Econa is the global center of excellence for entrepreneur mental wellness. Learn more about our programs and our partnerships with accelerators, investment funds, and founder networks at www.econa.net.
Successful entrepreneurs are often rebels, misfits, deviants and trouble-makers as kids who challenge norms in business and society as adults. This workshop is for anyone who wants to learn the secrets behind how the best entrepreneurs channel their disruptive energy into building powerful businesses and happy lives.
- Meet serial founder Alon Shaya and track his journey from starting out as a rule-breaking troubled kid and high school dropout to becoming a world-class entrepreneur who won two James Beard awards and built both a culinary empire and a fulfilling life.
- Recognize how investors like Silicon Valley venture capitalist and 2X super-founder Josh Felser value the disruptive personalities and behavior of their founders, and discover how they invest in rebellion without investing in recklessness and destructive impulsivity.
- Learn from serial entrepreneur and psychiatrist Dr. Michael Freeman about how to spot and manage the mental health issues that are common among disruptive entrepreneurs. Determine how to channel your disruptive emotions, energy and impulses to get better outcomes in business and life.
About Econa
Ten years ago, the mental wellbeing of entrepreneurs was rarely discussed. As a fourth-generation entrepreneur, clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF, and practicing psychiatrist and executive coach for entrepreneurs, Econa founder Dr. Michael Freeman saw the crucial need to change that. Every day, founders brought him stories of stress, burnout, depression, ADHD, bipolar, substance use, co-founder conflicts, and emotional leadership challenges. After learning about the suicides of prominent entrepreneurs like Aaron Schwartz and Kate Spade, he was inspired to create Econa.
Today, Econa is emerging as a global center of excellence for entrepreneur mental wellness. We offer evidence-based workshops and peer support groups, we co-create programs with founder communities globally, and we support academic research on entrepreneur-centric mental wellness solutions. Our groundbreaking researchers, clinician-entrepreneurs, facilitators, founders, investors, and operators help entrepreneurs optimize their life and business outcomes.
About Alon Shaya
As an adolescent, Israeli-born Alon Shaya was a rule-breaker, trouble-maker and dropout who was simply not with the program. Instead, he learned to cook from his mother and grandmother in Philadelphia, where he was raised, and since then he has gone on to create a global culinary vernacular that’s wholly his own. After training at the Culinary Institute of America, Shaya pursued posts in Las Vegas, St. Louis, and Italy. He made his home in New Orleans where he was a partner and the creative force behind restaurants Domenica and Pizza Domenica. He found his most influential position in New Orleans, under the guidance of John Besh, and in 2009 the duo opened regional Italian-inspired Domenica. Its fresh pastas and wood-fired pizzas earned Shaya several notices, including a StarChefs Rising Stars Award in 2012, and launched the opening of his second restaurant, Pizza Domenica, a casual spin-off that challenges traditional Italian comfort foods. He opened the Pomegranate Hospitality company in 2017 and two new restaurants, Saba in New Orleans and Safta in Denver.
In 2015, inspired to return to his cooking roots, Shaya began professionally cooking Israeli food. Shaya opened his namesake Israeli restaurant, paying tribute to the foods of his upbringing while imbuing them with New Orleans’ ingredients. Since then, Shaya’s inventive style has earned him a number of honors. He was nominated for five James Beard Awards and won two, including the James Beard Award for “Best Chef, South” in 2015 with his restaurant winning for “Best Restaurant” the following year. He was a judge on the 15th season of Top Chef. Shaya released his cookbook in Spring 2018. Shaya: An Odyssey of Food, My Journey Back to Israel. The book includes 26 short stories with accompanying recipes inspired by foods that changed his life.
An advocate for troubled kids – like he once was – Alon Shaya won the “Youth Advocate Award” from Liberty’s Kitchen, and was honored by InspireNOLA Schools for his work with Edna Karr Charter High School. In 2016, Shaya partnered with his high school home economics teacher, Donna Barnett, to form the Shaya Barnett Foundation, which brings culinary education to high schools. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Shaya turned his closed restaurants into soup kitchens offering free meals to furloughed hospitality-industry workers. He also partnered with chef Edward Lee in founding the Restaurant Worker Relief program. He is a chef fundraiser for No Kid Hungry, Alex’s Lemonade Stand, and DC Central Kitchen/Martha’s Table.
About Josh Felser
Josh Felser was the co-founding General Partner of Freestyle Capital, a Silicon Valley early stage tech-focused venture capital firm, where he currently serves as Board Partner while separately pursuing a new investment portfolio related to climate change. He is also a co-founder and board member of The Start Project, a Bay Area startup incubator, and the chairman and co-founder of FYI Living. Before entering venture capital Josh founded and sold two successful Internet businesses, with spectacular exits to Sony and AOL. Josh got his BA in Political Science and Economics from Duke University, and went on to obtain his MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.
About Michael A. Freeman MD
Michael A. Freeman, MD is a psychiatrist, a fourth-generation serial entrepreneur, an executive coach, an entrepreneurship researcher and a behavioral health systems architect. Dr. Freeman serves as a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, and as a Mentor in the Entrepreneurship Center at UCSF. He received his MD from UCSF School of Medicine after completing related advanced training programs at U.C. Berkeley and the Sorbonne. With support from the Kauffman Foundation, Dr. Freeman studies issues related to entrepreneur mental health in collaboration with colleagues from U.C. Berkeley, the Gallup Organization, and other universities. His psychiatric and executive coaching practice is focused on entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneur, Dr. Freeman has held founder, co-founder and C-level positions with several for-profit and non-profit behavioral healthcare organizations. He was the founding Chief Medical Officer at U.S. Behavioral Health, now United Behavioral Health, the United Health Care managed behavioral health plan. He is politically active in initiatives to expand access to and insurance coverage for mental health and addiction treatment services.
Rebels with a cause: turning disruptive behavior into breakthrough startups (January 14, 2021)