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Lisa Mikkelsen

5 Empathetic Leadership Tips for Burnout Recovery for High-Performance Startups

Building boldly, leading sustainably

Flourish Co-Hosts Founder Wellbeing Lounge at NYC Fintech Week

In an effort to support fintech startup founder wellbeing, Flourish Ventures and Barclay's Rise New York held a full-day event during NYC Fintech Week 2024. The schedule was full of presenters including Michael Tennant, an author and expert on empathy in the workplace. https://vimeo.com/982860647

Opinion: Can VCs and Founders Hustle More Responsibly?

By Emmalyn Shaw and Lisa Mikkelsen for the The Financial Revolutionist (see original article) After two trying years of market over-correction, many fintech founders—even those who built profitable, impactful companies—are nearing a personal breaking point. According to a 2024 survey by Sifted of 156 tech founders, 49% are considering quitting...

Opinion: Successful Startups Are Led by Healthy Founders

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. At Flourish, we want founders to thrive, along with their companies. In the past few years, we have explored…

[The Future Farm] Emma Obanye On The Ugly Reality of Exiting a Startup

About the Episode In this NAKED podcast episode, our hosts Nektarios, Vladimira, and our guest, Emma, explore the complex emotions and challenges that came up for her after exiting a startup. They discuss the importance of addressing unresolved issues from the past, understanding one’s motivations for success, and the role...

Groundbreaking Study Shows Links Between Founder Health And Performance in Brazil

At Flourish, we see the pressure rising for startup founders and their teams and believe it’s critical to learn more about the challenges they’re facing and how they can prioritize well-being. We collaborated with Endeavor Brazil for a groundbreaking study called Health and Performance of High Impact Entrepreneurs (March 2024)....

[The Future Farm] Lottie Unwin On Breaking Down and Integrating Wellbeing into The Founder Life

About the Episode In this NAKED podcast episode, our hosts Nektarios, Vladimira, and our guest, Lottie, discuss her breakdown and how it took her by surprise. They discuss learning to look out for signals, the importance of introspection and self-awareness and how to get better by integrating wellbeing into one’s...

Making Founder Mental Health & Well-Being a Priority & Why It is Important

Startup founders are some of the most committed, hardworking, innovative people in the world. But even in the best of times, they exist in a pressure cooker. And the relentless stress can sometimes lead to burnout. Nevertheless, mental health has historically been a taboo topic in the venture capital...

Hard-Headed, Soft-Hearted

"How are venture capital firms redefining their role to support both business performance and founder well-being?" This pertinent question sets the stage for a captivating episode of The Conscious Entrepreneur podcast, where host Alex Raymond, following up on a discussion from the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit in 2023, sits down...

Flourish Conversations: What Investors Need to Know About Empathy

Empathy is in short supply these days and founders who are dealing with stress and anxiety can feel particularly isolated and unsupported. In this timely discussion, Jamil Zaki, Stanford professor and author of The War For Kindness, shares his cutting-edge research showing how empathy is a skill that can be strengthened...

[PitchBook] Prioritizing founders' mental health could pay off for VCs

Mental health has rarely been discussed in the venture capital community but the issue has garnered more attention recently, particularly among startup founders finding themselves under increased pressure in the current downturn. By Leah Hodgson The pressures of raising funds, meeting performance targets and coping with a stressful work-life balance are...