As this book was being conceived, Brad Feld and I reached out to the founder community and asked for their anonymized inputs. We created a questionnaire of about 15 open-ended questions.

Over 150 founders from across the world responded. They shared their insights, perspectives, and challenges on mental health. All the voices have been included in the book, and some have been edited for clarity or space. Because the survey was anonymized, we believe it lends authenticity to their voices.

Aaron Swartz once said that there is still an enormous stigma in being sick, and we fully understand this social conundrum. Of course, there are several shortcomings in this survey methodology. For one, it's a snapshot in time, and also, it was pre-Covid. I am sure, for some, the founders' challenges were even more exacerbated amidst the pandemic.

Coincidentally, I came across the work done by Jan Chipchase and Jonny Miller. They had recently completed a survey – “Emotional Resilience in Leadership Report,” October 2020 – in which they gathered 261 respondents from 43 countries, and followed up with 26 follow-up phone interviews. I am grateful to them for sharing their findings. The duo operate a virtual masterclass exploring resilience fundamentals, through integrating resilience practices into your day, combining in-depth talks, hands-on activities, and group explorations. For more details see https://studiodradiodurans.com/products/emotional-resillience-masterclass.

A longitudinal study would be an excellent opportunity to better understand how founders' mental conditions evolve with external factors. And finally, the responses were partially subjective – data is neither empirical nor longitudinal. There are no statistical variances, ML models, inferences, hypotheses, or p values we had to calculate, thank God!