Beating Founder Burnout by Walking the Camino de Santiago Frances — 900km Across Spain

“Buen Camino!” an elderly Spanish woman called out as I trudged past her village, my feet blistered, my right knee aching.

It was day 23 of my 900-kilometer Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across Spain, and I’d just had an epiphany about my startup.

What is the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage?

After 6 years of startup stress, I needed a reset.

Something radical.

I few months earlier, I was at Mark Colgan’s wedding in Lisbon when I learned about an ancient trail where people have been walking for over a thousand years to clear their minds.

The Camino de Santiago (Spanish for “the way of Saint James”), the word “camino” literally means “way” or “path”—which seemed fitting for what I was seeking.

A 900-kilometer route from France across northern Spain ending at the Atlantic Ocean.

Each year, around 400,000 people walk this trail.

I decided to be one of them.

The Death of the Game

Remember when your startup felt like a video game? Each milestone a new level, each feature launch a power-up, each happy customer message a point scored.

I lived for that feeling.

Then came the plateau.

At first, I did what every founder does—worked harder. Longer hours. More experiments. Obsessive metric-checking. When that didn’t work, I tried working smarter. Books, mentors, courses, conferences.

But eventually, something broke.

The game wasn’t fun anymore. I stopped checking metrics—not because I was practicing “healthy boundaries,” but because I couldn’t bring myself to care. My slack notifications went unread. Customer emails sat in my inbox.

The fire was just… gone.

If you’re reading this and it resonates, I want you to know: I see you. That numbness you’re feeling?

That’s not laziness. That’s not weakness. That’s your mind and body screaming for a reset.

The Breaking Point

I remember the exact moment I decided to walk the Camino. I was sitting in my home office, staring at my screen, unable to focus on any task for longer than 10 minutes.

My company needed me, and I had nothing left to give.

I booked my flight that night.

Finding My Way Back

The first week on the Camino was the hardest. Without metrics to chase or problems to solve, my mind felt lost. But slowly, something started to shift.

On the trail, success isn’t measured in MRR or user growth.

• Success is walking to the next village and .
• Success is your knee not hurting as much as the previous day.
• Success is sharing a meal with a stranger over a deep conversation.
• Success is watching the sun set over medieval towns.

Success is feeling, for the first time in years, truly present.

By week three, I noticed that ideas were flowing again.

Not frantic growth hacks or desperate pivots, but genuine insights about why I started my company in the first place.

The fire wasn’t dead—it was just buried under years of pressure and expectations.

Coming Home

I won’t tell you that walking 900 kilometers fixed everything.

What it did was remind me of something crucial: before I was a founder, I was a human being. My company isn’t my entire identity.

Today, I’m back in the captain’s chair running my startup.

But I run it differently now.

Not with the frantic energy of someone playing a game they’re desperate to win, but with the steady pace of someone walking a long path.

To my fellow founders feeling that numbness creeping in, there’s nothing wrong with you and there’s most probably no undiscovered “growth hack” or productivity system that will fix what you feel inside.

Sometimes, what you need is to step away completely.

To walk until your mind quiets and remember who you are beyond your metrics.

Your path back might not be the Camino.

But whatever it is, take it. The fire will return.

And when it does, you’ll be ready to build again—this time, at a pace you can sustain.

What’s your path?