The Founder Identity Trap

The Founder Identity Trap

How Success Slowly Became My Identity
By Simon Bourne

Release Date: TBC

Version: Special Edition Signed Hardback

Founders are taught to give everything to their business, their time, their energy, their reputation. What they are rarely warned about is something far more dangerous. Somewhere along the journey, the business stops being something you do and quietly becomes something you are. Success becomes validation. Performance becomes identity.

In this brutally honest and deeply personal story, Simon Bourne recounts the rise and collapse of a luxury footwear brand that once promised everything. What began as ambition and creativity slowly evolved into something far more consuming.

This is not just the story of a business falling apart. It is the unravelling of the person behind it.

The Founder Identity Trap is a powerful reflection for founders, entrepreneurs and leaders who believe the greatest risks in business are financial. They are not. Because when success becomes identity, every fluctuation becomes personal.

And when the numbers fall, so can you.