“It’s always been my mission to take psychological concepts that are often overly complex and jargony and put them in language that people can actually understand and take action on,” says 

, Psy.D. This knack is perhaps best displayed by Anhalt’s Twitter game, where she’s able to unpack convoluted theories of psychology 

When she’s not dropping knowledge on social media, Anhalt’s efforts are more specifically aimed at founders. She grew up in Silicon Valley, and was fascinated by the mind of the entrepreneur from an early age. After she finished her training, Anhalt made a career of studying entrepreneurs, cementing herself as an experienced psychologist who’s spent more than a decade helping executives and founders work through their emotions.

It’s important — and much needed — work. In the face of long hours, the turbulent financial path to building a new company, and pressure to make key decisions, founders confront a unique set of mental wellbeing challenges. They're often walking a thin tightrope between self-belief and self-doubt — the steadfast optimism in their vision to change an industry, and the fear that they don’t have the chops to pull it off. “Founders will go above and beyond to do what’s necessary for their company. But they often stop short when it comes to fulfilling this same commitment to themselves and their mental wellbeing,” says Anhalt.

At the core of Anhalt’s approach is her steadfast belief that if founders make taking care of their mental health an ongoing and proactive practice, it will reverberate through their companies, forging more resilient startups with healthier cultures and happier employees. In other words, 

strong companies take shape when emotionally fit founders are sitting at the top

“Here’s what I mean by emotional fitness: Beyond having good coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety, depression, self-doubt and a series of curveballs that are completely out of your control, a founder must be able to form and maintain good relationships. You must be able to communicate effectively with co-founders, investors and employees,” says Anhalt. “Studies show that 

72% of entrepreneurs have mental health concerns

 — but I very much doubt that a similar proportion of founders are currently in therapy. And far too often we see the consequences of a failure to do that work when startups implode, whether it’s due to a toxic work culture, 

, or deep-seated leadership challenges.”

Part of the uniqueness of Anhalt’s approach is that it is shaped by both her experience as a therapist and researcher and as a founder herself. As the co-founder and Chief Clinical Officer of 

, Anhalt is scaling access to the tools founders need most by building a mental fitness community that offers therapist-led group classes (typically in person, but now virtual) and therapist matchmaking services.

“Someone recently asked me, ‘How have your views about emotional fitness changed now that you’re a founder?’ I certainly have a new appreciation for how tough it is. But I also have a profound conviction in how important it is,” says Anhalt. “That one hour a week you set aside to tend to your emotional health frees up so many hours that would have otherwise been spent on thoughts that were subtly pulling you away from your work.”

And there couldn’t be a better time for us all to listen intently to what Anhalt has long been preaching. A founder’s path has always been paved with big emotional boulders, but it’s particularly fraught now.

In this exclusive interview, Anhalt provides a roadmap for how founders can get to work on their emotional fitness. What we really appreciate about Anhalt’s approach is that she takes topics that are generally squishy and pins them down into concrete frameworks and accessible tips. In addition to making a compelling case for setting aside the time — 

 in the midst of a crisis — to work on emotional fitness, she draws on her research and day-to-day work with founders to further break down seven specific traits of emotional health, why they’re important for founders and a set of “exercises” for building up each of those muscles.

“Even if you aren’t feeling ill, that doesn’t mean you have a clean bill of physical health. You may not be exercising or eating healthy. Preventive care is crucial — when you work on your physical fitness, you get stronger and you’re less likely to get sick later,” says Anhalt.

“Emotional health is similar. Many people wait until they’re having debilitating anxiety before they start to think seriously about taking action. Maintaining emotional fitness is an ongoing, proactive practice that increases self-awareness, positively affects relationships, improves leadership skills and prevents mental and emotional health struggles down the line. 

Think about it less like going to the doctor and more like going to the gym

Just because founders aren’t having daily panic attacks does not mean that they are emotionally fit.

“The COVID-19 crisis has further illuminated how important ongoing work on emotional fitness is. I’m seeing off the charts anxiety and stress from founders lately. None of us could have seen this coming, of course, but the people who were already working on their emotional health are better equipped to handle this unexpected patch of turbulence,” she says. “They understand what their triggers are, the healthy and unhealthy ways they react to adversity and how to reach out for support.”

If working on your emotional fitness wasn’t a priority or possibility beforehand, Anhalt recognizes that it may feel overwhelming to start now, in the midst of a seismic crisis.  “But it’s never too late to start thinking more deeply about your own emotional fitness and it's never been more important to make that investment. While I do want to acknowledge that issues of access and privilege make this much more challenging for some entrepreneurs, 

I want to push every founder to seriously examine the notion that they ‘don’t have time’ for this work right now, that they just need to ‘get through’ this crisis

“I understand the need to keep going and stay focused — but I also know that the very things that make founders successful are also the things that can get in their way. Whether it’s the ability to work autonomously, push through exhaustion, or not let criticism deter you, these strengths can quickly become weaknesses that cause you to make unnecessary mistakes and miss important perspectives.”

