You've just landed a $5 million Series A. Your dream of Silicon Valley success has materialized after years of struggle. As you drive down Highway 101 with the top down, screaming with joy, you should be experiencing pure euphoria.

But what happens the next morning when panic sets in? When you realize those investors now expect results and your phone won't stop ringing with people wanting a piece of your time, your energy, and yes—your newfound capital?

This was the reality for Fabrizio Capobianco, the Italian (in America) entrepreneur who built multiple successful startups including Funambol and TOK.tv before returning to his hometown to launch The Liquid Factory, investing €4M to help the next generation of Italian founders build Silicon Valley unicorns.

What makes Fabrizio's journey particularly fascinating isn't just his business success, but how he navigated the founder journey while maintaining his physical health, mental clarity, and perhaps most surprisingly—his Buddhist practice. In our recent conversation, he revealed the counterintuitive approaches that kept him balanced through two decades of startup intensity.

Key Highlights

The $5M Panic: When Success Feels Like Failure

For many founders, securing significant funding represents the ultimate validation. But for Fabrizio, it marked the beginning of a new kind of pressure that threatened both his productivity and wellbeing.

"I thought I was done. I remember just driving on 101 with my top down and just yelling so loud. I thought it's over, you know? I'm 30, and I've raised $5,000,000. I have a check. And then I realized the next day it flipped into panic mode. I said, 'Oh, shit. What do I do with $5,000,000? This guy's on my back every day.'"

This pattern repeated with each company Fabrizio built. The elation of achievement quickly transformed into the heavy responsibility of execution. The insight? Success itself can become a stressor if you aren't prepared for what follows.

Quick Win: Schedule a "post-win recovery day" after major milestones. Instead of diving straight into execution mode, give yourself 24 hours to process the achievement, set boundaries for the next phase, and prepare mentally for the new challenges ahead.

The Buddhist Founder: Compassion as Competitive Advantage

When asked about applying Buddhist principles to business, Fabrizio offered a refreshingly pragmatic perspective that challenges the win-at-all-costs mentality prevalent in startup culture.

The principle of "wise selfishness"—helping others with the understanding it ultimately benefits you—became his leadership philosophy. Not because it sounds noble, but because it works.

"If your company grows, you're gonna have a lot of people. And the way you treat people makes an enormous difference on the success of the company. If you have people that actually follow you because they are happy, because they understand what they have to do, because they understand that you listen to their problems, the company is gonna do better."

Fabrizio acknowledges the existence of successful "jackasses" who've built enormous companies. But his experience suggests that treating people well—from employees to customers to investors—creates sustainable advantages that show up in loyalty, productivity, and ultimately, better business outcomes.

Quick Win: Practice the one-breath pause before responding in tense situations. When faced with a challenging employee interaction or disappointing news, take one full breath before responding. This tiny buffer creates space for a more thoughtful, compassionate response rather than a reactive one.

The 5AM Solution: Managing Teams Across Time Zones

Long before remote work became mainstream, Fabrizio was building international teams—with headquarters in Silicon Valley and development teams in Italy, operating nine hours apart. This arrangement created unique challenges for his physical health and daily rhythm.

"I would wake up at five. I bought this thing that would shake my arm that I don't remember the name. It was some kind of wearable that would not wake up my wife, and they would wake me up out of just light sleep around five."

His morning routine became a crucial foundation for maintaining both productivity and wellbeing:

1. Wake at 5AM with a gentle wearable alarm

2. Meditate first thing to clear mental space

3. Handle the backlog of overnight communications

4. Walk the dog to get physical movement

5. Prepare breakfast for family before starting the workday

This structured approach allowed him to manage both his international team and family responsibilities without burning out—though he admits his early bedtime sometimes complicated his marriage.

Quick Win: Create distinct transition moments between work modes. If managing teams across time zones, establish clear boundaries between your "international team time" and your "local team time," with a physical or temporal buffer in between—even if it's just a 15-minute walk or meditation session.

Finding Your Flow Sport: The Right Exercise for Founder Brains

Not all exercise is created equal when it comes to mental restoration. Fabrizio discovered that certain activities allowed his founder brain to truly disconnect, while others actually increased his mental workload.

"I play paddle right now or I go skiing because I just don't think. There are some sports I don't like, like swimming, and I tried. If I swim, I work. It doesn't get my mind off work."

The key insight is finding physical activities that demand your complete attention, creating a true mental break from work obsessions:

This isn't just about physical health—it's about creating mental space that allows your subconscious to process challenges while your conscious mind rests. For founders constantly solving complex problems, this mental reset is essential for sustained performance.

Quick Win: Experiment with three different types of exercise over the next two weeks, specifically evaluating each on how effectively it quiets your work thoughts. Rank them on a simple 1-10 scale of "mental freedom" and double down on the activity that scores highest.

Your Founder 911: The One Person Every CEO Needs

The most poignant insight from our conversation was Fabrizio's emphasis on founder loneliness and the critical importance of having a specific type of support person—not just any mentor, but someone who has truly walked the path before you.

"The most important thing is that the issue with being a founder or the CEO is that you're alone. There are decisions that you cannot even discuss with your cofounders, and definitely, you cannot talk to the board."

Fabrizio emphasized that this person needs specific qualifications to be truly helpful:

1. Someone who has actually run a startup before

2. Someone who isn't in your reporting structure or on your payroll

3. Someone who understands the founder journey viscerally, not academically

4. Someone you can call in moments of panic

While professional coaches and therapists serve important roles, Fabrizio believes there's no substitute for someone who has personally navigated the unique pressures of the founder journey.

Quick Win: Identify one person who fits these criteria and explicitly ask them to be your "founder emergency contact." Be specific about what kind of support you're looking for—a sounding board in moments of crisis, not regular mentoring or advice. Make it clear you value their experience and perspective in helping you navigate your darkest moments.

My Personal Reflections:

Fabrizio is a veteran entrepreneur, and you can clearly sense this from our conversation. What I loved, and definitely didn't plan in advance, was discovering we shared such a profound philosophy in life and business: doing good by the principles of Buddhism. Discovering meditation had the very same effect on him as it did on me - a super useful and practical tool to rebalance our nervous system and augment our abilities to cope with tight schedules, large teams and ever-increasing stress.