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