Burnout has become one of the most pressing challenges in modern workplaces, affecting productivity, employee well-being, and overall team morale. In startups it is even more common given the level of uncertainty and persistent workload. Startup founders in particular are high-risk, given we put so much of our energy and livelihood into our ventures that it can be quite draining. 

Yet, it’s often overlooked until it’s too late. As burnout continues to rise across many startups, it’s critical to address it head-on with proactive strategies and effective solutions. 

In this post, we’re diving into the key ways to detect, prevent, and address burnout in both personal and team settings. To guide us through this essential topic is Ines Gramegna, Chief Product Officer at Pando, a seasoned leader and founder with over three years of research into the causes of and solutions to burnout. Ines is not only a seasoned startup operator but also a trained coach specializing in workplace wellness. In this guide, she shares her insights and strategies—helping both individuals and organizations create healthier, more sustainable work cultures. Whether you're experiencing burnout yourself or looking to support your team, these tactical steps will set you on the path to well-being and success.

What is burnout? 

Burnout is a term we hear all the time, but what is it truly? Burnout appears when individuals simultaneously experience emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (you start feeling disconnected from your emotions)  and reduced personal efficacy (you lose confidence in your capacity to take action and change your circumstances). How does this show up in our day to day lives? It’s important to realize it isn’t a black or white condition but rather a scale. To learn more, read the 12 stages of burnout that Clear Behavior Health put together.

How Do You Detect Burnout?

Before you can prevent or address burnout, you need to know what to look for. Burnout isn’t just feeling tired; it’s a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that comes from prolonged stress, frustration, and energy drain.

According to a study by Gallup (2021), over 76% of employees report experiencing burnout at some point in their careers, and nearly 40% say they feel burnt out often. Detecting burnout early can prevent long-term health consequences and help employees stay productive and engaged in their work.

Your symptoms will depend on where on the spectrum you are, but some of the key signs of burnout especially the early stages:

• Physical Symptoms:
  • Chronic fatigue and low energy levels, even after rest
  • Frequent illness (due to a weakened immune system)
• Emotional Symptoms:
  • Increased irritability, mood swings, and detachment from work
  • Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, or apathy
• Behavioral Symptoms:
  • Reduced productivity or a drop in work quality
  • Neglecting responsibilities or disengaging from key tasks
• Cognitive Symptoms:
  • Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
  • Memory problems or feeling mentally “foggy”

Beyond stage five, all the symptoms become much more clear-cut and severe. This will make it much easier to identify burnout but also a lot harder to reverse.

By recognizing these symptoms early, you can take action before burnout becomes a chronic problem. 

Do a quick self-assessment

If you’re curious if you might be at risk or experiencing burnout, some online tests have been developed. The industry standard is still the Maslach Burnout Inventory. You can do a quick self-assessment here.

How Do I Prevent Burnout?

Preventing burnout requires a proactive approach, emphasizing a balance between work, rest, and personal well-being. Research, including insights from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Gallup, shows that burnout isn’t just a result of individual overwork but is also deeply rooted in organizational factors like poor management, lack of autonomy, and unclear expectations. 

Here are some practical, tactical strategies to reduce the risk of burnout in the workplace:

1. Understand your needs, energy and purpose:

This is going to be particularly important as a founder because your identity, grit and purpose are going to be tested. Remember that you are not your company; dissociating your identity from your company is key.

• Build a sense of self-awareness and purpose: As founders, we constantly want to see things through to the end. However, this can be both exhausting and inefficient for us and our teams. Determine what are your non-negotiables and what you must own. Focus on the areas that give you energy, not the ones that drain you. This will become your purpose and drive. From there, you can delegate out to your team, and will as a result, be setting an example of boundaries and responsibilities. 
  • Regular Check-Ins: Have regular self-assessments to gauge your mental and emotional well-being. You can use tools like journaling or simply check in with how you’re feeling.
• Know where you get your sense of self-worth:  This is different for every founder and individual. Determine where your purpose and passion overlap with the areas where you can make the most impact. Spending the majority of your time here should only increase belief in yourself.
• Autonomy within your work: While every day as a founder will be different, you can structure not only when you work, but how you work and what you do at work. Maybe this means early mornings from 8 to 10 am are heads down time or you make a rule of only 2 internal meetings a day. Find out the recipe that gives you the autonomy to be effective and productive.  

