"What’s the most common cognitive bias founders have that makes them fail?"
The same one that makes them succeed: optimism bias.
It’s the bias that keeps you moving when logic would stop you. It convinces you the mountain is climbable, the idea is workable, the market is waiting. Without it, you’d never start.
But optimism bias also has a shadow side.
It makes you overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes and underestimate the negative ones. You start selectively processing information - spotlighting every green light, ignoring every red flag.
That’s how founders end up surprised by the exact storms every naysayer saw coming.
Then there’s overconfidence bias, optimism’s loyal sidekick.
Without it, again, no company would exist. Why would you start if you didn't believe you are THE ONE to make it happen?
With it, you might believe the ride will be smooth, or that early success means permanent success.
The danger?
a) You’re not mentally or emotionally prepared for the setbacks, delays, and gut-punches that are guaranteed.
b) You don’t build reserves for the rainy day because you’re so sure YOUR rainy day won’t come.
My approach as a coach has matured a lot over the last 10 years.
I stopped trying to “fix people.”
Now I help founders, leaders, organizations to double down on their strengths, including the biases that got them this far, AND build guardrails to protect them from the dark side of those strengths.
Guardrails like:
• Decision rules that prevent you from riding the emotional roller-coaster straight into a bad call that you'll never recover from.
• Teammates who do the due diligence before your enthusiasm closes the deal.
• Pacing growth and building systems that can scale before inviting in more customers.
Every superpower has a flip side.
If you don’t design systems to counter it, the flip side eventually bites.
A good way to spot your own biases?
Look at the places where your expectations consistently don’t match reality.
Or review your failures, which overly optimistic people rarely do, because they assume things will “just get better.”
So… can you name some of your biases?
(Overly optimistic, big-picture, fast mover, insatiable learner are definitely some of mine. Every one of them has a shadow.)
