A room of founders, and a number that tells you the truth.

Burnout, focus, and the parts of building that nobody puts in the update. Founders only.

Applications are open for the next cohort

BurnoutSleepPrefrontal cortexADHDRecoveryCortisolDecision fatigueYour pod of fiveConnectionLoadBurnoutSleepPrefrontal cortexADHDRecoveryCortisolDecision fatigueYour pod of fiveConnectionLoad
Founders only

You already know if this is for you

Nobody talks about this part in public, so here it is in plain language.

You are past tired and into burnt out, and you stopped saying it out loud a while ago.
Your brain starts six things a day and finishes one, and you have started to wonder what that is.
You have not taken a real day off since you raised, and the days off you do take do not work.
You wake at 3:30 and whatever you are thinking about feels completely unsolvable until morning.
There is nobody you can give the honest version to, because everyone you would tell is invested in you.
You are still shipping, so from the outside nothing looks wrong at all.
Why it stays hidden

Almost nobody says it out loud

72%
of founders say building their company has hurt their mental health
10%
have told an investor

The number that matters is not 72. It is the distance between 72 and 10. That gap is not weakness, it is what happens when the only people you could tell are the people evaluating you.

Our founder spent four months as a patient navigator in a New York emergency room and watched 33 founders and executives arrive in psychiatric crisis. Almost none of them looked like the burnt out founder you picture. Most were still shipping, right up until they were not.

The Founder Capacity Index
Before
55
Where you actually are
After
87
Where you can get to

You cannot manage what you never measure, and almost no founder is measuring the one asset the whole company runs on. This is the number, and it moves.

What you get

Four things, and nothing else to keep up with

No course, no library of videos, no streak to break. You already have enough things you are behind on. These are the parts that actually change how a week goes.

1

Your number

A score across load pressure, recovery capacity and prefrontal strain, tracked so you can watch the line move across the year you are building. Yours, private, forever.

2

Your pod of five

Four other founders, matched to you by stage and by what your score says. Same five people every week, so by the third call nobody has to explain their situation again.

3

The Founders Call

Every week, live. No slides and no lecture. A short piece on what is actually happening in your body, and then founders talking honestly to each other.

4

A real person when it drops

If your number lands somewhere we would worry about, you hear from us directly, with a warm introduction to a provider we trust and a rate held for members.

Three ways this shows up

Burnout does not look the same on everybody

Your score sorts you into one of three profiles, and knowing which one you are changes what actually helps. Rest makes one of these worse.

Overloaded
Carrying too much, still recovering fine
Busy, not broken. What helps here is boundaries and handing things off, because sleep was never the problem.
Depleted
The calendar looks fine and you feel underwater
The classic burnout picture. The load is survivable, the recovery is not happening, and working less on its own does not fix it.
Detached
Not tired. Flat.
Forty tabs open and none of them close. A week off makes this one worse, which is exactly why the number matters more than the feeling.
Membership

Choose how much support you want

Every level includes your score, your pod, the weekly call, and the Room. The difference is how much one to one work sits on top.

The Cohort
$139
The room, and everything in it
  • Your score, before and after
  • Your pod of five founders
  • The weekly Founders Call
  • Dinner with the group in New York
  • Your first month in the Room
Everything above, always included
Cohort plus 1:1
$397
12 places
  • Everything in the Cohort
  • Two private sessions to work through your own score
  • Your results read and written up for you, not generated
  • Your questions answered directly instead of in a group
Everything above, always included
4 places
Founding Partner
$897
The deepest level of support
  • Everything in the tiers before it
  • A private session every single week
  • A capacity plan written for your profile, not a template
  • Direct access between sessions
  • Provider introductions handled personally if you need one
  • Named as a founding partner of the research, and check ins long after the cohort ends
Everything above, always included
This is application only

Tell us what you are building and what brought you here. We read every application ourselves and we do not accept everyone, because who is in the room is most of what makes the room worth being in.

And it does not end

Most programmes hand you a PDF and disappear

Your cohort finishes. The Room keeps going, with the same people who watched you get through the hardest part of your year.

  • The Founders Call, every week, for as long as you stay
  • Your pod, the same five people
  • Your score tracked month after month, so the line keeps building
  • Dinner and an in person reset every quarter
  • A warm introduction to a provider we trust whenever you need one

Your first month in the Room comes with every membership. After that it is $39 a month, and that price is locked for you permanently, even when it goes up for everyone else. Cancel in two clicks. No email, no retention call.

If your number has not moved, we refund you

Completely, with no conversation attached. The guarantee is on your score actually moving, not on how you felt about the calls. It is the only promise we can make honestly, and it is the one that matters.

Questions

The things founders ask

I do not have time for this

The weekly call has a hard stop and it is recorded, and we say out loud on day one that missing a week is fine. Your pod schedules itself around all of you. Nothing here is designed for a person with a clear calendar, because none of our members have one.

Is this therapy?

No, and we are careful about that. This is measurement, structure, and a room of people in the same position as you. It is not medical or mental health care and does not replace either. If your numbers say you need clinical support, we introduce you personally to a provider who does that work, and you pay them directly.

Who sees my results?

You. Not an investor, not your team, not your cap table. Not as a summary, not anonymized, not aggregated, not ever. If a fund one day sponsors seats, it sponsors an entire portfolio and never receives an individual name or score. That rule has no exceptions, and it is the only reason the answers are honest enough for the number to mean anything.

What if you do not accept my application?

We tell you why, and point you at the free score and whatever else we think would actually help. Being turned down is not a judgement about you. Usually it just means the room is not the right fit at your stage.

Do I have to be a founder?

Mostly founders and early operators. If the description above fits how your work actually feels, apply and tell us about it.

Can I cancel later?

Any time, in two clicks, from your own account. No cancellation email and no retention call. You can also pause for a month instead of cancelling, which most people should do at least once.

Who runs it

A small team, on purpose

Small enough that a real person reads your application and notices when your number moves the wrong way.

Nicole V. Pires
Founder

Studied neuroscience at Columbia, wrote The Strong Brain, and speaks at TEDx in Italy this year. Before that, an EMT and a patient navigator in an emergency room, which is where the counting started.

She has also built and sold a company, so she knows the 3:30am version of this from the inside rather than from a clinic.

The Founder Capacity Index
The instrument

A short assessment across load pressure, recovery capacity and prefrontal strain, built on the science of how sustained pressure changes sleep, focus and judgement.

It exists because self assessment fails exactly when you need it most. The instrument you would check yourself with is the same one that is compromised.

Start with your number

Free, no card, and you get your score and where you sit against other founders. If it tells you something you did not want to know, we are right here.