The ability to work through exhaustion can get founders from point A to point B, but it isn’t sustainable. Don’t wait for this emergency to pass — start on your self-care now.

Of course, this isn’t the first we’re hearing about the importance of emotional health and 

. But all too often, the conversation stays surface level. The meaty “how” of where founders should get started and what they should specifically focus on is often fuzzy. 

Over the course of several years, Anhalt worked to dig deeper by conducting an interpretive phenomenological analysis of more than 100 interviews with psychologists and entrepreneurs to identify what exactly it is that makes a founder emotionally fit. After analyzing the interviews and coding them by theme, she distilled her findings into seven traits:

Some of these traits, like resilience and communication, have crystal-clear ties to the success of a founder and ultimately the startup. Others may seem more offbeat. "From giving better feedback, to being less defensive, to staying calm during uncertain times — most leadership skills and areas for emotional growth align with at least one of these seven traits. And most align with multiple,” says Anhalt. “The good news is, you don't need to always work on them individually. As you work on any of them, the others will naturally improve.”

Dr. Anhalt’s definition: Emotionally fit leaders are self-reflective. They understand their triggers and biases and continuously check in with themselves. They are patient, resilient and willing to be vulnerable with others. They can tolerate frustration and manage their emotions. They understand that the feelings they have about others have a lot to do with their own selves.

There’s a reason that Anhalt gives self awareness top billing — while it is perhaps the hardest trait to cultivate, it’s also the most significant. “It’s the foundation of all the other traits, because if you can’t reflect on your own experience and whether or not it is impacting how you interact with others, the rest of the list is tough to achieve,” she says. Here, she offers two specific pointers for working on this cornerstone trait:

Start with yourself and see what you’re transferring.

“There’s an interesting psychological phenomenon that I’m seeing a lot of right now called institutional transference,” says Anhalt. “Institutional transference happens when we put feelings about something other than work onto our place of work, or vice versa.‬ And it’s especially intense right now. We have a lot of feelings — and not a lot of control. We also feel guilt for complaining when others have it worse, so our emotions have nowhere to go. They get disguised as other, more acceptable issues. Fears about the future morph into concerns your team isn’t pushing hard enough. Your fights with your co-founder might be coming from something you have going on at home. And we have no idea that some of these feelings might be about something else entirely.”

If new or worse-than-usual problems are popping up at work or at home right now, Anhalt advises taking a step back and thinking about what else might be at play. “Taking the time to trace back to the root of what you’re feeling — and what you may be unfairly shifting onto others — is an important component of self-awareness,” she says.

Practice taking responsibility for your part before asking anyone else to change.

Get to therapy, if you can — especially if “nothing’s wrong.”

Anhalt also views getting external support as a core part of a founder’s journey to better understanding who they are, both as a leader and as a human. “Starting a meditation habit, focusing on your yoga practice or journaling every day can be impactful and I love these practices. And, sometimes you also need to dig deeper to get the support you need,” she says. “

But you don’t want your company to become the catch-all for your unprocessed emotions

. And that’s where therapy can help get you centered.”

Anhalt is the first to acknowledge there are considerable barriers to therapy. “Cost, insurance and access are huge hurdles,” she says. “People of color also face the added challenge of a lack of representation among therapists.” 

First Round’s own research for our annual State of Startups

 report last year highlighted other gaps as well. While founders under the age of 40 were more likely to report enlisting a therapist or psychiatrist compared to their over-40 counterparts, the divide was even more stark across gender, with female founders three times more likely to report utilizing a mental health specialist than male entrepreneurs.

Even putting issues of access aside, many feel a general sense of prickly unease at the mere suggestion of getting into therapy. “There’s still a huge group of people in the world who would never even consider doing something like therapy. They don’t think anything is inherently ‘wrong’ with them. I hear all the time, ‘Well I’m not depressed,’ or ‘I don’t have any trauma.’ This makes mental health more stigmatized and seen as this reactive thing. 

We need to shift the narrative of therapy from something you access only when you're unwell to something you proactively do to promote wellness

“Founders also often convince themselves that they don't deserve support in this area, whether that’s because their problems ‘aren't bad enough’ or because of their relatively privileged situation. Especially amid a health crisis like this, it’s easy to think, ‘Well there are people dying or facing true economic hardship, so who am I to need support?’ 

