Interview: On gay shame with founder & investor, Nick Telson
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Interview: On gay shame with founder & investor, Nick Telson
Interview with Nick Telson
A 4 minute read: pause, sit, scroll and listen to another narrative
Sharing the untold and unique stories from a diversity of entrepreneurs is part of our commitment to give a voice to the entrepreneurs who have lived through emotional and mental health challenges. We recently spoke with investor and serial founder, Nick Telson, who has been incredibly honest and vocal on the topic of Gay Shame.
The Future Farm: You recently wrote a piece on gay shame which struck a cord with so many people in the startup community. Could you share more about it? What was your experience of gay shame in business? How did it shape your experience in building a startup?
Nick Telson: A lot of straight people will be totally unaware of the concept of gay shame and moreover some gay people themselves won't be aware why they feel this way. It took me a while to realise why I would hide my sexuality in the business space. To be totally clear, in the company I was founder of, I never hid it and all the team knew I was gay, but more when talking to clients and potential customers I would not actively talk about my personal life. Why? As gay people, we have been told for decades that it's wrong; more than wrong, illegal still in some countries. Still to this day in the UK, especially in religious circles and non-urban centres, it is still seen as odd or wrong. This affects you. It is who we are, we can't change it and if we are constantly told what we fundamentally are is wrong you feel shame.
What I found myself doing was then projecting this shame onto people; totally incorrectly. I would assume they would have a problem with it, thus keeping it to myself. Fortunately for me it didn't affect my startup from a growth point of view, but it did stop me building certain connections with people as I would shy away from talking about myself personally, away from business talk. Within the office I made it clear that we were a totally inclusive company and not only welcomed, but encouraged all sexualities, ethnicities and genders… I truly believe a mix of people is such an asset to any company.
The Future Farm: You mentor and coach entrepreneurs, what are the most prominent mental health challenges that you have seen entrepreneurs face? In your experience have you seen a pattern or trend in these over the last year?
Nick Telson: The clearest challenge is definitely a sense of feeling overwhelmed and then being alone to not be able to share this. Being a founder is incredibly stressful and a true rollercoaster of emotions; some days you are flying high and the next you could be in the depths of despair. This constant up and down takes a huge toll on one's mental health…especially for solo founders who don't have a shoulder to share the burden with. I wouldn't say this has been exasperated over the last year, at least for my mentees and investments, but the pandemic has obviously hit some of "my'' startups badly so the worry of being able to survive the pandemic and then be ready to grow again has been the hardest mental health toll. My role as mentor and angel investor has definitely become a lot more personal over the last 18 months and I've made it very clear that they can contact me with ANY worry, whether it be personal or business.
The Future Farm: You're an investor with an incredibly diverse portfolio of startups on your roster. As an investor, how active a role do you play in creating more diverse environments in these companies? What do you think the responsibility of investors should be here (if at all)?
Nick Telson: This is a really interesting question and one I've never been asked. I'm an extremely active angel investor in the companies I am involved with and the founders know I am here for any help they need, however, I also know my boundaries. I don't feel it's for me to influence their team or team make-up but I certainly preach the positive impacts of having a diverse team. To be totally honest times are changing for the good and this is already front of mind for most of my founders so don't need reminding. Having said the above, if I did visit one of my startup's offices and let's say a team of 15 were 100% white guys, I would probably have a gentle word with the founder. At DesignMyNight, not even through design but talent, 75% of our teams were managed by women and had a gay founder (me); this dynamic I think created for a wonderful, open and progressive environment to work.
About the interviewee
Nick is the host of the Pitch Deck Podcast, Exited Founder of DesignMyNight and Founder of Horseplay Ventures. To learn more about Nick and his work, visit https://linktr.ee/nick.telson.
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