Emmalyn Shaw

The last few episodes of NAKED have been supported by Flourish Ventures and we are lucky to be talking to founding partner Emmalyn Shaw today about their perspective on mental health and entrepreneurship and the role of the investor.

Emmalyn Shaw has been a VC for 23 years and has firsthand experience of the ups and downs of the founder journey. She strongly believes that healthier CEOs lead to more successful companies and talks about mental wellbeing as a continuum with potential points of breakage.

A word that keeps coming up repeatedly in our conversation is ‘trust’. How can an investor build trust to the degree that both sides see the relationship as a partnership, so that in times of crisis the investor becomes the ‘first call’?

Flourish Ventures has invested a lot of effort into figuring out how to build this trust, and connect with those that are silently suffering.

What can an investor do to recognise and support mental health along this continuum? 

For Emmalyn, it all starts from within, creating a culture within the fund that recognises the importance of mental wellbeing.

Flourish have been open about trying to find the right engagement tools such as CEO retreats, circles of trust and leadership coaching to create the confidential relationships that can foster psychological safety. 

For those founders who don’t feel they can build this trusted relationship with their investors Emmalyn suggests to start with their board and find the person within the board that can be the right conduit. 

In the end it all goes back to the importance of seeing founders as whole persons, not just business leaders.

Please meet Emmalyn. 

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Fatin Tariq Gondal

Imagine being so consumed with anxiety that for two weeks you drive to work but cannot bring yourself to leave the car, and then you drive back home.

Our guest today is Fatin Tariq, a serial entrepreneur from Pakistan. Fatin describes her experience with severe anxiety, not at a time when things got really bad with the business but after having bounced back, or in her words: after she stopped being in survival mode.

Fatin talks about the tension her anxiety caused with cofounders and loved ones and how she found help in therapy and with an anxiety group. The realisation of not being alone was crucial for her recovery.

“You have to put the work in, you have to develop perspective and celebrate the small wins”, she shares.

The key thing is to recognise triggers, focus on what you can control and learn to disassociate one’s self from work. There's a difference between an intrusive thought crossing your mind and taking over your mind.

Fatin also shares with us how all this is heightened by building a business in an emerging market such as Pakistan, as a woman entrepreneur.

Please meet Fatin.

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In this NAKED podcast episode, our hosts Nektarios, Vladimira, and our guest, Emma, explore the complex emotions and challenges that came up for her after exiting a startup.

They discuss the importance of addressing unresolved issues from the past, understanding one’s motivations for success, and the role of mental health and self-awareness in navigating post-exit life.

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