Part of the value in going to therapy is giving yourself permission to acknowledge that your problems are important and valid

,” says Anhalt. “As a founder, it's extra important to take care of yourself because you're also responsible for so many other people. Therapy provides a space to process anxiety, frustration and other feelings, so that they don’t leak into the business and onto employees.”

An Olympic athlete wouldn’t be expected to reach their full potential without a coach. But for some reason, many founders think that they should be able to soldier on and shoulder their emotional burdens without any support.

Dr. Anhalt’s definition: Emotionally fit leaders can (and do) put themselves in others’ shoes on a regular basis. They recognize that what they feel about things might not necessarily be what others feel, and they strive for empathy even when it is difficult. Although they must sometimes make unilateral decisions, they consider how those decisions will affect others. 

“There’s all sorts of ways that lack of empathy shows up at a startup. For example, right now I think a lot of founders are like, ‘Oh yeah, of course you should take a vacation. I’m not going to take a vacation, but you should do it.’ Then everyone says, ‘Well, should I actually? Because if you’re not doing it, maybe we’re really not supposed to.’” Anhalt says. “In this instance, exercising empathy is about recognizing that the emotional constitution of a founder is often very different from the people who might work at a startup. A founder is someone who’s used to running through walls, at the expense of their own health sometimes. I’ve seen founders face issues where employees say, ‘It’s clear that you want to keep pushing, but we’re at our limit,” she says.

empathize with your team when you understand them

. When we’re in a crisis, we often skip over the work of uncovering what others may be going through. Overcoming these blindspots is key to cultivating empathy.”

Because needs and strengths vary by individual, Anhalt suggests deploying an 

 to get a fuller picture of your team’s experience. “The survey is an easy way to make sure that supporting each other is top of mind right now. There’s a list of questions that everyone at the company, including founders, fills out about what they need to be doing their best work. These questions might include:

•How productive do you feel working from home?

•Do you feel like you have everything you need to be successful right now?

•Do you think we are doing enough to maintain the culture of the company while we are apart?

•If you were having a tough time, would you feel comfortable coming to me?

“Some founders worry if they show empathy, then it suddenly becomes their job to fix everyone's problems. But empathy does not mean that your problem is now my problem, or that I have to change the feeling. It just means I'm present in it with you,” she says.

“It’s also common to feel like you have to be empathetic all the time, in every moment. But boundaries and empathy are not mutually exclusive. Learn to be clear about what you can offer others, and what you don't have the capacity to give in any particular moment.”

Empathy is not an endless well. Reserve time to refill.

“How can you tell when you’ve overdrawn from your emotional bank account? Well, you might feel it physically before you notice it anywhere else,” says Anhalt. “There is a psychological concept called psychosomatization, which means the physical manifestations of emotional states. If you’re feeling lethargic and don’t physically have the energy throughout your day that you’re used to, it could be because your empathy stores are dwindling. In other words, 

Dr. Anhalt’s definition: Emotionally fit leaders understand and encourage the importance of play. Play sparks spontaneity and creativity, and is a crucial part of emotional health and interpersonal cohesiveness. Playing means trying on thoughts or concepts to see how they feel. It means having a free exchange of ideas and meeting of the minds. 

According to Anhalt, this is one of the traits founders are struggling with most right now. “In ‘normal times,’ play is essential to create a safe space where people 

feel like they can suggest new ideas without being judged or ridiculed

. When we’re in the thick of a crisis, it might seem like we’re short on time and need to be laser-focused without distraction. But play is actually ten times more important during times like these,” she says.

Our natural ability for levity and playfulness is reduced because we’re anxious, vigilant and remote. We feel less connected to each other. Sparking creativity and increasing joy is a core part of a founder’s mandate right now.

Like all of the other traits, willingness to play starts at the top. “A lot of founders are really austere because they take their job so seriously and they forget that it’s actually okay and really important that there is lightness, silliness and levity in their work as well,” she says.

“It can be as simple as starting your meetings off with an ice breaker game. Do a virtual tour of everyone’s homes, MTV Cribs style. Organize an online scavenger hunt. There are so many creative ideas out there now.” (When we were chatting with Anhalt, we’ll admit that we paused to regal her with tales of First Round’s internal 

, which briefly derailed our interview into a sidebar about the power of garlic and the challenges of plating for Instagram shots. No surprise that she brought us back to the topic at hand by pointing out the underlying magic at work. “The fact that we’re talking about this and laughing about garlic is proof that investing in play at a company is really important, because it diverts some of the focus and energy away from all of the intense anxiety about what may or may not be happening,” she told us.)

Dr. Anhalt’s definition: Emotionally fit leaders understand and tolerate the difference between what they

true, and they make it a habit to ask questions and be curious, even when the answers to those questions are uncomfortable. 

