The Benefits Gap: What the Lack of Mental Health Support Costs Entrepreneurs, Especially Women—and the Businesses They Build
Entrepreneurship is often framed as freedom—flexibility, autonomy, and the opportunity to build something meaningful on your own terms. But for many entrepreneurs, that freedom comes with a hidden cost: the absence of basic benefits, including access to mental health support.
At Collectively Tangled, this gap is not theoretical. Our executive leadership team is made up of three women, all with children under five. Each of us has experienced unpaid maternity leave, nonexistent benefits, and the reality of returning to leadership roles without the benefits typically available in traditional employment. We’ve navigated pregnancy, postpartum transitions, adoption, sleep deprivation, sick days, and caregiving while holding responsibility for teams, clients, pilots, and the financial sustainability of a business.
Our experience is far from unique…
Across Canada, women are one of the fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs. Yet self-employed individuals are significantly less likely to have access to employer-sponsored benefits—including mental health care. For entrepreneurs, particularly parents, the benefits gap doesn’t just affect personal well-being. It shapes who is able to remain an entrepreneur at all, how long they can sustain leadership, and at what cost to their health, relationships, and capacity to lead.
The State of the Benefits Gap in Canada
In Canada, access to mental health care is already limited. While physician services are publicly funded, psychotherapy is not universally covered. Most Canadians who access therapy do so through employer-sponsored benefits or pay out of pocket. Entrepreneurs rarely have either option.
At the same time, the mental health burden on entrepreneurs is well documented. Studies consistently show that founders experience higher rates of stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout than the general population. Nearly half of entrepreneurs report experiencing burnout each year, and many continue working through it due to financial pressure, responsibility to employees, or fear of appearing incapable.
The result is a system where entrepreneurs are expected to be resilient without being resourced.
The Business Impact of Ignoring Mental Health
The lack of access to mental health support is not just a personal issue—it’s a business risk with economic implications.
Prolonged stress impairs decision-making, narrows creative thinking, and increases emotional reactivity. Entrepreneurs under chronic strain are more likely to experience conflict with co-founders, struggle with delegation, avoid difficult conversations, and operate in survival mode rather than strategic leadership.
From an ecosystem perspective, this has real consequences:
Increased entrepreneur and leadership burnout and attrition
Higher rates of co-founder conflict and leadership breakdown
Reduced long-term sustainability of startups and scaleups
Loss of talented entrepreneurs who exit entrepreneurship due to exhaustion rather than lack of capability or demand
When we fail to support the mental health of entrepreneurs, we undermine the very innovation and economic growth we claim to champion.
Why Parents Are Disproportionately Affected
For entrepreneurs with young children, most commonly women, the benefits gap compounds existing inequities.
Unpaid maternity leave, inconsistent income during caregiving transitions, and the absence of benefits create a structural disadvantage that many entrepreneurs absorb silently. Unlike salaried roles, entrepreneurship rarely offers parental leave protections, mental health coverage, or reintegration support after time away. Without income replacement or benefits during caregiving periods, many entrepreneurs attempt the impossible: sustaining company growth while carrying full caregiving responsibilities—often at the cost of their health, focus, and long-term business outcomes.
This leads to a difficult reality: many entrepreneurs don’t leave entrepreneurship because their ideas fail—but because the system makes it unsustainable to continue.
When mental health support is inaccessible, stress accumulates. When stress accumulates without support, leaders burn out. And when leaders burn out, businesses—and families—pay the price.
Rethinking Access: Mental Health as Infrastructure, Not a Perk
If we want healthier startups and scaleups, we must treat mental health support as infrastructure—not a luxury or “nice to have.”
While the challenge is systemic, there are emerging, actionable solutions:
Ecosystem-funded mental health supports embedded in accelerators, incubators, and venture portfolios. Examples include our Collectively Tangled Membership, currently offered by organizations like the Social Innovation Hub, The Accelerator Centre, and more.
Mental health–informed leadership support that recognizes emotional load as part of the founder and leadership role
Group and pooled benefits models that allow entrepreneurs to access therapy without traditional employers, offered by organizations like the local Chamber of Commerce
Forward-thinking investors and ecosystem builders are beginning to recognize that supporting entrepreneur mental health is strategic risk management—not soft support.
Where Collectively Tangled Fits In
Collectively Tangled exists to address this gap.
We provide specialized mental health support for entrepreneurs, leaders, and founding teams—designed for the realities of entrepreneurship. Our therapists understand startup and scaleup pressure, identity strain, co-founder dynamics, burnout, and the emotional complexity of leading with ambiguity and pressure.
Our Membership model allows us to partner with entrepreneurial communities to offer their members funded, confidential, and specialized mental health support. Through these partnerships, entrepreneurs gain access to therapy designed specifically for the realities of entrepreneurship—without the financial, logistical, or stigma-related barriers that so often prevent people from seeking care.
As women founders and mothers ourselves, we bring both professional expertise and lived experience to this work. We know what it means to build while caregiving, to return to leadership without benefits, and to carry responsibility while managing invisible emotional labour.
Our approach is not about helping entrepreneurs “push through.” It’s about helping them build sustainably by providing access to mental health care and making it a strategic priority for them and those who support them, including investors, mentors, and programs.
Change Can’t Wait
Entrepreneurs don’t lack resilience. They lack access.
If we want inclusive, innovative, and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems, we must close the benefits gap for entrepreneurs and small business owners. If we are encouraging individuals to see entrepreneurship as a path to employment and economic prosperity, access to mental health support in the early stages where capital is tight and stress is high should be recognized as essential infrastructure for leadership.
Behind every startup and scaleup is a human being. Supporting their mental health isn’t optional—it’s foundational.
