Mireia Ros García de Vicuña, Co-Founder & Team Partner at ETBO

In this interview, we speak with ETBO co-founder Mireia Ros about the emotional challenges of entrepreneurship and how self-awareness can become a strategic tool for sustaining purpose-driven projects with balance.

Through her lens as an organizational psychologist and entrepreneur, we explore the value of self-awareness as a strategic advantage, the silent burnout many founders face, the power of natural roles within teams, and how applied psychology can make the difference between moving forward or burning out. As she puts it: “Personal well-being is a necessary condition for a business to be sustainable and have a future.”

1. What inspired you to found ETBO, and how do you integrate psychology to support entrepreneurs?

ETBO was born at the intersection of three dimensions I’ve experienced firsthand: over ten years supporting teams and transformation processes in corporate environments, my own journey as an entrepreneur, and psychology as a science applied to human behavior.

Throughout my corporate career, I noticed a recurring pattern: even with talent, structure, and good intentions, many teams struggle to reach their full potential or complement each other’s strengths. We make data-driven decisions all the time—so why not do the same with behaviors, roles, and dynamics that determine whether a team moves forward or gets stuck?

That’s where psychology becomes a strategic ally. By analyzing observable behaviors and natural roles, we help teams understand how they’re functioning and how they can improve—with more balance, cohesion, and sustainability.

2. At the latest HR Innovation Summit, ETBO was recognized as the top startup in the “Trends & Future” category of the HR Startup Competition. What does this recognition mean to you?

It was a powerful confirmation for us. We’ve been working quietly for a long time—with rigor, science, and purpose—and this recognition tells us, “You’re on the right path.” It motivates us to keep innovating and to bring this perspective into the entrepreneurial world.

Being recognized in the “Trends & Future” category gives us the strength to continue building a tool that not only measures but transforms how we work in teams—especially in volatile environments like startups.

3. ETBO has identified 8 key roles within teams. What are they, and how can entrepreneurs use this knowledge to improve their balance and mental well-being?

The 8 roles we’ve identified at ETBO are based on the analysis of over 50 observable behaviors in high-impact teams. Each role reflects a unique way of contributing to collective performance:

• Activator: drives action and unblocks the team when stuck.
• Analyst: brings a big-picture view and identifies risks based on evidence.
• Methodical: ensures detail, quality, and precision in processes or solutions.
• Coordinator: organizes tasks, moderates, and places people where they add the most value.
• Harmonizer: fosters emotional connection and eases unproductive tension.
• Connector: brings in resources, knowledge, and opportunities from outside.
• Creative: contributes original ideas, new paradigms, and disruption.
• Implementer: grounds ideas and turns them into tangible actions.

For entrepreneurs, knowing their dominant and less-developed roles is key to avoiding overload, improving collaboration, acting from their strengths, and identifying what they need to complement in their environment. Self-awareness is both a necessity and a strategy for personal and business sustainability.

4. Do you think entrepreneurs need to separate their personal and professional lives? What digital tools or methods would you recommend to manage this?

Separating personal from professional life when you’re an entrepreneur is tough—but setting conscious boundaries is essential if you don’t want your project to consume everything. It’s not about disconnecting completely, but about intentionally designing spaces and habits that protect your energy.

One useful strategy is to schedule “personal time” in your calendar as if it were a client meeting—with a set time, duration, and no rescheduling. A practical tool I use is Trello, where you can create a fixed column called “Personal Space” or “Personal Energy” with non-business tasks that support your well-being.

If you have a team, brief weekly emotional check-ins help detect tension before it escalates. At ETBO, we also recommend regularly reviewing your active roles: are you operating from your natural roles or from compensatory ones that are draining you? Because ultimately, personal well-being is a prerequisite for a sustainable business.

5. What are the main mental health risks entrepreneurs face when they don’t set clear boundaries? How can they recognize the signs of neglecting their well-being?

Mental health risks often show up silently: normalized exhaustion, constant irritability, loss of perspective, or falling into the trap of equating your self-worth with your business performance.

When everything revolves around the business—especially without clear boundaries—it’s easy to believe you are your company. That emotional misalignment, if left unaddressed, can take a toll sooner than you think.

If you recognize yourself in any of these symptoms, it might be time to focus on yourself. Investing in self-awareness through tools like natural role identification, therapy, or professional coaching is an act of courage and a true sign of conscious leadership. Taking care of your business starts with taking care of the person driving it.

6. What personal and professional skills do you believe help entrepreneurs maintain balance between success and well-being?

