Why Some Female Entrepreneurs Flourish While Others Burn Out

Entrepreneur

26-05-2025

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur United Kingdom, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Being a female founder and having worked with them for the last decade, I can safely say that we all frequently feel like we're failing, in business, life or both. As a founder coach, I frequently share the practice of self-compassion, whilst explaining that we're not alone and we're not the problem. Now I've also got the research to prove it.
In our new report, "The True Cost of Female Entrepreneurship," Yvonne Biggins and I interviewed and surveyed nearly 250 female founders, from solo entrepreneurs to and scale-ups. The findings go far beyond the typical funding disparity headlines to reveal the true physical and mental toll of working in today's inequitable system. Although sobering, our first big discovery was so relatable and paradoxical, it made us smile. While 83% of female founders experience high stress, 78% suffer persistent anxiety, and 54% face burnout, we still wouldn't want to do anything else: 97% still enjoy their entrepreneurial journey, and 66% report high life satisfaction.
The entrepreneurial journey is full of massive highs and lows. The female founder loves the autonomy, flexibility and purpose they get from being their own boss, and also finds the entrepreneurial journey incredibly challenging. The question isn't whether female entrepreneurship is hard – it's why some founders ride these waves better and flourish, while others barely survive.
The Real Culprits Behind Female Founder Burnout
As we explored the data, it quickly became evident why so many female founders are burning out. It's not just the "usual" entrepreneurial stress – it's a perfect storm of systemic disadvantages, compounded by biology and society. The odds are stacked so far against us, it's a wonder we do as well as we do. Financial anxiety emerged as the most extreme stressor in our research. Founders citing cash flow and fundraising challenges reported the highest stress intensity scores. This isn't surprising when you consider that male founders receive over 98% of every pound invested in UK startups.
If you're strapped for cash, you're also going to be strapped for support, time, energy and headspace. It therefore makes perfect sense that a staggering 61% of female founders cite the overwhelm of "having too much to do and too little time" as their primary barrier to success. Why is this worse for women? Because all the odds are stacked against us. 75% of our respondents were aged between 35 - 54 years old. This both challenges the standard narrative that women drop out of entrepreneurship when they hit 35, and puts them squarely in the 'sandwich generation', charged with caring for both younger and elder generations. With research arguing that women typically shoulder 75% of unpaid domestic and caring responsibilities, it's clear we've got two high-stress full-time jobs, while being funded at 2% the rate.
Add to this that 21% of our respondents said they're navigating the challenges of perimenopause or menopause, with its brain fog and sleep disruption, and 18% were managing ADHD (with 81.6% experiencing persistent anxiety), and you start to see why just working harder isn't the answer.
The Positive Deviants: What flourishing founders Do Differently
In our analysis, we discovered that despite facing identical challenges, some female entrepreneurs aren't just surviving, they're flourishing. We call them "positive deviants," because they've cracked the code on sustainable success.
Here's the Best Practice Blueprint we discovered:
1. They Build Strategic Support Networks
66% of respondents reported being highly or extremely lonely. Thriving founders intentionally create a "resilience board" – investing in professional coaching, peer support, and mentorship. Our data shows that founders who are open about their challenges do better. 88% of founders with coaches report positive wellbeing impacts. High-openness entrepreneurs experienced better performance, lower stress, and significantly less loneliness.
Top tip: Where can you find regular coaching, mentoring or peer support?
2. They prioritise health and fitness
While struggling founders sacrifice exercise and sleep for "productivity," thrivers understand that wellbeing fuels optimum productivity. Founders prioritising health and fitness goals over financial ones showed lower stress and higher performance. Top tip: How can you increase your focus on health and fitness goals? What small steps can you take to eat better and moving more in the coming weeks? Just a 10-minute walk gives you more energy up to 2 hours later.
3. Nature as medicine
Founders who regularly get into nature reported higher wellbeing and significantly lower loneliness levels, which correlates with higher business performance.
Top tip: Can you have a quick walk in nature today? Harvard's John Ratey calls exercising in nature "exercise squared" - combining physical benefits with environmental restoration.
4. Joy as a business strategy
Counterintuitively, founders who prioritise fun in their life goals report higher performance levels. Positive emotions make us feel, think and perform better, by increasing cognitive capacity, creativity and broadening our perspective. Regularly fully detaching from work also helps us stay resilient.
Top tip: Plan some fun activities into your diary, thereby scheduling time for joy, as well as having something to positively anticipate.
5. They practice mindfulness and spirituality
Founders who integrate mindfulness or spiritual practices into their lives (28% of our sample) experience lower stress levels.
Top tip: Listen to Jeff Warren on the Calm App - he does a brilliant 'Mindfulness for beginners' 30-day programme, just 10 minutes a day.
6. They actively manage negative thought patterns
The most resilient founders don't react by default; they respond with self-awareness. They've learned that how we interpret events – not the events themselves – determines our stress response and recovery speed.
Top tip: Can you schedule in breathing space in your day, to give you time to reflect on how you are, and what you're thinking and feeling? The first step to managing your thought patterns is recognising what you're thinking and how it's making you feel.
Key takeaways
The "True Cost of Female Entrepreneurship" reveals that flourishing female entrepreneurs aren't superhuman, they're strategic. They've learned that sustainable success isn't about hustling harder; it's about understanding the connection between wellbeing, performance and resilience. The way they live and work reflects this.
The best practice blueprint isn't rocket science, but it's not common practice either. In the face of challenge and fear, we're all conditioned to work harder, rather than smarter. My advice to founders? Look at the recommendations and determine which area in your life needs most attention. Take one small and intentional step to increase that area of your wellbeing first, then build from there. Adopt a growth mindset, using trial and error to work out your unique wellbeing and resilience levers.
That said, it's important to remember that as women we can only 'optimise' our way out of systemic inequality so far. This report should be a call to action for the venture capital community, accelerators, and government bodies to address the structural and societal barriers that force women to constantly do more with less. If women can do so much with so little, imagine what we could achieve with equal support and funding.