Founder burnout is real. And this problem won’t go away in the AI age as things speed up.
This usually takes more than a few years to build up.
– The heavy weight that doesn’t go away.
– The tired you can’t sleep off.
– The “I don’t want to do this anymore” thoughts.
It’s hard to self-diagnose burnout until it’s obvious that something big has to change.
Blakely Graham co-founded TaskRay, a project management and customer onboarding platform built inside the Salesforce ecosystem.
After years of working with Salesforce implementations and operations teams, she and her co-founder saw a major gap between closing deals and successfully onboarding customers.
They bootstrapped the company from a simple Kanban-style workflow app into a growing SaaS business serving increasingly complex enterprise implementations.
TaskRay started with self-serve AppExchange purchases and evolved into enterprise software with six-figure contracts, serving companies with sophisticated onboarding and delivery needs.
The company stayed profitable from the beginning, grew to roughly 40 employees, and eventually reached nearly $10M ARR.
Blakely also shares the difficult realities of being a founder, rarely discussed openly: co-founder conflict, burnout, loneliness, identity shifts, and the emotional weight of leading a growing company for more than a decade.
After stepping away following the 2021 sale of TaskRay to a search fund-backed buyer, she focused on recovery, advisory work, and co-hosting the Not All Business podcast to help founders and leaders feel less isolated during difficult growth stages.
Blakely didn’t see how burned out she was at the time.
“This is probably the most important thing I learned as a CEO, and I swear, founders can’t hear it. They just can’t hear it. You have to invest in yourself.
“The word ‘self-care’ drives me crazy because that’s what people told me for 10 years. Self-care. What are you doing for self-care? I thought, I don’t know. Leave me alone. I don’t have time for any downtime.
“Well, of course, sitting on the other side of burning out and selling my company, founders just have to invest in themselves in the journey. It can be a peer group, a coach, or therapy. Heck, for me, it’s nature walks and going to the gym.
“Just take care of yourself because people don’t want you to burn out. They want your leadership, so you have to invest in yourself and don’t feel guilty about it.”
Creating a valuable software company takes longer than many people think. The long game is often more about pace and priorities than speed and sacrifice.
She recommends that CEOs use peer groups, coaching, therapy, and personal health practices are essential leadership tools, not optional luxuries.
Check out this revealing interview with Blakely Graham on the Practical Founders Podcast.