Curiosity is at the core of what drives the entrepreneurial spirit — the belief that you can solve problems with unique solutions and innovate on the status quo. Building a company relies on curiosity about testing different hypotheses and continuously iterating.

“This might be unexpected, but I always tie this trait back to feedback,” says Anhalt. “Curiosity is often framed as this kind of solo quest. ‘I’m curious about this, so I'm going to research this and read that,’ and so on. But I also think curiosity is the best skill to counteract defensiveness. When someone comes to us with constructive feedback, often our first instinct is to defend ourselves or explain why they got it wrong. If instead we get curious and ask questions like, ‘Tell me more about that?’ or ‘What could I do differently next time?’ we avoid this defensive reflex and open ourselves up to growth.”

At the core of curiosity is understanding that you see the world through a particular lens of your own experience. By getting others to share their perspective, you’re gathering more data points and arriving at a more accurate view of the truth.

To solicit ongoing feedback and get a more thorough picture of what those around you are seeing, she suggests cultivating your listening skills. Here are some tips that Anhalt has developed in her years working with clients as a therapist:

•Remember that you don’t have to always use words to show you’re listening — nods and facial expressions are often just as powerful.

•Instead of focusing on what you’re going to say next, stay present in the conversation.

•Allow for pauses and silence so the speaker can reflect on what they’re saying and expand upon it. The first thing a person says is often not what they really want you to know.

•Don’t feel compelled to fix things or give advice right away. When in doubt, ask what the speaker needs — whether it’s comfort, solutions or they’re just looking to vent.

Dr. Anhalt’s definition: Emotionally fit leaders can sit with and process through discomfort. They are able to have tough conversations, be transparent about uncomfortable information, share complicated feedback and sit with a problem until it has been fully thought through. 

For Anhalt, mindfulness is about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable — and the first step is getting a sense of how you relate to discomfort. “Some founders blame everyone else when they’re in an uncomfortable situation. Some turn inward and get really down on themselves. Understanding what your reaction is to discomfort gives you more power to change that reaction if it’s not serving you,” she says.

Anhalt likens strengthening mindfulness to how the practice of yoga involves holding your body and settling into poses that might feel uncomfortable in the moment. “If you’re making a decision or taking an action purely to move away from discomfort, take a moment to reflect on whether the discomfort is really so intolerable. Sit with it for a while, take a deep breath and prove to yourself that you can handle it. 

You do not need to break every silence, fix every issue immediately or avoid difficult conversations,”

In addition to encouraging founders to take up a yoga or meditation practice to continue building this muscle for tolerance, she also presses upon the importance of self-care. “Right now, in the midst of uncertainty, anxiety and added stress, we’re more inclined not to engage with our self-care and healthy habits, because we think, ‘I deserve a break.’ But it’s more important than ever that you’re focusing on those rituals.”

Self-care is one of the first things to go when times get tough, but if you want to lead and help others through times of struggle, you need to put on your own oxygen mask first.

Here are four specific tactics Anhalt recommends:

•Reflect on one thing you’re too hard on yourself about. Forgive yourself.

•Think of one small thing people could do to support you this week. Ask for it.

•Write down what you appreciate about three people you love. Send it to them.

•Schedule a “worry hour.” Block off a slot on your calendar where you get to be as worried as you want for that amount of time.

That last one struck us as particularly impactful. “It sounds a little trite, but if you schedule time to worry, that means you’re able to be more present for the rest of your day, rather than feeling constantly overwhelmed by tides of anxiety, which ripple out to impact how you interact with others,” says Anhalt. “When you find yourself getting worried, perhaps tossing and turning in bed at 2:00am, gently say to yourself, ‘That’s not my problem right now, that’s ‘6:00pm me’s’ problem. I’ll worry about it then.’”

“In therapy we call this ‘the frame,’ which is anything that provides reliable structure, like starting and ending at the same time and being in the same room every week. When we trust the stability of the frame, we’re more available to unlock the messy but important parts of our emotional selves,” she says.

This technique helps manage what she calls “anticipatory trauma,” something she’s seeing a lot of these days. “There’s a difference between 

 and thinking through what your company might look like in six months versus trying to figure out how to deal with emotions that are tied to things that haven’t happened yet,” she says. “It’s the difference between asking, ‘What is my cash runway if our projected revenue is cut in half for the year?’ and ‘How am I going to handle it if my company fails in six months?’

As a founder, you often make the mistake of allowing yourself to slip into tomorrow’s worries instead of handling the challenges of the moment. You’re suffering future pain, needlessly.

“Founders typically do this because, subconsciously, they think it will make them more prepared. 

