The Loneliness Nobody Talks About — And Why Building Your Business Is Worth It Anyway

Lucia Pincott

Oct 4

5 min read

An honest letter to every female founder who has ever wondered if she's the only one finding this hard.

Can I tell you something that doesn't get said enough?

Building a business is lonely sometimes.

Not all the time. Not every day. But sometimes — more often than anyone admits — it is genuinely, quietly, unexpectedly lonely.

I know, because I'm in the middle of building one right now.

I started Lucia Pincott VA earlier this year, alongside a full-time job, in the evenings and at weekends. And there are weeks when I put something out into the world — a post, a blog, an email — and I sit there wondering if anyone is reading it. Wondering if the right people will find me. Wondering if I'm doing enough, being enough, showing up enough.

And I don't always have someone to turn to and say — is this normal? Am I on the right track? Does it get easier?

If any of that sounds familiar — this blog is for you.

You are not alone. And the research proves it.

Here's something I find both sobering and strangely comforting.

A major UK study published earlier this year — the Rise Report, commissioned by Female Founders Rise in partnership with Barclays — surveyed over 2,200 female founders across the UK. Women who together generate over £1 billion in annual turnover.

And what did they find?

One in seven female founders identified loneliness and isolation as their biggest challenge, with over a quarter reporting mental health pressures, including burnout and self-doubt. Loneliness levels were notably similar among founders of both small and larger businesses — showing that this is systemic, not just an experience of those in the early startup phase. wealthbriefing

Let that land for a moment.

This isn't just a new business problem. It doesn't go away when you get more clients or more followers or more revenue. It's woven into the fabric of building something, at every stage.

Seventy-eight per cent of female founders believe that human connection is central to their entrepreneurial journey. wealthbriefing

Not funding. Not strategy. Not marketing.

Human connection.

The feeling that someone else understands what you're going through. That you're not doing this entirely alone.

What the loneliness actually feels like

It's not dramatic. That's the thing nobody tells you.

It's not sitting in a dark room crying. It's subtler than that, and somehow harder to name.

It's the Sunday evening feeling — that low hum of everything that still needs doing, with nobody to share the weight of it.

It's finishing a working day and not being quite sure if you moved forward or just kept up.

It's the moment you want to celebrate something small — a new follower, a kind comment, a Google notification that five people clicked on your website — and realising there's no obvious person to tell who will understand why it matters.

It's building something in the in-between moments of your life — after the school run, before dinner, on a Saturday morning while everyone else is resting — and wondering if it's all adding up to anything.

It's the gap between how confident you sound in your posts and how uncertain you sometimes feel inside them.

That gap is where the loneliness lives.

Why it's harder for women

The Rise Report is clear on this: isolation is still one of the most under-discussed challenges of self-employment, and women founders and home-based business owners are particularly affected. Loneliness is linked to lower productivity, slower decision-making and weaker business performance. prowess

We are also, many of us, building businesses while simultaneously running households, showing up for families, managing relationships, and carrying the invisible mental load that doesn't clock off when the laptop closes.

We are trying to be the CEO, the administrator, the finance department, the marketing team, the creative director — and also the present mother, the available partner, the reliable friend, the person who remembered to book the dentist.

It's a lot. And most of it happens behind closed doors, where nobody sees it and nobody claps for it.

But here's what I also know

I want to tell you something else. Because this isn't a sad post. I promise.

The same study that found all of that loneliness also found something else: peer relationships and mentorship are the most valued forms of support among female founders. And one in seven said having a strong network reduced feelings of isolation and even accelerated business growth. CFOtech UK EasternEye

We find each other. And when we do — something shifts.

I felt it the first time a stranger left a comment on one of my LinkedIn posts saying "keep going, it's worth it." I felt it when I sent an honest email to some people I knew and three of them wrote back with warmth and encouragement. I feel it every time I read something from another female founder and think — yes.

That's exactly it. That's exactly how it feels.

There is something quietly powerful about knowing you're not the only one.

And then there's this

Building something of your own — even slowly, even quietly, even in the evenings when you're tired — is one of the most satisfying things a person can do.

Because it's yours.

The decisions are yours. The direction is yours. The growth, when it comes, is yours. You don't need permission to take a day off, or to change your mind, or to pivot, or to rest. You are building toward a life where you answer to yourself — where your time, your energy and your expertise belong to you.

That's not nothing. That's everything.

The days that feel quiet and uncertain — and there will be more of them — are part of the price of that freedom. They're not a sign that you're failing. They're a sign that you're in the middle of something real.

Stay in it.

A few things that genuinely help

Because I don't want to leave you with only the feeling — I want to leave you with something practical too.

Find your people. Online communities for female founders are genuinely valuable — Female Founders Rise, Lean In London, local networking events, Facebook groups for women in your industry. You don't need to attend everything. You just need somewhere that one or two women understand what you're building and why it matters.

Say it out loud. The loneliness gets lighter when you name it. Tell a friend, write it in a journal, post about it honestly. You'll be surprised how many people respond with "me too."

Celebrate the small things. Five clicks from Google Search. One kind comment. One new follower. A reply to an email. These things matter. Let them matter. They're evidence that something is working, even when it doesn't feel like it.

Share the load where you can. One of the things that makes the journey lonelier than it needs to be is carrying every single part of it alone — including the parts that don't need to be yours. The admin. The bookkeeping. The inbox. The scheduling. Handing some of that over — when the time is right — doesn't just free up your time. It frees up mental space. And in that space, the loneliness has a little less room to grow.

You're not alone. And you're not wrong to keep going.

If you've read this far and recognised yourself somewhere in it — I want you to know something.

What you're feeling is real. It's documented, it's shared, and it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

Building a business is hard and lonely sometimes. And it is also — slowly, quietly, in ways that compound over time — completely worth it.

Keep going. 💛

I'm Lucia — a Virtual Assistant supporting female founders in wellness, coaching and creative industries with calm, structured admin and finance support. If the back office of your business is one of the things weighing you down, I'd love to have a conversation. My discovery calls are always free and always no pressure.

👉 Book your free discovery call at luciapincottva.co.uk