Founders’ Wellbeing: Build Without Burning Out | Promoting Entrepreneurship 2026 x Barcelona4Impact
What does it take to build a company for the long run, without running yourself into the ground?
Entrepreneurship is one of the most rewarding career paths there is, and one of the most demanding. Long hours, isolation, constant pressure to deliver, financial uncertainty, difficult decisions… and yet founders are often expected to put the business first and their own wellbeing second.
The research says otherwise.
A founder’s wellbeing is not separate from the venture. It shapes how founders make decisions, lead their teams, manage relationships, respond to setbacks and navigate the company’s hardest years. Looking after founder wellbeing is not a distraction from building a successful business, it is part of building one that lasts. And it should not all fall on founders.
Investors, boards, accelerators, incubators and the wider entrepreneurial culture also shape the conditions in which founders operate. Building healthier entrepreneurship requires both founders who take their wellbeing seriously and an ecosystem that makes that possible.
For the fourth edition of Promoting Entrepreneurship: Lessons Learnt from Research, the Esade Entrepreneurship Institute brings research and practice together to explore what the evidence tells us about founders’ wellbeing — and what founders and the people who support them can do differently.
The evidence:
The event will open with Annelore Huyghe, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Esade, presenting research on founders’ psychological and emotional wellbeing and its implications for decision-making, leadership and venture development.
The practice:
We will then bring together a founder, an investor and an entrepreneurship support organisation to confront the evidence with their own experience.
Together, we will explore questions such as: What do founders actually need at different stages of the journey? When does support help and when can it add pressure? How can we make it normal to talk about struggling? And how could wellbeing become part of the way ventures are selected, funded and supported?
The conversation will then open to the audience.
Who should attend?
Founders who want to build for the long run, and anyone whose decisions shape the conditions they build in: investors, board members, accelerator and incubator managers, mentors, educators and entrepreneurship professionals.
If you build ventures or back the people who do, this conversation is for you.
Agenda
18:00–18:20 · Registration & welcome
18:20–18:30 · Institutional welcome
18:30–18:40 · Introduction and framing
18:40–19:20 · Research keynote: What research tells us about founders’ wellbeing
19:20–20:00 · Panel discussion: Building ventures without losing sight of founder wellbeing
20:00–20:10 · Key takeaways & audience discussion
20:10–20:30 · Drinks & networking
📅 Tuesday, 13 October 2026 · 18:00–20:30
📍 Cloudworks Sagrada Família, Barcelona
🤝 Hosted together with Cloudworks
This event is part of Barcelona4Impact, bringing together initiatives across Barcelona around impact, entrepreneurship and solutions for people and planet.
Places are limited. Register to secure your spot.