The purpose of anxiety is it makes us feel like we are going to be able to handle a tough thing if it happens. But especially now, there’s so much uncertainty, so we have no ability to know what will happen. It sends people into a tailspin that’s not really useful,

It's your job to handle the emotions that are true right now

. If you're more present in what you’re currently experiencing, then you’ll be able to start the work of unpacking the issues you face and dealing with them, instead of pushing them away until they build into this totally insurmountable situation that you don’t even see coming,” she says.

“It’s about trusting your future self — the version of you that is better equipped than your present self with greater experience and wisdom to solve problems. A quote I love that captures this idea is, ‘

You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can still make the whole trip that way

.’ Believe that there is a version of you that will be more qualified to handle any potential future scenarios that are giving you anxiety right now.”

Dr. Anhalt’s definition: Emotionally fit leaders know that more is to be learned from failure than success, and can bounce back during trying times and can take in difficult feedback. Their desire to grow is genuinely greater than their desire to avoid criticism or failure. They are flexible and can adapt quickly. 

When it comes to startups, we’ve seen again and again that it's 

survival of the most adaptable and resilient.

 More than most careers, the founder journey will stress-test your resilience in countless ways — facing down the discouraging odds of your company’s success, the twists and turns along the way to building a product, and many factors (like a global pandemic) far beyond your control.

But those that have a strong sense of self are less likely to be knocked off course. Anhalt emphasizes the importance of leaning on your network of other founders and entrepreneurs. “The founder perch can be a lonely one, and it can help immensely to stay connected to your fellow founders and witness how they’re tackling their own challenges, pivoting, and working on their own emotional fitness to inspire you to push forward,” she says.

Anhalt also recommends another tactic you can do on your own — starting a self-esteem file for yourself (and encouraging your team to do the same). “In a startup, often every accomplished goal is also the start of ten more goals to work toward. But if you never pause to celebrate achievements, it can be tough to summon motivation to always be pushing to the next one, Write down or screenshot every single piece of positive feedback you receive from investors, customers or colleagues and put it in a folder that you can look at when your self confidence is low. You can also have a team self-esteem file that shares praise for the team and the work you’re doing as a group,” she says.

In addition to tapping into a stockpile of past praise and successes, Anhalt encourages you to talk back to your harsh inner critic. “When you hear that self doubt creep in, summon your healthy self to say, ‘That’s not the whole story.’ Remind yourself of the valuable, impactful work that you’re doing.”

Don’t let the voice saying you’re not good enough be the only voice onstage.

Emily 1.jpg

Psychologist and founder Dr. Emily Anhalt shares her seven traits of emotional fitness, why they're crucial for founders right now, plus concrete tactics for shaping up your emotional health.

Hit the Emotional Gym — The Founder's Framework for Emotional Fitness

 celebrated its tenth anniversary, stretching well beyond the typically short-lived startup life expectancy. After its humble beginnings as a credit card comparison spreadsheet in 2009, the company has since grown into a 300+ person team that sees north of $100 million in annual revenue as it serves up financial wisdom to 100 million visitors.

 certainly has a pile of milestones to look back on with pride, whether it’s how the team 

 to build a veritable content machine or how they 

rebooted their approach to talent, growing from 50 to 270+ in just two years

. Despite these achievements, however, he’s quick to note that NerdWallet’s journey wasn’t one of those fabled continually up-and-to-the-right tales. As is the case with most startups, a closer examination of its trajectory reveals several zigs and zags beneath the surface.

“Our story’s somewhat unusual. I was a tech outsider. Coming from the world of finance and hedge funds, I didn’t know a single engineer 10 years ago. And while all the other startups around us were raising heaps of money, we bootstrapped and didn’t fundraise until we were six years in,” says Chen. “While these differences gave us some advantages, they also led to some missteps. We certainly didn’t get everything right when it came to hiring and building the product in those early years, and we had to make a lot of changes as we went along.”

And as Chen quickly found out, those early-stage struggles didn’t abate as scale set in, but rather morphed into a new set of complex challenges that many larger businesses grapple with. In 2017, NerdWallet 

laid off 11 percent of its workforce after missing profitability goals

 as the company entered into a new phase of growth.

“When we missed our targets a few years ago, we decided to pump the brakes and reassess, even though many other startups might have kept burning. We needed to make strategic investments and hiring decisions more carefully — we couldn’t operate the same way as we used to, even compared to when we were a 200-person team. But more than that, I had to look in the mirror and examine my own role as CEO.

 I needed to evolve from a scrappy, seed stage founder to a more professional executive, which required several seismic mindset shifts

. Essentially, I needed to do the work to get out of my own way.”

