkRRZD

Cheers and would love to know what you all think,

James

Hey everyone, it's been a while since I've posted in here ️

I've had a blog post brewing for a while that I've been desperate to share with this community in particular.

I believe too many people are "doing a startup" for a quick win to be successful and happy. It's what I did with my last company.

I see so many founders raising VC and angel money for businesses that would probably just be amazing organic businesses.

I just wanted to share with you what we're doing with Sanctus, why we're happy that we're building a sustainable business that has no intention to sell or raise VC and why playing "the long game" has transformed my world-view on business.

It feels like there is a band of people who are starting to focus on building awesome 'lifestyle' businesses or just bootstrapping and actually making money from day one.

I hope this post can start what I think is a well-needed discussion

Hey Guys - I've written a new post which might cause some healthy debate

If you've ever been to a startup drinks/networking event, pitch or demo day - you'll know only too well that absolutely everyone is "killing it" or "crushing it" (maybe even "smashing it")..

Yet, we all know that building a startup just isn't like that and I think this culture where everybody claims to be doing really well and "fine" and "ok" is not only disingenuous, but bad for your Mental Health.

Have a read and let me know what you think

Yplan recently shut down in London and there's been some unbelievable (literally un-believable) commentary on their demise.

Half of the people in startups seem to think they were a bunch of gallivanting pirates living off VC cash with no hope of a return.

The other half believe the team were a bunch of brave swashbuckling entrepreneurs trying to change the world, willing to die trying.

Made me think a lot about failure, which is inevitable of course, but sometimes I think it's reckless and other times I think it's brave...

Great advice - thanks