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A note from our founder.

One year prior to the launch date of Impact Founder, I was on the phone with the suicide prevention hotline about someone close to me at the time. He was overwhelmed, and his business was growing too fast to keep up. Calling the lifeline was the single most important decision I made in that moment, and he is alive today. 

Less than a year later, there were 2 suicides and one death of startup founders under the age of 32. After reading about Josh Greenberg (Grooveshark), Faigy Mayergot (Appton), and Austen Heinz (Cambrian Genomics), I made the decision to stand for authentic entrepreneurship and create a community of stories, a network of conversations that didn't exist in 2014 - it was my goal to create a movement to alleviate the feeling of depression and suicide among founders through sharing what it's really like.

We completed our initial launch in Denver with a photography exhibit at Denver Startup Week September, 2015. In a single week 7,000 entrepreneurs visited the exhibit. From that initial launch, the team went on to launch podcasts - we interviewed more than 400 business owners and founders, and our founder published a book of  founder short stories. In May 2020, I co-authored a scoping review with the University of Alberta, "Depression among entrepreneurs: a scoping review". After nearly a decade in the field, I am positioned as an expert in Entrepreneurship and mental wellness. Today, Impact Founder is sharing our research and knowledge through founder group coaching and keynote speaking. Our mission is to reach founders across the globe and create a community of founders who know what’s really happening behind their smiles and successes. 

‘Today, I am standing for every entrepreneur who feels isolated, is buried under a mountain of stress or failure or who can’t see a way out.’

Kristin R. Darga

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