The Startup to Burnout Pipeline: Part 1
Balancing high expectations and limited resources
Joining a startup can be thrilling—building something from the ground up, bringing order to chaos, and seeing your work make a tangible difference. Startup employees thrive in environments with few rules, limited oversight, and endless potential. They’re not deterred by long hours or unpolished systems; they’re motivated by the chance to shape a fledgling company’s identity and by the allure of possibly creating the next big thing. Yet, the very qualities that make startups exciting also lay the foundation for one of their biggest challenges: burnout.
High hopes (and heavy lifting)
Teams are typically small, with everyone wearing multiple hats. Some people really like this because it encourages quick learning, close collaboration, and major contributions that they may never happen in a larger company. At this stage, there’s a real camaraderie and a sense of mission. Everyone knows they’re part of something special, and it feels worth the extra hours and energy.
Founders, often driven by ambitious visions, serve to inspire their teams with big-picture goals and the promise of disrupting industries (or saving the world). But these dreams require execution, and resources are typically stretched thin. With no extra hands to pitch in, early-stage employees take on roles far beyond their job titles—simultaneously managing front-end, back-end, quality control, and even office logistics (virtual or otherwise). This multi-functional work is exhilarating but also physically and mentally demanding.
The toll of high expectations
Early employees know there’s no one else they can expect to do the work. There are no magical fairies that will come in and fix problems or wave a wand and produce flawless code. The work they’re juggling is beyond simply coding or designing; they’re also solving customer support issues, handling documentation, or managing product launches. This breadth of responsibility is empowering, but it can also create an unsustainable workload as the company grows. In the long term, these generalist "jack-of-all-trades" roles contribute to exhaustion as employees realize they are always “on call” or the single point of failure for every aspect of the business.
In most startups, resources don’t expand as fast as the workload, especially if you’re bootstrapping. The default mode becomes doing “more with less.” This environment often lacks the structure to help employees prioritize their time, creating a culture of constant urgency. Every project feels high-stakes, and the relentless push for progress means that the natural rhythms of work and rest are often neglected.
Short-term thrills, long-term costs
Initially, the sense of urgency is thrilling. Deadlines might be tight, but the team is bonded by that shared intensity and drive. Working on cool new things that really matter! Just have to get through this next sprint/month/quarter/release. When these overallocated sprints become the norm rather than the exception, they turn into a marathon with no finish line. Employees begin to experience "hustle fatigue"—the exhaustion of constantly being in “go” mode.
With limited staff, the responsibilities continue to blur, and this can often be stoked by founders and early leadership unintentionally. Boundaries between roles or even work-life balance can quickly erode. Tasks spill over from one area to another, and employees, especially distributed ones, can feel pressured to be constantly available. This lack of defined boundaries leads to overwork, stress, and eventually, burnout.
Stay tuned for The Startup to Burnout Pipeline: Part 2 next week! We'll explore how to address the reality of unsustainable work and share strategies to navigate it, helping you avoid burnout in the future.