2. Manage Your Workload:

‍This is particularly important as a founder as you are often going to feel like your list of to dos will far outweigh what you can accomplish in a day.

• Realistic Expectations: Be clear about what you can reasonably accomplish within a given timeframe. Overloading yourself leads to burnout. According to Gallup's research, a heavy workload is one of the primary causes of burnout, often leading to disengagement.
• Delegate and Collaborate: Don’t hesitate to delegate tasks or ask for help. Leverage team members' strength to complete tasks at the end. Ask a member of your marketing team to help create an effective investor presentation. By doing so, you will reduce your own workload and empower others around you.
• Time Blocking: Schedule your day with specific blocks of time for focused work, meetings, and breaks. Prioritize your tasks by determining effort and impact levels to avoid feeling overwhelmed by a never-ending to-do list. Start with low effort, high impact items and work up from there. 

3. Prioritize Self-Care: ‍

Founders are used to putting other things on hold to move the business forward. But remember you are running a marathon, not a sprint. Especially in this climate, exits are taking longer to materialize, funding rounds take longer to close. So pace yourself.

• Physical Activity: Regular exercise can reduce stress and improve mood. Even small activities, like walking or stretching, can make a big difference.
• Nutrition and Hydration: Eating well-balanced meals and staying hydrated can boost energy levels and reduce stress.
• Mental Health Breaks: Schedule short breaks throughout your day to clear your mind. Consider practicing mindfulness or meditation to reduce stress. WHO also emphasizes the need for mental health programs in organizations to help employees manage stress effectively.

4. Maintain Social Connections:

‍Founders can often find themselves isolated because few sympathize with their struggles and their relationship to:

• Work Relationships: Foster positive relationships with colleagues and supervisors. A supportive work environment makes it easier to manage stress and avoid feelings of isolation. Gallup’s findings suggest that employees who feel supported by their colleagues and managers are less likely to experience burnout. In fact, one of the most predictive factors of burnout is not having a friend at work.
• Socializing Outside Work: Make time for friends, family, and hobbies outside of work. Strong personal relationships provide emotional support and recharge your mental batteries.
• Leveraging networks: Utilize communities like Pando, VCs, and incubators to connect with other founders who understand issues specific to your role. Within these groups, you can let your guard down and speak to any problem areas with true authenticity.

How Do I Address Burnout for Myself and My Team?

Addressing burnout requires both individual and collective action. Every individual is unique so everyone's approach will look different. Here’s how you can take steps to confront burnout, both personally and for your team.

The strategies you implement will depend on the stage of burnout you and/or your team are experiencing. To simplify, we will break out the early stage of burnout from the late stage using Clear Behavior Health’s framework of 12 stages of burnout. 

Early Stage (1-4): The Need to Prove Oneself -> Conflicts with Others‍

If you or an employee is at one of these beginning stages, it is quite possible to course correct by oneself. 

1. Acknowledge and Reflect: The first step to recovery is acknowledging that you’re burnt out. Reflect on what’s contributing to your burnout—whether it’s workload, work culture, or personal challenges—and make a plan to address it.
2. Communicate Your Needs: Talk to someone you trust about how you’re feeling. This can be someone at work, but doesn’t have to be. If you are a founder, talk about it openly with your team so you create a culture where you normalize communicating your needs. Encourage employees to do the same and to also reach out to managers for support. Being transparent about your struggles can lead to practical solutions like adjusting deadlines, taking time off, or adjusting your responsibilities. Gallup also highlights the importance of manager support in helping employees address burnout early, with employees whose managers engage regularly being 70% less likely to experience burnout. 
3. Create Space: Sometimes, the best way to recover from burnout is to take a break. For founders, it is sometimes difficult to take days or weeks off of work -- maybe you add in a 30-minute walk break to your daily schedule. 