After capping off his company’s first decade and getting back on track with revenue and profitability goals, Chen’s here to reflect on the arc of his journey as founder and CEO. In this exclusive interview, he shares the six mindset shifts he needed to make to transition from entrepreneur to executive. He details the signposts early-stage founders need to take note of as their startups scale, doling out helpful advice and simple truths that he found were hard to swallow in practice. Chen peppers in tactical examples of how he made changes to his leadership approach at NerdWallet, creating a collection of lessons that will be invaluable for any founder finding themselves at this very same crossroads.

Founders are rarely equally skilled at both the work that built their business and the management skills necessary to grow that business. Company growth depends on constant evolution — and that starts at the top.

1. Culture is built in a founder’s image — so start looking inward.

Looking back on NerdWallet’s trajectory, Chen describes his company building journey as a “total rollercoaster.”

“We always felt like we were either understaffed, trying to incorporate new people or attempting to get a new product or feature off the ground,” he says. “Once you thought you had something figured out, it would completely change. The ‘right’ culture and processes always felt like a moving target. Over the past few years especially, I’ve done a lot of soul-searching, trying to figure out whether I had the tools to actually do this as every stage brought on a new set of challenges.”

That introspection didn’t come naturally, however, and it was one of the most important mindset shifts Chen had to make. While 

, he wasn’t aware of just how far his behavior was rippling out into the waters of NerdWallet’s culture.

That jarring realization was served up when he hired an executive coach, who led his first 360 review. “I was shocked by what I heard. It turned out the team thought I wasn’t candid or constructive, especially when it came to performance and feedback. There was an underlying atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. You assume you're doing a good job as CEO if financials are healthy, metrics are moving in the right direction, and people seem happy enough, but those are surface-level indicators of success. In hindsight, it’s clear that I had no idea how to lead a company, and that I exhibited some incredibly problematic behaviors that had seeped into the foundation,” Chen says.

, so I was very inexperienced. I also had several assumptions about culture that were faulty because I came from a hedge fund, rather than say, even another startup,” he says. “The Wall Street approach of hiring analytical, aggressive folks with great pedigree and leaving them to hash it out didn’t map over to building a sustainable startup. My focus on sticking to this hiring profile and reducing employees to a target number caused everyone to fixate on individual success. I wasn’t unifying the team around a bigger goal or establishing a culture centered around a common purpose. There was almost a 

-type competitive vibe. And it took me way too long to realize that my behavior was driving it. I was horrified.”

Culture starts with how the founder behaves. It gets cascaded throughout the company whether you like it or not. To change the culture, you have to change yourself. Too many founders realize this too late in the game — and I was almost one of them.

This realization may seem like common-sense wisdom, but Chen notes that it can be tough for founders to spot in the moment. “There were several hang ups that held me back from recognizing this obvious truth. As an early-stage founder, you’re moving at warp speed, working incredibly hard on a thousand different things. You have to take a step back to extricate yourself from what you’re building, to notice the symbiotic effects between your behavior and the company culture,” he says.

“Another mistake that’s easy to make is putting culture on the back burner or dismissing it as something you can delegate. It’s also tempting to blame cultural problems on the people around you, to say, ‘Oh I guess I didn’t hire the right players,’ or ‘This team isn’t really gelling, I’ve got the wrong people in the room.’ But eventually, through working with my coach, I was able to realize that they weren’t the wrong people — I had set up a system that incentivized them to 

Organizational issues don’t stem from hiring the “wrong” people. Most of the time, they’re caused by poorly designed systems, misguided cultures, and bad examples flowing from the top that incentivize people to do the wrong things.

To overcome this hump, Chen turned up the feedback dial. “You need to get to a place where you believe that getting feedback is a gift, that it’ll help you become a better leader. You need other people to hold up a mirror, so you can all lift up the ceiling for the company together,” he says.

“I personally find feedback is most transformative when it’s quantitative — I’m able to digest it easier and build a more effective action plan. So we introduced ‘NerdPS,’ our internal employee survey to poll the team on how they're feeling about me, the leadership team, their org and our product. We run this survey every two months and share the results with the entire company, gauging sentiment on statements such as I have confidence in our CEO, I have confidence in my functional leader, I understand how my work ties into the strategy, I would recommend our product to a friend, and so on. We've seen our NerdPS score increase 38 points since kicking it off.”

And Chen has seen other benefits outside of his own personal development as well. “

A huge part of a CEO's job is putting the right players on the field

. While it's easy to tell if an exec is delivering results, it's harder to get a read on how they’re doing as managers. I use data points from our survey to figure out how to target improvements and find that they ground my skip-level sessions in a more specific reality, rather than a looser ‘How is the team feeling?’ kind of discussion,” he says.

