Risultati principali del sondaggio

The question of whether founders and family can coexist becomes concrete after a new international survey. Readers will understand the key numbers, risultati principali, the cultural dynamics that generate the trade-off, and the practical recommendations for investors, incubators and teams. The piece analyzes how the pressure of fundraising in startups and the culture of constant availability push many entrepreneurs to postpone parenthood. The piece also analyzes the push to limit parenthood. It provides practical steps to make the ecosystem more sustainable without giving up growth and scale.

Key survey risultati principali and what they mean

The qualitative survey was conducted in September and October 2025 by Maria 01 in collaboration with the agency Bamla. The research collected 55 anonymous responses from founders, CEOs, operators and aspiring founders in 9 countries. Participants were 53% women and 46% men. 62% of respondents were founders and 20% were aspiring founders. 69% of respondents had children while 31% did not.

More than half of founders without children said they had postponed having them because of entrepreneurial pressures. Almost one founder in four said they feel forced to choose between entrepreneurship and family life. Among founders who are parents, almost one in five said they had postponed having children. More than 14% said they had limited the number of planned children because of the startup’s needs. Half of founders with children feel stressed always or almost always.

We cannot afford to choose between founders and births, said Sarita Runeberg, CEO of Maria 01, summarizing the demographic and economic urgency raised by the survey.

Why startup culture creates this trade-off

The early stage of a startup is often evaluated through visible signals of commitment. These signals include long hours, immediate responses, continuous travel and availability for investors and customers. This model rewards visible “busyness” and not real productivity. Parenthood and caregiving require stability, flexibility and uncompresible time, creating a structural conflict with the always-on founder narrative.

Measuring dedication through presence punishes those with caregiving responsibilities. The practice discourages participation of talent who cannot or do not want to sacrifice family and health. Measuring dedication through busyness penalizes parents.

Gender-differentiated impact

Responses show disparities in experience between men and women. Some female founders reported hiding pregnancies from investors. Others avoided visible events during pregnancy to not be perceived as an investment risk. At the same time, paternity leave remains rarely normalized in the startup ecosystem, keeping caregiving disproportionately female.

These dynamics erode diversity and reduce the talent pool. If women must hide pregnancies and men cannot take leave, the ecosystem loses perspectives and resilience. The current culture risks narrowing who can become a founder.

Parents as a resource for startups

Many interviewees said that parenthood improved their performance: greater ability to prioritize, concentration and less tolerance for performative activities. Juhana Rintala of Yummy said that becoming a parent made him “more focused”, while Teemu Myllymäki of Measurlabs called for honesty about the real costs of entrepreneurship.

Transferable skills include discipline, rapid decision-making and management of scarce resources: qualities useful on a scaleup path or during a Series A. Parents often offer more focused and results-oriented leadership.

Normalizing parenthood increases the system’s ability to attract and retain talent.

Practical actions and recommendations

For investors and accelerators: standardize realistic expectations on timelines and growth checkpoints. Include flexibility as an evaluative criterion. Promote public examples of founders with children. For incubators and hubs: offer childcare services during events, more flexible hours and mentorship models with founder-parents. For policy and future research: monitor quantitatively the impact on fundraising and exits and study replicable interventions in regions such as Emilia-Romagna and Italian technology clusters.

Critically, there are two views in tension: one approach that preserves the culture of “full immersion” to maximize market speed and another that aims for sustainable long-term results by investing in people’s health. The first can produce rapid successes and unicorns, but increases the risk of burnout, talent flight and undiversified teams. The second requires patience from VCs, changes to investment contracts and support infrastructures. But it broadens the pool of entrepreneurs and can improve the quality of business decisions.

Those who currently benefit are founders without caregiving constraints and ecosystems that reward physical presence. Those who lose out are women, parents and candidates who value work-life balance. If investors and acceleration platforms accept metrics based on results instead of hours, the European and Italian startup scene could become more inclusive without giving up growth and innovation.

Closing title: Towards an ecosystem that takes people into account.

The sustainability of startups is not only about the accounts: it is about the people who build them. Practical changes, normalized leave policies, flexibility in accelerators, and performance evaluations based on results, can reduce the binary choice between founders and family. Italian investors and regional communities must begin to measure leadership quality beyond hours worked. This way they will be able to attract more talent and build more resilient companies.

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