I was building Crunch (formerly DAOLens) with everything I had. Every ounce of energy, every waking hour, was poured into it. I grinded through long Covid and broke my body in ways that still surprise me. Then, came the clarity that doesn’t arrive with applause - but silence. I was certain that Crunch would not scale the way we had hoped it would. So we returned the funds to our investors. Crunch shut down. It was a tough call.

I own it. No excuses. But it was the right call.

After that, I suddenly had no plan. I was exhausted. I slept, it didn’t help. I decided to travel, it didn’t help. So I decided to consult people about rest. For the first time in years, I gave myself permission to do nothing. And in that space of deep rest, something remarkable happened.

A coach offered me recovery protocols - advanced tools for rebuilding. I tried them, skeptically. But something shifted. So I kept going. What followed was nine months of radical experimentation: tech therapies, neural nutrition, somatic treatments, energy work, light therapy, structured silence.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. But slowly, the fog started to lift. Only then did I realize how far underwater I had been. I was trying to build a movement with Crunch and day by day depleting myself. So many founders I knew were drowning too, calling it “pushing through.”

It took me months to figure out that there was a way to measure my performance and predict what would help me achieve my peak.

Founders don’t talk about it. But the pattern is always the same.Make decisions just to stay in motion.
- Mistake movement for momentum.
- Overwork as identity.
- Shrink health down to something negotiable.
- Feeling tired after vacations.
- Feeling guilty on days with no work.
- Judge ourselves by our productivity.
- Let relationships starve quietly.
- Miss the signals.
- Call it focus.
- Break down.
- Call it growth.
- Pretend it’s worth it.

That was me. That is most founders.

We celebrate burnout with clever tweets and raise rounds from hospital beds. We call ourselves resilient when what we are is exhausted. No one’s coming to save us — not investors, not co-founders, not therapists booked two months out. Not wellness gurus who have never run startups.

What founders need is a system.

Not a vacation. Not a podcast. A system. A complete protocol for recovery, recalibration, and return to form. Athletes have it. Special forces have it. Founders don’t.

Magnus exists to change that. We’re not here to make founders better. We’re here to make them whole - because only the whole ones build what lasts.