Startups are on the rise, with more and more businesses being formed and making headlines. But the glamor and appeal of being involved in a startup is only part of the experience. Whether you’re involved in a startup that’s a rare success or a startup that faces the more common failure rate, it’s not for the faint of heart.
The experience of launching, running, and even exiting a startup (when the time comes) is the focus of startup entrepreneur and expert Ashwin Gulati’s new book, Soul Venture: A True Life and Death Journey into the Startup Culture.
As the title suggests, Gulati presents startup culture in a way that’s completely unlike the usual business book. While he spends plenty of time talking about investors and funding, he also delves into sides of startup entrepreneurship that matter just as much — including spiritual, psychological, emotional, and even sexual aspects. And he knows of what he speaks, having spent decades helping startups take off and land safely. With real acumen, experience, and a renegade’s drive to get to the truth, Gulati is the startup guru you didn’t know you needed.
Grit Daily: You’ve worked in startups, and you work with a whole range of startup entrepreneurs. When you’re helping a startup CEO get their business off the ground or land safely, what’s the biggest hazard they face?
Ashwin: That’s an interesting question, and I have to give you a two-part answer. There are two types of hazards every startup CEO faces: one is personal (which they rarely talk about), and the other is business-related (which they can’t stop talking about). Both are equally valid and deeply intertwined.
On the personal side, CEOs are often under immense pressure, which has hazards of its own, such as stress, personal struggles, family challenges, and even health concerns. These, in turn, indirectly affect their business decisions, yet they’re rarely discussed openly. I always encourage entrepreneurs to seek coaching or therapy as part of their support system.
On the business side, the hazards an entrepreneur faces will vary depending on the company’s stage, but they typically revolve around two things: time and money. There’s always a danger that the company doesn’t have enough runway to really get off the ground. Or there’s not enough cash flow to sustain the new venture. You’re always working against the clock: it never stops ticking. Nor do the risks.
Grit Daily: Your book has an intriguing title. What is it about the startup culture that makes it so harrowing — that it turns running an enterprise into a “life and death” journey?
Ashwin: I wrote the book considering my own journey as well, and when it starts, I’m in a pretty dark place. True entrepreneurship is both an internal and external journey. I also discovered that entrepreneurs face significantly higher risks of mental health challenges than non-entrepreneurs, which was not surprising to me, but it’s pretty dramatic. Research has shown that entrepreneurs are:
- Twice as likely to suffer from depression.
- Six times more likely to have ADHD.
- Three times more likely to struggle with substance abuse.
- Ten times more likely to experience bipolar disorder.
- Twice as likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric reasons.
- Twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts.
Now, ADHD isn’t always a bad thing, which I talk about in the book. But the toll of entrepreneurship — all the highs and lows and risks — doesn’t help deal with mental health. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, took his own life. Jensen Huang, the co-founder of the $3 trillion tech giant Nvidia, said he would never go through it again. We’ve lost a lot of great people. I’m not sure it’s just the startup culture — it’s feeling that you’re single-handedly responsible for this brand-new, super-risky enterprise and feeling the constant pressure of that role.
From a business perspective, life and death means something else that is just as profound. Launching a company requires a delicate balance of investment, team dynamics, product development, sales, and, most crucially, timing. There are factors you can control and factors you can’t. And most of the business ideas and practices out there can actually work against you. So you may start thinking that this is going to be a simple venture, but between the internal and external pressures, the long workdays, and relentless years of effort, it turns into a high-stakes journey.
Grit Daily: Let’s talk about the other part of the title — the “soul” part. What is soulful about startups to you? Is it a matter of how deeply you have to care in order to sustain a business? What makes it a soul venture?
Ashwin: A startup isn’t just a business endeavor. It’s a personal pilgrimage. Yes, you have to deeply care about your business, but you also need to care about why you are doing it. At some point, every founder faces a moment of deep introspection — realizing that building a company is not just about profit and growth but about purpose and personal evolution.
In the book, I talk about the feeling of wanting to find a way to maximize our existence, feel like a creator, and manifest something from nothing. The call of a startup can feel that way. You’re weaving dreams into reality, and you’re intimately involved in every step from idea to enterprise — you have to be. It’s incredibly compelling to some people — a sense that you’re making life bigger. I also went through a lot of soul-searching to figure out why I kept wanting to be involved with startups, and the answer taps into the deepest parts of who I am. I think it’s the same for so many entrepreneurs. It’s not that you can’t put your finger on it. It may be more that you don’t give yourself the time to do it.
But you should, because if you don’t, you wind up trapped in the same place you started in. One big irony in this line of work is that many entrepreneurs launch companies seeking freedom. They want freedom from the confines of a job, from a financial situation, or from having to exist within a corporate structure. Ironically, that same freedom is what they end up chasing within their startup — and many times, they wind up looking for a personal exit. You need to know what you’re in for.
Grit Daily: There’s always a lot of attention paid to startups that succeed — from Apple to Nvidia and, more recently, China’s DeepSeek. But you also write about how many startups are destined to fail. Is there a way to know whether a venture is going to succeed or not? What are the odds?
Ashwin: That’s the billion-dollar question. If we had a reliable formula to predict success, that would be the holy grail of entrepreneurship. DeepSeek is a great example of what happens in startups, though: all these startups that thought they had the AI thing all sewn up are dealing with a brand-new disruption. It happens all the time.
