When founders going through Google’s prestigious Black Founders Fund need a therapist to talk about the hard stuff, they turn to Chantel Cohen.
Cohen, a therapist and founder/CEO of CWC Coaching and Therapy, has held over 2,500 sessions over the last five years with founders going through Google for Startup (GFS). As a therapist and a certified business coach, Cohen told Hypepotamus that she jokingly refers to herself as a “TheraCoach.” And for founders, having a therapist that understands the difficult founder journey is important.
“People think entrepreneurship is sexy [and] I think that it really puts entrepreneurs in a box because they can’t talk about the struggle,” Cohen said. “70% of entrepreneurs have some sort of mental health challenge or crisis during their tenure as a founder. They have higher rates of depression, higher rates of ADHD, substance abuse, divorce.”
CWC works with founders on work-life integration, EQ (emotional intelligence), anxiety, depression, and how to improve the most important relationships in their lives: the one they have with a significant other and the one they have with a co-founder. The goal is to talk through problems and then what next steps might be, be it coming up with a new hiring strategy, a new scheduling system, or a new team communication strategy.
One of the big things she talks with founders about is getting enough sleep. That is counterintuitive to the ‘burning the midnight oil’ mentality that is typical for early-stage founders.
Founder Therapy In 2024
Working with Google for Startup founders – and also founders with Lenovo and Village Capital – has given Cohen and her team at CWC a unique look at what mental health challenges are really impacting founders right now. Yes, many struggled with the tough fundraising landscape. Others have had to navigate their emotions around decisions to shut down businesses or cut staff due to difficult market conditions.
But 2023 and 2024 have created new mental stressors for underrepresented founders after the Fearless Fund lawsuit got underway.
The anti-DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) lawsuit against the Atlanta-based VC firm The Fearless Fund has put the future of grant and investor programs for female and Black-focused businesses into question. “That has been on everyone’s mind. And it’s not just black founders. LatinX and women founders are wondering, are we next? It’s really affecting a lot of people mentally and wondering what it means for the future.”
Founder Resources
While Cohen doesn’t have all the answers as to what the future of entrepreneurship looks like, she does have an abundance of resources for founders on the CWC website. You can get a flavor of the topics that a “TheraCoach” can help founders navigate through this YouTube videos.
