『The Founder Exhale』のカバーアート

The Founder Exhale

The Founder Exhale

著者： James Oliver Jr.
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Real conversations with exited founders about what 'success' actually costs, and what it takes to protect your mental health along the way. I also talk with values-aligned investors and mental health leaders who are changing how the startup world treats wellbeing. Welcome to the show shattering the silence around founder mental health.2026 マネジメント・リーダーシップ リーダーシップ 心理学 心理学・心の健康 経済学 衛生・健康的な生活
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  • Nick Merich: Nobody Warns You About Burnout After the Exit

    Nick Merich: Nobody Warns You About Burnout After the Exit
    2026/08/01

    Everyone talks about burning out on the way to the exit, but nobody talks about what happens after.

    Nick Merich co-founded Songlink, built it to 22 million users, and sold it to Linktree. Then he felt like he jumped off a cliff, and there was no bottom.

    In this episode:

    Nick takes us behind the highlight reel. The perfectly crafted LinkedIn posts, the Instagram moments, the version of yourself you put out into the world when you're building something and desperately need it to work. He talks about why he used edibles not to get high but to get ten thousand feet above his business and look at it differently, and why he doesn't see that as a problem. He talks about selling Songlink and expecting the exit to solve things it was never going to solve. The identity loss that followed. The free fall. What it felt like to wake up the morning after the wire transfer and not know what to do with himself. He talks about his wife seeing the writing on the wall long before he could say it out loud, and about Saturday morning pickup basketball with his dad and cousins being the thing that actually grounded him when nothing else did. And he talks about what he tells founders now when they come to him burned out, whether they've exited or not.

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Introduction and welcome to The Founder Exhale
    02:35 The highlight reel and what's actually happening behind it
    04:10 Using edibles to get perspective, not to escape
    08:30 What the exit actually solved and what it didn't
    14:26 Identity loss and the free fall after the wire transfer
    17:17 Purpose, passion, and what happens when your vehicle disappears
    21:09 What burnout actually is, and what it isn't
    24:51 Back from the break: what Nick's wife saw that he couldn't
    27:32 Saturday pickup basketball, Gryt Run Club, and what real recovery looks like
    29:18 Practical advice for founders dealing with burnout right now
    31:52 Self-awareness as a gift, and why it took Nick 35 years to ask for help
    33:18 The dad joke and its backstory
    35:40 How to connect with Nick

    Resources and links:

    Gryt Run Club: Connect

    Nick Merich on LinkedIn: Connect

    Nick Merich on Instagram: Connect

    Nick's email: merichnick@gmail.com

    Yuna Health: Free Yuna licenses for founders

    James' book, Burn Bright, Not Out: https://a.co/d/a5PHUjD

    Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund: kabilamentalhealth.com

    The Founder Exhale website: thefounderexhale.com

    Support the work:

    The Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund has awarded nearly 90 mental therapy grants to founders who need support but can't afford it. If this episode moved you, please consider making a donation at kabilamentalhealth.com. Every dollar helps a founder get the support they deserve.

    Subscribe, follow, and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform, and visit thefounderexhale.com to leave a voicemail or send a note via the contact form. I want to hear what you thought.

    Be well, y'all. 🤠
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    36 分
  • Shaler Houser: I Burned It All the Way Down

    Shaler Houser: I Burned It All the Way Down
    2026/07/20

    Shaler Houser built and sold four companies over three decades. He also lost everything more than once, not just financially, but personally.

    In this episode, I sit down with Shaler Houser, a 4x exited founder and Partner at Founderville VC, who has spent nearly three decades building companies, losing everything, rebuilding, and using every hard-won lesson to invest in and support the founders coming up behind him.

    This is the most honest conversation I've had about addiction, identity, and what it looks like to burn your life all the way down and come back from it.

    In this episode:

    Shaler takes us back to April 14, 2000, the day NuVox filed to go public, which turned out to be the very day the NASDAQ had its biggest single-day crash in history. He walks us through the merger, the recapitalization, and what it felt like to go from 2.7 million shares at $12 to $14 per share to 27,000 shares at a dollar, while carrying personal debt borrowed against those same holdings.

    He talks about what it felt like to be forced out of the company he founded, wrote the business plan for, and wrote the first check for, at 29 years old.

    He talks about how the addiction that had been quietly building through all of it finally spiraled, and what it took to get sober, including three months in a treatment facility. He talks about his mom, the promise he made her, the four and a half years of sobriety, and the relapse six weeks after she passed.

    And he talks about building YouTurn Health, the company he says he's most proud of, out of everything he lived through.

    He also shares something that reframed how I think about founder mental wellness as a VC strategy: stigma is what drives investor apathy. If the VP at a major fund hasn't addressed their own struggles, they're not going to talk about it with their portfolio founders. That insight deserves its own conversation.

