Stress among founders in Southeast Asia is still a big problem. Help is on the way

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It was 2017 when Tobias Meister started having problems breathing. After finishing all his work for the day, as he would lay on his bed to sleep, his asthma attacks would come. He was a fit guy and exercised three to four times a week. His sudden asthma made no sense.

After consulting a doctor friend, he was shocked when his friend told him simply: “The only reason you’re having this is because of your stress.”

Meister was no stranger to stress. In 2014, he left a five-year stint at Porsche to set up automobile customer relationship management startup Aureso. As the company’s CEO, he had seen Aureso run out of runway three times. With investors and a team of 15 people to answer to, and a family to take care of, his stress levels were mounting.

Learning that his physical troubles were the direct result of his stress was a huge wake-up call. It was the first time he realized that “there was something wrong,” and he started to take steps to learn how to better take care of his well-being.

Against the backdrop of a port in Singapore’s Marina Bay area in October 2018, Meister sat with some 20 founders gathered in Grab’s headquarters. The founders have decided to take charge of their well-being after experiencing issues – whether it was health-related like Meister’s or a close brush with burnout.

The common struggle of managing their personal well-being is what prompted 500 Startups, together with Grab and Good Culture – a unit of coaching startup Good Group that focuses on growth-stage startups – to hold a yearly program aimed at helping founders cope.

If you’re scoffing at the idea, don’t. Two years ago, 500 Startups managing partner Khailee Ng took to the stage at Tech in Asia Singapore conference to reveal that the venture capital firm had lost two founders to suicide within a year.

The stigma of emotional health is still prevalent in Asia, and few players are stepping up to do something about it.

A telling report published on Inc magazine reveals the psychological price of entrepreneurship: neglected mental health, and that takes a heavy toll on founders’ well-being. Citing statistics from experts, the report says founders experience higher levels of anxiety than the average worker.

“The fear of being perceived as a weak, incapable human being just because they feel inadequate about themselves trumps the need to open up about themselves and seek help,” says Penny Choo, founder of online florist BloomThis.

“People in this region generally have lower knowledge and awareness of mental health, and hence the ability for someone to get professional advice is challenging,” Choo continues.

Running like Usain Bolt

“[As an entrepreneur], you obviously have to push yourself out of your comfort zone, and with that comes a natural base-stress level,” shares Tom Lokenvitz, founder and CEO of Smove.

Lokenvitz has been running the Singapore-based car-sharing startup in the last five years. But his pursuit of self-management skills reached an all-time high a year ago when he was working on a big partnership with Uber. At the time, he was also tending to two children, aged one and two years. Needless to say, he wasn’t getting a lot of sleep.

The science of well-being

Founders are not robots