Burnout, Divorce, and Down Rounds: The Parts of the Founder Story We Edit Out.
A live conversation about the chapters of founder life that never make it into the highlight reel.
About this event
Most founder stories get told in two modes: the polished origin story and the polished exit story. The parts in between — the burnout, the divorce, the layoff calls, the down round, the night you thought about quitting and didn’t tell anyone — usually stay off the record.
The problem is those are the chapters that quietly shape how a founder leads, raises, and makes decisions for the rest of their career.
Yannick is joined by a special guest — a founder or operator who has lived through burnout, personal fallout, or hard capital moments and is willing to talk about what actually happened and how they rebuilt. Guest details will be confirmed shortly.
We’ll cover:
What burnout, relationship collapse, and hard capital moments actually look like from the inside
The trade-offs founders say yes to without realizing the long-term price they’re paying
How these experiences change how you think about GTM, hiring, capital, and pace
What rebuilding looks like when you don’t want to go back to the old way of operating
Then we open the floor. Bring whatever feels true for where you are — you can ask questions or just listen. The Q&A is live and unfiltered.
Format: 25-min conversation + 15-min live Q&A
Who this is for: Founders, CEOs, and operators who have either been through a hard chapter already — or suspect one is looming — and want a more honest map of what’s on the other side.
Your host
Yannick Kpodar is a 2x VP/CMO turned General Partner at Aventra Capital and founder of Full Stack CEO™. He’s helped B2B SaaS teams raise $396M+, reach unicorn valuation, and scale from single-digit ARR to $45M+ in the US and Europe — and he has also lived the darker side of that path: burnout, toxic environments, divorce, firing, and a full identity collapse that forced him to rebuild his life and operating system from scratch. That experience sits underneath how he now works with founders on GTM, capital, leadership, and nervous system — as one system, not separate topics.
About Full Stack CEO™
Full Stack CEO™ is the operating system for B2B SaaS and AI founders from first revenue to $25M ARR — integrating GTM, metrics, capital, leadership, and nervous system in the age of AI. It exists for the founders who want to build serious companies without quietly destroying themselves or the people around them in the process.
Inside, founders get a private room of serious peers, weekly working sessions with Yannick, and live conversations with operators, startup mentors, exited founders, and VCs willing to talk about both the upside and the cost of building in this era.