How to deal with the fear of founding a company

"When you become a startup founder, you have to believe in yourself" is one of the pieces of advice Dave, our CEO at Symph, shares.

It is normal to feel scared when you found a startup. The work is long: brainstorming, finding customers and building the product, and then doing all of it again, many times.

To succeed as a founder you have to face those fears. Things will get hard, and when they do, look straight at whatever you are afraid of, deal with reality as it is, and be brave about it.

What facing your fears looks like

1. Take a step back and introspect

There are many unknowns in building a startup. If you feel stuck, or you are scared of trying new and unfamiliar things, take a step back and ask yourself, "Why are we doing this again? Is this the best way to go about this? What are my other options??"

It also helps to look at why you feel the way you do about certain things. Say you notice you are nervous before an upcoming meeting. Ask yourself, "Why am Inervous going to this meeting? What are the things that make me feel uncomfortable?"

Those questions get you to the root of how you feel, so you can deal with it.

2. Think like a scientist

Fear often comes from uncertainty, because we don't know if what we are about to do will work.

Say you have an idea for a new feature, or you are thinking about pivoting your product in a new direction, and you don't know if your market will buy it. Instead of freezing, go ahead, test it, and see how your market responds.

Run the experiment small, with calculated risk. If it doesn't work the way you expected, find out why, then iterate on what you learned.

3. Listen to your customers

Listening is one of the most useful communication skills a founder can have.

Go out and listen to the people you want to build for. Find out what real problems they have and what they have already tried to solve them. Have several deliberate conversations, explore with them, and dig into the challenges they run into.

It helps to learn how to ask good questions. One tip is to watch interview videos and notice how the interviewers ask theirs.

Above all, be curious. When you want to know the answer, good questions come naturally, and the more you do it, the better you listen and the more useful your experiments get at solving your customers' problems.

It will get harder and you will face big challenges, whether you like it or not. Once you practice these habits you get the hang of it. It stays hard, but you get better at handling the situation and how you respond to it.

Ask for help from people who can guide you. If you have questions about being a startup founder, email our Symph Startup Labs team at startuplabs@symph.co.