Your startup has 18 months of cash. But do you have 18 months of energy?
We obsess over “Financial Runway.” Track burn rate, CAC, and MRR down to the rupee.
We know precisely when the money runs out.
But we almost never calculate our Biological Runway.
Biological Runway is the duration you can maintain high-quality decision-making before your physiology forces a “hard reset” (burnout, illness, or mental fog).
Here is what I learned the hard way as a CPO/COO and now as a Co-Founder:
Startups rarely die because they run out of money. They die because the founder runs out of energy.
When your Biological Runway is shorter than your Financial Runway, you enter the “Danger Zone.” This is where:
- Glucose spikes after a poor lunch kill your 2 PM strategy session.
- Cortisol accumulation makes you reactive instead of responsive with your team.
- Sleep debt reduces your prefrontal cortex function (your logic center).
You are technically “working,” but your decisions are degrading. You are burning cash efficiently, but burning yourself recklessly.
3 Ways to Extend Your Biological Runway:
- Treat Energy as a KPI: Just like you report metrics to investors, report health metrics to yourself. If your sleep score is down 20%, your decision quality is likely down 20% as well.
- Flatten the Glucose Curve: Avoid carb-heavy lunches that lead to the mid-afternoon crash. A stable metabolism equals a stable mood.
- Operational Excellence for the Body: Apply the same rigor to your physiology that you apply to your product roadmap. You can’t run a Series A company on a Seed stage body.
Your health isn’t just “self-care.” It is a fiduciary duty to your company.
Don’t let your body go bankrupt while your bank account is still full.