When the company outgrows the way you built it
Founder to CEO
For founders whose company now needs a chief executive — which is a different job, requiring different behaviour, usually from the same person.
What it includes
- A Stakeholder Read that deliberately includes two board members and one early employee
- Sixteen sessions across nine months, weighted to the front
- One live board-meeting observation and a debrief
- A map of what only you can do, what you are doing anyway, and what the next two hires actually absorb
- Optional pairing with leadership team coaching for the exec team growing around you
The founder problem is rarely a skills problem
It is an identity problem wearing a calendar. The behaviours that built the company — being in everything, deciding fast, holding the standard personally — are the behaviours that now cap it. Being told this is easy. Doing something else on a Tuesday when the thing is going wrong is not.
Most of the work is in the hand-off: choosing what to stop touching, telling people you have stopped, and then not touching it while somebody does it worse for a quarter.
Boards are a separate skill
Founders who have never had a board frequently over-report, under-frame, and treat the meeting as an exam. We observe one meeting and rebuild how you open it, what you put in the pack, and what you say when a number is bad.
Who it is for
- A founder past roughly $30m or 150 people, where informal coordination has stopped working
- A founder who has just taken institutional money and inherited a board
- A founder who knows they are the constraint and has not said it aloud yet
Who it is not for
- A founder being managed out. If the board has decided, coaching is not the honest instrument.
- Pre-product-market-fit companies. Your problem is the product, and we would be an expensive distraction.
Fees in full
What this costs, and what is in it
| