Understanding The Founder Journey
How It Starts
The origin story of our relationship formed during our first call is important to me! My goal of our first interaction is to let you feel safe and comfortable sharing your story, as much or as little as you want.
The first call is a chance to listen and understand the type of founder you are and for me to start thinking about if my experience, background and style are a good fit.
We will dive right in to you, your business, your challenges, your pains, where you are now, where you want to go. We will leave the call having built a high level framework of focus areas and actionable strategy.
The Questions You Should Be Asking….
When selecting a startup advisor or founder coach, the most crucial consideration is compatibility. It is essential to find a coach whose communication style, approach, and pace align with your preferences. Additionally, it is vital to establish trust and develop a strong relationship with your coach as the success of your venture is deeply personal and requires a level of investment and engagement from both parties. Ultimately, the ability to connect and collaborate effectively is of paramount importance in this partnership.
We will, by default, become friends. So your starting question is whether you see a long term relationship with this person.
Founder Friend
How It Continues
For a seed to Series A / early Series B startup, the advisor might be the only ally, coach, or formal mentor to the CEO / Founder(s) in assisting them in navigating the complexities associated with scaling a company, a product, and a team balancing the immediate short term requirements with a strategic plan for longer term scalability. Read more
Given the wide scope of potential conversations, we will work on a program or cadence that aligns to your schedule, expectations and my requirement to deliver value.
How we engage with each other is unique to where you are and often changes based on company stage.
Are You A High Performing Founder
Ready to Learn How A High Impact Founder Coach & Start Up Consultant Can Accelerate Your Growth?
StartUp Advisor / Founder Coach
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Will you sign my NDA?
In general, given the volume of similar conversations especially within emerging spaces, I am unable to sign your NDA.
In general, your IP is not your idea, it’s your execution and defensibility.
If it is important to you, and makes you feel more comfortable, I am happy to talk about it.
Q2. Why do you charge for an intro session?
My time is valuable and I am not interested in people window shopping who are not ready to commit. Read more here.
Q3. Who owns the ideas we talk about?
You. Entirely. In general I am not creating, I am helping to guide your creation.
In the even we create anything together, I will execute an IP assignment in advance.
Q4. What is the commitment?
The minimum commitment is a weekly call for 60 minutes. Camera on. Notepad ready. In a place you can focus. This is not a check in call, its a strategy and execution call, so you need to come in prepared.
Q5. What time zone are you in?
Los Angeles/CA/USA (PST) but I maintain a portfolio of founders globally.
Q6. How much do you charge?
This depends on your journey from pre-seed all the way to Series B.
Q7. How long is the session?
At a minimum 60 minutes.
Q8. What’s your refund policy?
There is no contract, end it at any time. No questions.
Q9. Will I always be speaking to you?
Yes. Occasionally I might bring a domaine expert on the call if we jointly see the value.
10. Can I add you as an advisor to my deck?
No. For two reasons. The advisor slide is played out, unless you have titans of industry & I am likely too removed from your business to add slide value. You can absolutely talk to having a coach for your journey.
11. Can you help me raise money?
I can help you build the company that can be attractive to investors, help you build the deck, the team, the model, the value. I can help you source and build a program of outreach and I can train you for engagement, meetings and opposition. I cannot however directly introduce you to funds.
12. How technical are you?
Very. Not At All. It’s a weird question, I am highly technical on architecture, product, build and ops, I am moderately technical on compliance and I am not technical at all when it comes to opening VSCode.
13. How do we communicate?
Through out the week I mainly check in and chat with founders via text, any ad-hoc calls are usually facetime or phone. Scheduled calls are Zoom. The relationship needs to be able to be casual in nature so you are able to relax, focus and bring your whole self to the conversation.