But at its core, business is a simple equation: Business Success = Money In > Money Out.
As long as that number remains positive and grows quarter after quarter, you’re on the right track. But what adjusts that equation? Founders, investors, employees, and advisors will all have different perspectives. Is it funding? The team? Product market-fit? Sales? Internal conflicts?
The truth is that business success depends on a unique combination of all these factors. There is no universal predictor of success — only an educated guess at the beginning, followed by relentless adaptation along the way.
Grit Daily: You do a lot of soul-searching in this book, as well as research into what makes an entrepreneur built for the task. It’s not for everyone, you point out. So, what does it take to be a startup entrepreneur? Is there an X-factor or a gene?
Ashwin: The debate about whether entrepreneurs are born or made has been going on forever. Western perspectives lean on scientific studies — personality tests, DNA research, and behavioral analysis. Eastern philosophies, however, incorporate elements like numerology and astrology. I believe both perspectives have merit.
I’ve written a lot about the question of DNA vs. destiny. There are some fascinating studies, including one that focused on DRD4-7R, a genetic component that’s present in approximately 20% of the population and is associated with an inclination toward risk-taking, impulsivity, adventurousness, and the thirst for unique experiences, whether that involves scaling literal mountains like Everest or metaphorical ones in the business world. It’s also called the wanderlust gene — and I see a clear connection to entrepreneurs.
However, I use two key frameworks to understand entrepreneurial fit. The first is how individuals handle risk and challenge. I also call this the tailwind vs. headwind effect. This is about personal history. Life experiences either propel you toward risk-taking (tailwind) or instill a sense of struggle and caution (headwind). I’ve found that entrepreneurs who had strong family support systems were more likely to take calculated risks and bounce back from setbacks.
The other framework has to do with certain aspects of character, or approach, that add up to what I call scrit. The term combines “scrappy” and “grit,” and the best startup founders have both. They’re both scrappy (resourceful and able to do more with less) and gritty (persistent in the face of adversity). While many gritty people endure hardship, not all of them are scrappy enough to thrive in an entrepreneurial environment. Of course, individual entrepreneurs will all have a different balance of these factors, but the key is that they have both.
Grit Daily: Talk about your background. You came to the U.S. from India as a teenager. How has your own upbringing and your own experience as an immigrant shaped your experience as an entrepreneur and as an expert on startups?
Ashwin: When I was 13, my family moved from New Delhi to the San Francisco Bay area. The change was a shock in so many ways. In India, I was a popular student-athlete; in the U.S., I was the most unpopular kid. In India, my family was middle class and comfortable; in the U.S., we were suddenly poor. I had to start working multiple jobs early on and became entrepreneurial by necessity.
Coming to the U.S. and facing those hardships helped forge my resilience, competitiveness, and adaptability. Those traits have certainly defined my career. I’ve spent much of my life in the trenches of startups, whether my own or my clients’. I know firsthand the brutal realities of building something from nothing.
Grit Daily: Do you think it’s worth starting a new business venture these days, given the incredibly rapid and cutthroat nature of most industries? Is this a time to hold off on entrepreneurial dreams or dive in?
Ashwin: This might sound counterintuitive, but I actually start by trying to discourage entrepreneurs from starting businesses to understand their motives. For one thing, steering one’s life into the realm of startups has become almost too easy. It’s estimated that close to 150,000 startups sprout every day worldwide. But 97% of startups fail — which means 97% of entrepreneurs would do well to be talked out of their doomed ventures. On the other hand, 0% of successful companies are thwarted by skeptics. If they push forward anyway, that means they truly should.
Startups are easier to launch because, today, we have a plethora of online services at our disposal. Entrepreneurs can quickly arrange nearly every facet of a business, from outsourcing product development and utilizing crowdsourcing for ongoing projects to tapping into online funding platforms, hiring virtual assistants, launching a business within 24 hours, and catapulting its reach worldwide with the mere click of a button. But ease of entry doesn’t mean ease of survival. So the key question isn’t whether to start a business, it’s why.
Grit Daily: Are there any universal lessons in your book that anyone in business — or in any field — could take to heart?
Ashwin: Absolutely. This isn’t just a book about business success — it’s about personal transformation. I spent 16 years writing Soul Venture because it intertwines the personal and professional in a way most business books don’t.
The book challenges conventional wisdom, revealing how some of the most commonly accepted advice can work against you. This is something I experienced firsthand and have seen in so many other cases as well. What you don’t learn in business school, for instance, is how personality, spirituality, and even your relationships impact your entrepreneurial journey — and your entrepreneurial journey will also impact your life. That’s the raw, unfiltered reality of startup life.
Grit Daily: What’s the one single piece of advice you want entrepreneurs to follow today?
That it’s not just business, it’s personal.
Grit Daily: Is there anything you’d like to add that we haven’t asked about?
Ashwin: There’s so much more I could say, but at the end of the day, I want people to see entrepreneurship for what it is: incredibly complex, multifaceted, multilayered, and not just a phase in a career. I packed Soul Venture with hard-earned lessons, personal revelations, and business insights that you won’t find elsewhere. If you’re serious about entrepreneurship, it’s a journey worth taking.