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Introduction and welcome to The Founder Exhale
    02:00 Shaler's background and entrepreneurial journey including Green Cloud Technologies
    03:21 The NuVox IPO filing and the day the NASDAQ crashed
    08:48 The recapitalization, the identity shatter, and walking away with nothing
    12:37 How addiction built quietly through the founder journey and finally spiraled
    16:28 Building YouTurn Health for families navigating addiction recovery
    18:41 How Shaler's experience shapes the way he invests and shows up for founders
    21:35 Why stigma drives investor apathy around founder mental health
    22:33 Founder mental wellness as a portfolio risk mitigation strategy
    24:01 The final question: what to say to a founder sitting alone with substances right now
    30:24 The dad joke segment
    31:20 How to connect with Shaler and learn more about YouTurn Health

    Resources and links:

    YouTurn Health: youturnhealth.com

    Shaler Houser on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shalerhouserhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/shaler-houser-801187/

    Shaler Houser on X: @shalerhouser

    Founderville VC: https://founderville.vc/

    Burn Bright, Not Out: https://a.co/d/a5PHUjD

    Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund: kabilamentalhealth.com

    The Founder Exhale website: thefounderexhale.com

    Support the work:

    The Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund has awarded nearly 90 mental therapy grants to founders who need support but can't afford it. If this episode moved you, please consider making a donation at kabilamentalhealth.com. Every dollar helps a founder get the support they deserve.

    Please subscribe, follow, and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform, and visit thefounderexhale.com to leave a voicemail or send a note via the contact form. I want to hear what you thought.

    Be well, y'all. 🤠
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    32 分
  • Grant Winns: What Four Successful Exits Taught Him About Self-Doubt

    Grant Winns: What Four Successful Exits Taught Him About Self-Doubt
    2026/07/01
    Every founder deals with self-doubt, but most never tell anyone. In the very first episode of The Founder Exhale, I sit down with Grant Winns, an 8-time founder with 4 successful exits, including the globally recognized brand BYLT Basics, and CEO of Yuna Health, an AI-native mental health platform built to fill the gap between crisis care and traditional therapy. Grant gets real about the mental health challenges across two decades of entrepreneurship, what self-doubt actually looks like from the inside, and why he built Yuna Health for a version of himself that needed it most. In this episode: We get into self-doubt and how it showed up for Grant from the very beginning, when he dropped out of school, moved to California, and bet on himself with his first company. We talk about the difference between your startup happening because of you, of you, and through you, and why that third level changes everything for your mental wellness. Grant shares why he kept his self-doubt completely private for the first three quarters of his career, what he was afraid would happen if people found out, and why he now believes sharing it is the move. We also dig into confidence, what it means to wear it as armor versus build it as a muscle, and how, as a kid, Grant had a wrestling match while terrified and still won. And Grant shares something he says he's never said out loud on a stage or in an interview: that even after his biggest wins, he still felt like a failure. What you'll hear: Grant's framework for moving from self-doubt to action, starting with your inner circle and working outward. Why journaling your fears is one of the most underrated tools a founder has. The three levels of entrepreneurial identity, and why "this thing is coming through me" is the one that protects your mental health. Why the unspoken, unclarified fear is the dangerous one. Mike Ma's chapter in Burn Bright, Not Out, "You Are Your Startup. You Are Not Your Startup." and why it hits different after hearing Grant's story. The Gain and the Gap by Benjamin Hardy, and why Grant thinks founders spend too much time staring at what's ahead instead of how far they've come. And Grant's final message to any founder sitting alone right now, dealing with self-doubt and not telling anyone. The gift: Yuna donated 300 free licenses to the Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund for founders in my ecosystem. That's $60,000 worth of access to an AI mental health companion, at no cost to you. Go to yuna.io/founderexhale to activate yours. Timestamps: 02:05 Grant's journey and the personal story behind Yuna Health 04:05 How I use Yuna daily and what it's done for my mental wellness 05:40 Self-doubt as a founder: Grant takes us back to the beginning 08:25 Do I have what it takes? The imposter syndrome nobody talks about 11:14 The three levels: because of me, of me, and through me 12:52 Who did you tell? Grant's honest answer for the first three quarters of his career 16:06 Wearing confidence as armor vs. building it as a muscle 18:29 The wrestling match, fear, and acting as if 22:52 Succeeding on paper while feeling like a failure inside 29:40 Therapy, Yuna, and what finally moved Grant from clinical back to functional 33:15 What to do right now if you're a founder sitting alone in self-doubt 35:05 The dad joke (it's founder-specific, I'll let you decide if it lands) 37:22 How to connect with Grant and claim your free Yuna license Resources and links: Yuna Health: Free Yuna licenses for founders Grant Winns on LinkedIn Grant's email: grant@yuna.io James' book: Burn Bright, Not Out The Gain and the Gap, by Benjamin Hardy Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund The Founder Exhale website Support the work: The Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund has awarded nearly 90 mental therapy grants to founders who need support but can't afford it. If this episode meant something to you, please consider being a donor at kabilamentalhealth.com. Every dollar helps a founder get the support they deserve. Subscribe, follow, and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform, and visit the podcast website to leave a voicemail or drop me a note via the contact form. I want to hear what you think. Be well, y'all. 🤠
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    38 分
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