Being a founder is a paradox.

Everyone’s watching. But no one really sees you.

I’m Patrick Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Clarify. Before this, I built and sold Iteratively to Amplitude. And I’ve learned that the founder journey is isolating in ways that are hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it.

Your team looks to you for answers. Your investors want confidence. Your family wants you to be present. Your friends stopped asking you about work.

Not because they don’t care… just because they’ve never put everything on the line to build something from nothing. In the same way, I’ll never know what it’s like to perform surgery or teach history to a room full of fifth-graders.

That’s why I started Founder Therapy.

It’s a weekly newsletter about what it actually feels like to build a company: the trade-offs, the emotional weight, the lessons you only learn when you’re all in.

Sometimes it’s about strategy. Sometimes it’s deeply human. Always real. I’ll provide my perspective and introduce you to some other voices to round out the opinions.

If you’re nodding along right now, this is for you.

You’re not alone in feeling alone.

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