Middle Stage (5-8): Reevaluating Your Values -> Odd Behavioral Changes

These stages require help from others whether this is managers, a career coach, or the internal HR team. 

1. Train Managers on Burnout: This is likely a skillset that is overlooked during manager training. Ensure your team managers are equipped to detect early signals, to handle these conversations and have the tools to address them. 
2. Take Time Off: Sometimes, the best way to recover from burnout is to take a break. Use your vacation time or sick leave to recharge. If you can’t take extended time off, aim for smaller “mental health” days to give yourself a rest.
3. Reframe Your Perspective: Shift your focus from what’s overwhelming you to what you’re achieving or what gives you energy. Try to reframe your tasks with a growth mindset. This will help create a purpose for you and your team. For founders in particular, this may mean re-evaluating your sense of self-worth being directly tied to your company and its success. If you feel overwhelmed by work, break it down into achievable goals that feel more manageable. You may not be able to do this on your own, so reach out to a coach or someone close to you who knows you well. 
4. Celebrate the Individual: Everyone gets energy in different ways - some need social gatherings with lots of people, others might want a walk in solitude. Figure out what works for every member and celebrate that! Same goes for how people cope -- encourage team members to share their styles so folks know when and how to share comfort.     

Later Stage (9-12): Depersonalization -> Full-Blown Burnout Syndrome‍

If you find yourself or a colleague in any of these stages, you will need to get outside professional and medical help.

1. Act Quickly: Address the situation head on with yourself and team members. Ask for help and encourage others to do the same. Bring in outside help, whether that’s a therapist, doctor or life coach. 
2. Make a Plan: Create a short-term and long-term plan for you and your employees. This might mean a reduced workload or a leave of absence. 

An Example: Ines’s personal “burnout antidote” ‍

Here is the toolkit I have assembled over the last few years to ensure that I am the best version of myself. It’s important to note that you want to find tactics that address the three components of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal efficacy. Find out your perfect recipe because it will look different for everyone and don’t be afraid to experiment! What might work for you today might not work in a year so be flexible and easy on yourself.

My non-negotiables are: 

Maintenance:

1. Weekly Yoga Practice: This gives me a sense of personal efficacy because I can see myself improve over weeks. It also pushes me to develop the muscle of ‘letting go’ of what doesn’t work and not to get too attached to success.
2. Spending time with my family (especially cooking & playing): This allows me to put things into perspective and to replenish my emotional bucket. I find cooking to be very meditative while the playful mindset helps me feel alive and fully present in my body. It brings just pure joy. This helps with both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.
3. Talking to mentors regularly: This helps me remind me of my purpose and why I keep fighting for things that matter to me. This helps with a sense of depersonalization to remind me of my sense of purpose and direction. 

When things flare up:

4. Journaling before going to bed: In particular when I am feeling frustrated or losing energy, writing about it helps me untangle the true underlying reasons. It helps reduce the power of those things over me. It also helps me sleep better once I’ve put it all on paper. This helps a lot with the sense of emotional (and physical) exhaustion. 
5. Taking it out on the pavement: Running is very therapeutic for me. It allows me to feel more present in my body and allows my thoughts to flow on their own. This helps in particular with depersonalization. 
6. Working with a coach: This helps to address all three - emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal efficacy. It gives me a space to be myself and vent, to analyze my emotions and root causes, and the action-orientation also helps with feeling a sense of unblocking and personal efficacy.

What does your burnout antidote look like?

Resources ‍

Below are a compilation of resources we think would be helpful for you as you explore burnout more.

• Gallup’s Research on Burnout
• Clear Behavior Health 12 Stages of Burnout
• Dileepan Siva, Website
• Ranah Edelin, Website 
• Annie Garofalo, Confidante

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