Startup Burnout with Ryan Vaughn

2 Cent Dad Podcast

"In other discipline, at some point you have someone working with you to take you to the next level. Every single professional athlete has a coach because they reached the limit of what they can do on their own." -Ryan Vaughn

If one of your employees or team members came to you and said they were feeling overwhelmed and overworked, needing a break, what would you do? Like any great leader you would listen to what they were going through and likely give them the time they needed to sort things out, and get back on track mentally. The issue as leaders is that we rarely do this for ourselves, and we should. Most leaders are burnt out on some level, and few invest in themselves in a way that gets them back to full speed.

Today's guest, Ryan Vaughn, talks about the burnout he experienced in his startup (VNN) and how he came to grips with it. He now helps founders that are dealing with similar issues in their own company.

Where to find Ryan:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/RyanHVaughn
• Blog http://ryanhvaughn.com/
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhvaughn/

Transcription below (may contain typos...):
Ryan: [00:00:00] [00:00:00] I was swimming in the water to such a degree that I didn't realize that I was in the water.

Right. I just, I didn't realize that I was, I was. Playing such a role that it, that I actually was, I felt like this was just what you had to do.

Mike: [00:00:13] What would you do if one of your employees or one of your team members came to you and said they were stressed out, they were feeling overwhelmed. They felt like that was inhibiting their ability to do their job. Well, if you're actually a good leader, you would first listen to what they're going through and, and what that means for them. But then second, you would probably be pretty gracious with letting them have some time off to sort through some of the things so that they can come back to their a hundred percent capacity or potential.

And oftentimes as leaders, we see this with our direct reports or people in our team. But we don't extend that same grace to ourselves. We don't allow ourselves [00:01:00] to. Heal or to address those personal issues that were maybe experiencing when it comes to feeling overwhelmed or burnout. Um, as some might call it.

Well, that's exactly what I hit on today with Ryan Vaughn and the conversation we had about his startup and, and the journey over almost a decade, uh, of, you know, building a company and then dealing with burnout and trying to sort that out and. And now he helps founders do that and it helps founders, you know, sort out.

You know, levels of burnout and how to recover and return with their best, um, efforts for their business. So let's happen to interview with ryan

all right today on the podcast. I have Ryan Vaughn. Who's the founder of varsity news network. He is a recovering founder, I think is maybe the term that he would use, but, um, very successful startup here in grand Rapids, Michigan.

He's also a father. Um, welcome to the show, Ryan.

Ryan: [00:01:58] Thank you. Thanks for having me on Mike. It's [00:02:00] good to be here.

Mike: [00:02:01] Yeah, I, um, you know, obviously you and I have, um, met previously, uh, which is different from some guests that I have on, you know, I haven't met them and haven't had a personal relationship with them, but you started varsity news network, um, here in grand Rapids.

Um, Which is a tech startup and, you know, your journey in that is what I really want to hear and,

Ryan: [00:02:22] and unpack, because I

Mike: [00:02:23] think it's a, probably a familiar story for a lot of startup founders that, um, you know, go through this rush of the fundraising and then they get to a point where maybe they get burned out.

And, um, by me, they don't even know that they're burned out and then. In the midst of that, they're trying to be a dad. And that's where this podcast is really meant to, to talk about as well. So I was wondering if you could just start at the beginning, tell me a little bit about, um, how varsity news network came to be

Ryan: [00:02:51] and a little bit of that story and the origin.

Yeah. Um, yeah, so [00:03:00] I, I, uh, didn't have any sort of business background. Uh, you know, I, I got my degree in creative writing and was a fine arts kid for, you know, throughout most of my life. Although I did play sports wizard, which was maybe a little bit of a contradiction. Um, and, and started, uh, you know, after school I was working at a car dealership and I was the director of e-commerce at the car dealership, which was a made up title that basically meant that they didn't have a website.

And I was the guy who was going to do that. And, uh, and you know, it was a way for me to have a title that I liked this post and. In the midst of doing that, I started, uh, a, uh, blog, which became something became like a pretty successful blog called West Michigan all-star and convinced my boss to pay for it, uh, through sponsorship.

And basically instead of paying me money where he allowed me to do was to, uh, go to [00:04:00] sports, uh, go to high school sports events and write about it at work. And so at that time, I was like the. Probably the country's only, um, gainfully employed sports writer at a car dealership. Uh, and it was, you know, it was an interesting ride that was around 2008.

So then the whole market took a crap, um, in the, uh, in the, um, you know, in the auto industry. So I got a chance to see that, and that was interesting. And, and, you know, throughout that whole period of time, I was still, um, Covering sports. You know, I, uh, went back to school and, uh, got my master's at that point.

And, um, and was working at the center for entrepreneurship at grand Valley. And so it got sort of an introduction to, you know, what building things like blogs and business could be, uh, through that and kind of got introduced to the scene. And this was maybe 2000 and 2009, maybe. Um, And, uh, [00:05:00] and I remember I was, I had the idea for Vinn while I was covering high school sports for West Michigan all-star.

And because I was putting me in the 10 people or so, who were working at West Michigan, all-star were putting so much time into covering sports and we had just had to cover, uh, you know, football and basketball, disproportionally to everything else, just because that's where the interest was. We, um, You know, it, it was obvious to me that like, well, there should just be a platform where schools can do their own coverage.

And that was the birth of Vienna. And I remember when I first had that idea, I held onto it. So tightly, it was going to be my bajillion dollar idea that, you know, that made my career and all this. And so I wasn't telling anybody about it. And as a result, nothing much was happening for awhile. And, um, and I was at Ford field.

Uh, covering the high school football championships around Thanksgiving for, um, you know, Thanksgiving, probably 2009, [00:06:00] um, for West Michigan all-star and I'm on roughly the 50 yard line. And this guy that I knew comes up to me, he was also covering high school sports on the East side of the state. His name was Matt Anderson and he, I knew him vaguely, and he comes up to me and he's like, Hey, Ryan, I want to tell you about this i...