This informs any changes he may make to the leadership team. “If these changes to the executive team seem arbitrary, employees fill in the blanks in all the wrong ways. A transparent internal score like NerdPS provides added accountability for execs and reduces the likelihood that employees jump to the wrong conclusion on executive departures.”

2. Let go of your entrepreneurial ego and remove yourself from the decision-making equation.

Another mindset shift that was key in Chen’s development as an executive was subordinating his ego. “For an entrepreneur, ego is actually a strength. Early-stage founders need a healthy dose of ego. It’s what drives them to attempt feats that no one else will even try. You need to be 

brave enough to take the company-building leap

 — and stubborn enough to stick with it,” Chen says.

“And even as you exit that earliest, scrappy stage, you can see how this attitude bleeds over. When you’re leading product, figuring out sales, and overseeing every aspect of the organization, it’s easy to slip into a ‘I have to solve this’ mindset that carries over to the company’s more mature phases. You 

 and are reticent to give up the controls — and this does nothing but hold the organization back. An inflated ego makes for a lousy later-stage exec.”

Too many founders — myself included — sustain the ego from their early entrepreneurial days well past its expiration date. Push aside your “founder’s instinct” to make room for the perspective of the team you’ve worked so hard to assemble — and the customers you’ve battled to win over.

“There’s this quote often attributed to Mark Twain that was really fitting for how I was behaving,” says Chen. “‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.’” The impact of his ego — and what he didn’t know — reared its head in three different places: in the way NerdWallet was operating, how the culture was evolving and how the early consumer product was being built.

. I had this delusion that I could add value to most decisions. For example, up until we were about 200 people, I’d interview every single person,” says Chen. “And since I can come up with a reasonable sounding explanation for why every idea will whiff, in meetings I’d try to poke holes in ideas and try to further the group’s thinking. This got baked into the culture — everyone was overanalyzing everything and we weren’t moving quickly enough, which started to show up in our internal feedback surveys. I later realized that 

at scale, the organization's job is to test a lot of reasonable hypotheses, not to minimize the number of failed hypotheses.

 I started pulling up my altitude and disengaging from as many decisions as possible.”

 “I've learned over time that when you assign someone a negative label, usually your ego is preventing you from seeing the truth,” says Chen. “For example, when NerdWallet started to scale, I saw team leads were hoarding and battling over resources, and I was frustrated by how ‘political’ our culture had become. Instead of getting angry, I should have gotten curious and asked myself 

 they felt compelled to act that way. I had failed to create a transparent resource allocation process — that was the real problem.”

 “When I was starting NerdWallet, I had several assumptions around what consumers wanted in a financial product. Again, this ego cuts both ways. On the one hand, you need to 

start with a really crisp thesis on what you’re trying to build

. If you don’t have some vision of how you can uniquely solve a problem in a better way, why are you starting a company? But you have to balance that with 

, which becomes all the more important as you start to introduce new products and features,” says Chen. “

Every time we moved into a new area as we expanded the product, I found my assumptions as a founder flat-out weren’t true.

 For example, while I wanted a spreadsheet of information on credit cards and a comparison of the points I could get, other customers want to choose between a few good options, and dig into whether they’d get approved or what the credit line would be. As CEO, these days my hypotheses aren't going to be very good unless I spend a lot of time with customers in a particular segment. Our product team and researchers are always going to have far better product intuition, and I need to get out of their way.”

My job as CEO is contingent upon my ability to improve at the pace that the company needs me to — and my ego is the only thing that can stand in the way of that.

3. Your product is the company, so embrace process over speed earlier than you think you need to.

All of Chen’s problem solving in the early days was focused on getting the product right. But the 

“When I was an early-stage founder, the product was my baby. All of the other stuff — culture, systems, processes — was important, but it didn’t seem as paramount as 

, which is a battle for the company’s very survival,” says Chen. “Looking back, I should have shifted my mindset on this much sooner.”

One of the biggest shifts you need to make as founding CEO of a scaling startup is realizing that your product is the company, not the product itself.

“Even a few years in, I was still literally writing lines of code because we had to get work out the door. 

But once you grow beyond a handful of team members, you have to climb out of the trenches — and I stayed at the troop-level for far too long

,” he admits. “Giving up product to focus on governance, HR or culture wasn’t appealing. But as a founder, you cannot underestimate how much you need to be directing your attention and your time there. It’s not something you can outsource.”

Founders should focus on disentangling themselves from tactical roles, Chen says. “If you have hundreds of employees, you can’t be taking on the very same tasks that you did back when just a few folks were on the payroll. 

As the founding CEO, if you find yourself working on the same things you were handling a year ago, you’re floundering

. I’d bet that your profits are as static as your daily duties.”

Early-stage founders are the point guards, while later-stage CEOs need to be the coach. You have to stop hogging the ball and start figuring out which players to put on the floor.

