Mental Health in the Startup Ecosystem

[Music]

being a startup india mentor

i have i have been mentoring a lot of

startups a lot of people

in order to empower them but having said

that

life has not been so easy to me it has

always been a rollercoaster ride

my job didn’t go well due to my then

developed bronchitis

owing to which i couldn’t commute in a

public transport

result no job nothing i was unemployed

for three

long years and you know the norm of our

society

if you do not have a good job good

salary you’re good for nothing

basically useless and i faced that for

three long years

leading to insomnia and finally

depression

yes i faced that and i do not afraid

telling

everyone that i have been a sufferer i

have been a survivor of depression

so that that doesn’t matter if you tell

that

after that i wanted to start something

of my own

that time when i was suffering from

depression but i couldn’t do that

even though i was aware how to do that

how to start a startup but i couldn’t

because of the mental issue i was going

through that particular time

my family comes into play they diagnosed

my symptoms they took me to the doctor

yes there is a doctor for depression as

well so they took me to the doctor

and that worked perfectly and that’s the

reason i am here

right in front of you having my own

startup and at the same time mentoring

others

in this so that is the reason today we

are going to talk about the least talk

about topic in our startup ecosystem

and that is mental health what is mental

health what do you understand by that

mental health is any other disease that

has a cause that has a symptom and that

has

a treatment as well but the problem is

people on our

people are not aware about it they

hesitate

while and while you know admitting it

that they are suffering rest about

reading that

according to world health organization

about 7.5 percent of the indian

population suffers from

one or the other kind of mental health

disorder

and this percentage is going to rise by

20 percent

this year itself and the worst part is

the treatment gap is over 70 percent yes

it is people care a lot about their

physical health

but not about their mental health now

let’s come to the most interesting topic

startup so how many of you here are

crazy about the word startup

can you please raise your hand well i am

also one of those

crazy about startup what is the first

thing that comes into your mind when you

think of startup

funding funding maybe yeah that is a

major thing

when we do startups but one of the most

important aspect in a startup is the

mental pressure

that a founder has gone through there

are a lot of things going in a founder’s

mind

every minute a startup is starting every

single minute

but nine out of 10 failed

so why why those 90 percent failed have

you ever thought about that

well they do not fail because they do

not have the capability to grow

they failed because of the mental stress

of the founders

on the founder’s mind a lot of things

goes into a founder’s mind when starting

a startup

for example what would be my starting

cost what if i do not get clients

what if i do not get funding because my

competitors are getting funding

what if i do not have a three story

lavish office

what if whatever what if what if i fail

all these things leads to anger all

these things

leads to anxiety and if if doesn’t uh

and if it doesn’t go well it can even go

worse

you all must have heard about the

suicide case of mr vijay siddhartha

the ccd the famous ccd owner what do you

think

why he took that step it’s not because

ccd is not doing well

it is it’s because of the mental stress

he was going through

so you can understand the pressure that

can go onto a founder’s mind

these are the kind of things that can

happen so now

if i talk about even after people

realize that they are suffering from

mental health they do not

share it with someone else because of

the reason what people would say

lokia because we know how our society

perceives mental health

mostly people says no this paper this if

if the person is suffering from mental

health he is basically mad

he is insane or he is just mocking

around if he is suffering he should

directly go to the mental asylum

no doctor nothing he should directly go

to the mental asylum

few of the people will come they will

try to console you because i’m not

saying

all the people are same even our fingers

are not the same so there are people

there are few people who will try to

come

to console you but at some point or the

other they will also

start disconnecting thinking this people

is usually

this person is useless let leave him

alone

we cannot do anything for him so

basically

this is what our society perceives about

mental health

and this is the major reason why there

is a treatment gap

of over 70 percent there is a way to

overcome this

first accept you have to accept the that

yes you are suffering from mental health

once you accept that it’s easy to uh

real it’s easy to share

now since you have accepted that share

out speak out

you have to share it out you have to

share it out with your near and dear

ones

if you do not have near and dear ones

please go to a doctor you can share it

with him

and the third one i’m saying this it’s

very difficult to do

that but please try to remain as

positive as possible

because this is the most important thing

because if you will remain positive

everything everything will go positive

starting a startup is easy but running

is not

definitely not especially in this

competitive world

because every every other person is

trying to degrade you every other person

is going to come and say

your startup is not going well it’s not

doing that much

your competitor is earning so much what

if you fail

no problem even if i fail i will learn

something

even if i fail i have not lost something

because if you do not start if you do

not follow your passion

then you will always have a guilt in

your heart

all across your life all through your

life that i have not even tried

i have not even tried once what if i

succeed

if there are 50 chances of failure then

there are 50 chances of success as well

so please do try so there are few people

who motivate us

so there are people who motive us

motivate us to leave their job to follow

their passion and do something

do something of their own so now

how about if we discuss this through a

story of a real startup guy

there was a guy a college student

basically

he right after his college he started

his own startup

because he had he had this passion of

having his own company

instead of working for someone else so

he started his company

he worked on it for around a year and

after that

being a mentor he come he came he came

to me

and asking what should i do ma’am should

i

should i close my company or should i

continue with this so i i had this

simple question

what is the reason why are you asking

this question are you not earning enough

to meet your needs

so his answer was no ma’am i am then

what is the problem my my competitor has

got one million dollar funding

but mera so that is not the reason that

you will close

why why you should shut your company why

why you should shut your

dream that is not the point so i tried

to explain him

that this is not the reason that you are

that you are shutting your company the

main reason is the mental stress that

you are taking

so if you do not take that stress if you

go forward without the stress

you will succeed you will succeed for

sure so if you

if you came to me if you believe in me

please run your company for another six

months

he did that and again he came back to me

and this time

he was earning four times as much as he

was earning earlier and definitely more

satisfied

and more happy so if he can do that

why can’t you why can’t anyone else just

give it a thought and follow your

passion

without a without having any stress any

mental pressure of the society

especially

thank you so much

you