To maintain healthy balance, I believe there are four essential skills for any entrepreneur:

Self-awareness: understanding how you act in different contexts and emotional states helps you anticipate blocks, avoid reactive patterns, and make conscious decisions.

Guilt-free prioritization: knowing that not everything is urgent and not everything depends on you.

Conscious delegation: not just assigning tasks, but trusting others’ strengths and giving them space to contribute their best.

Energy management over time management: it’s not about doing more in less time, but about identifying what recharges you and what drains you so you can sustain yourself long-term.

And finally, active listening—to others and to yourself. Learning to read your internal signals is what allows you to decide with emotional intelligence when to move forward, when to pause, and when to ask for help. Because this isn’t about being invincible—it’s about knowing how to recalibrate before things break.

7. Have you identified common patterns of mental burnout that could be prevented?

Yes. One of the most frequent is hyper-responsibility—feeling like everything depends on you and being unable to let go, even of things that aren’t your responsibility. This often comes with difficulty saying “no,” even to opportunities that aren’t aligned, out of fear of losing momentum. Another common pattern is falling into operational routine without space to think or redesign, which leads to a gradual loss of meaning. We also see teams with duplicated or unbalanced roles—people with very similar profiles who don’t complement each other, causing overload in some areas and gaps in others.

8. What practical strategies do you recommend for entrepreneurs to maintain good mental health?

In the early stages of a project, everything moves fast. If you don’t design at least a minimal framework for self-care, urgency will end up setting the pace.

I recommend integrating simple but consistent rituals from the start: weekly reviews that include not just tasks but also how you’re feeling; calendar blocks for rest or reflective thinking; and safe spaces where you can express doubts without it being seen as weakness.

It’s also essential to do things that genuinely make you feel good—even if they have nothing to do with the business—and to surround yourself with people who support you emotionally, not just technically. Seek out safe spaces: mentorships, communities, professional support. And above all, don’t normalize feeling overwhelmed all the time.

9. How can entrepreneurs cope with failure and the grief of losing a business they’ve invested time, money, and energy in? What steps do you recommend to get back up and move forward?

The first step is to allow yourself to feel it—without minimizing or dramatizing. Failure is an emotional process and needs space. Turning the page too quickly can be a way of burying it, and what we don’t face tends to repeat itself.

It’s also crucial to separate what failed from your identity. You are not your pitch, your last funding round, or your metrics. What failed was a model, a hypothesis, a phase. And sometimes it wasn’t even your fault—external factors play a role, and that doesn’t invalidate you as a person or professional. Many of today’s most respected entrepreneurs have gone through the same process, learned, adjusted, and come back with greater clarity.

From there, I suggest a review—not from guilt, but from behavior. Ask yourself: What patterns repeated? Which role did I overuse? What signs did I ignore? From that deep, non-punitive reflection, you can rebuild—with more awareness, a stronger network, and a clarity you may not have had before.

Losing a project doesn’t mean losing everything. Sometimes, it’s the beginning of something much more aligned with who you are.

10. Do you think the focus on mental well-being will become increasingly important in the innovative entrepreneurial ecosystem?

Absolutely. Mental well-being is a key factor in sustainability, focus, and long-term performance. It’s no longer a secondary or individual issue. New generations of entrepreneurs don’t want to build at any cost. They seek purpose-driven projects—but also balance, quality relationships, and space to breathe without sacrificing their health.

The ecosystem is slowly catching on. It’s no longer enough to talk about investment, product, or scalability—if the team isn’t well, ideas don’t grow and projects don’t last. In the coming years, we’ll see behavioral, emotional, and human-centered approaches become a real competitive advantage in accelerators, funds, and incubation programs.

If we don’t take care of the people who make up the innovative entrepreneurial ecosystem, what kind of ecosystem are we really building?

11. How can public initiatives like the ONE Platform support the innovative entrepreneurial ecosystem and contribute to the emotional well-being of entrepreneurs?

Public initiatives like the ONE Platform play a key role in normalizing emotional care as part of the entrepreneurial journey—not as something extra or a one-off intervention.

They can create spaces where fear, uncertainty, and burnout are openly discussed—without stigma or labels—by integrating training in self-awareness, emotional management, and team dynamics. Tools like ETBO help map behavior, foster self-awareness, anticipate blocks, and build more balanced teams from day one.

Launching a business also means sustaining yourself through the process—and with the right network, tools, and awareness, that becomes much more manageable.