Founders take a lot of personal credit when their startups are growing fast. But they don’t often take the same level of personal responsibility when the company gets stuck or makes big mistakes.
This is a very human response, but it isn’t the most helpful way to get back on track.
Dave Hersh, co-founder and former CEO of Jive Software, bootstrapped Jive to $12M in revenue before raising venture capital and scaling aggressively.
Then fear, comparison, and the pressure to “go big” drove him to abandon his profitable core business and pursue a new upmarket strategy that ultimately cost the company its soul.
After growing to $60 million, Jive eventually went public, but not without internal strain, personal turmoil, and ultimately the realization that the company had drifted away from what made it successful.
In this week’s podcast interview, Dave discusses how overexpansion, premature scaling, hiring missteps, and market-chasing can derail both VC-backed and bootstrapped companies—and the real psychological patterns founders rarely acknowledge.
He also shares lessons from his book ”Reignition: Transforming Stuck Startups Into Breakout Winners” on why most stuck companies don’t need a new strategy.
They need a wiser founder who understands their inner operating system and is willing to grow alongside the business.
”I realized that 90% of stuck companies and failed companies are not the reasons that we say they failed. Like they didn’t have product-market fit, ran out of cash, or the founders didn’t get along.
“It’s the psychology underneath. If you actually look at the source of those problems, it was these very consistent psychological patterns that founders run into.”
“Hero complex, warrior, imposter syndrome, over-identification with the company. It was all of these things that I kept seeing over and over again that led to the decisions that got them stuck.
“And so, yes, while it’s true, they got outcompeted. Why did they go after the big market? What led them to do that? Why did they try to compete against these companies they were competing against?”
”When you start to tap into what’s really going on, and you see: They’re trying to earn validation. They are trying to get redeemed as an entrepreneur. They’re trying to live up to their parents, their older sibling, and their peer group. Why did you do that?”
What if we considered our business challenges and headwinds a reflection of our own thoughts and mindset?
Would that be more useful than blaming external factors or bad luck?
I can see this in my own founder journey. I could have managed myself and things better when times were really tough.
Today, Dave coaches founders, writes about the emotional foundations of leadership, and acquires underperforming SaaS companies to “refound” them with more clarity, connection, and human-first strategy.
Check out this self-aware interview with Dave Hersh on the Practical Founders Podcast.