With product building concerns off his plate, Chen trained his focus on the company. “

If you believe that, as CEO, your product is not the product itself, but the governance by which the company operates, then your task is to build a consistently fair set of rules.

 That’s why I’ve come to embrace process,” he says.

“Previously, I always thought that process kills speed, and while I’m still a believer in 

, now that NerdWallet is larger, I'm obsessed with finding processes to increase organizational efficiency. Process is the structure, the scaffolding that allows your culture to flourish. Once you hit the 30 to 150 people stage, a CEO’s time is better spent getting people to work together effectively instead of making sure a product gets shipped quickly.”

It isn’t easy to throw the switch, however. “I think like many startups, we had sort of allergic reaction to process and meetings. Other executives and I would make decisions on the fly, in a walk-and-talk in the hallway, and be proud of our ‘scrappiness.’ But in hindsight, that caused a lot of toxicity,” says Chen. “People start lobbying you in the hallway to get on this project or to make that hire. Soon, some folks get resources while others don't, which leads to infighting and 

. Instead of saying what they mean, people start talking with an agenda to get what they need in order to succeed. This all stems from decision-making or resource allocation without transparency — great people being put into a system where they are forced to be political in order to survive.”

Process may be the enemy of the nimble startup, but it’s the antidote to the organizational politics that plague larger companies.

Chen’s advice? Look for ways to introduce process, earlier than you think you might need to. “We now have an Investment Committee, which is a group of execs that reviews resources requests and ranks them, sharing our decisions so it’s transparent and others don’t have to guess at our reasoning,” he says.

Or take leveling and comp. “I didn't have any formal system in place for titles or promotions, we just paid everyone whatever we thought we needed to hire or retain them individually. But 

fairly early on, when we were around 40 people.

I highly recommend other founders do the same.

 I think some founders think they don’t think they need to worry about ‘big company concerns’ until they hit 150 people, but my experience has shown me that it pays to get as far ahead of it as possible,” says Chen. 

“Laying the foundation early allows for a lot of scalability in your startup’s future. It only takes one promotion that raises eyebrows to bring down the sanctity of your entire career ladder in the eyes of all employees. You also need to hire a strong HR leader earlier than you think you need to. We hit the jackpot 

 — I knew she was an amazing get, but I didn’t fully realize how impactful it would be for the maturity of our organization and I wish I’d done it even sooner.”

4. Stop throwing spaghetti and start thinking about negative carry.

“Early on, I believed that throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall quickly was the right approach to maximize our chances of success. I think that's completely flipped at this point,” says Chen. “Getting the organization aligned around fewer things is key to our success right now. We’re thinking about how we can

. If you would have told me that back in 2012, I would have laughed you out of the room.”

 was critical to that transition. “Transparency around resource allocation is critical, and frankly, something we did a poor job of, which contributed in part to the layoffs. Placing scattershot bets and lurching from initiative to initiative without any explanation of what you’re aiming for makes it tough for the team to follow along — and difficult for you to evaluate how you’re doing. You can get away with throwing spaghetti when you’re young, scrappy and just figuring it out, but when you’re established, they call that missing your targets and leading an unfocused company.”

Everyone on your team should understand what bets you’re making as an org and know where you’re training your firepower. If everything is important, then nothing is.

Here’s how Chen’s tried to clear the air for his team: “Since I’m a finance guy, I’ve started to reframe our experiments as a 

 They’re the investments for the future; you're not making money, but if this thing works, down the road it's going to pay off. What we’ve tried at NerdWallet lately is to do a better job of tracking our negative carry bets and the hypotheses behind them. There has to be a thoughtful framework for how we're choosing when to continue to invest, when to kill them and when to try a new one.”

To build that understanding, the NerdWallet team holds a quarterly product meeting. “Everyone shares the results of everything they've tested throughout the quarter so we can all get a better sense of what’s working and what’s not,” says Chen. “For example, we thought it would be helpful for our consumers if we had a network of financial advisors available to answer questions. But the issue we ran into is that consumers find it difficult to know the 

If you're transitioning from scrappy founder to established CEO:

Hit the Emotional Gym — The Founder's Framework for Emotional Fitness

NerdWallet’s CEO on Navigating the Shift from First-Time Founder to Seasoned Exec

I Asked 100 Founders, CEOs and VCs About Career Transitions — Here’s What I Learned

The Founder’s Guide to Discipline: Lessons from Front’s Mathilde Collin

OpenTable's CEO on How to Dodge Company Breakdown as You Scale

You Aren’t Born Knowing How to Be a CEO

What Scott Cook Wished He Knew About Being a CEO When He Founded Intuit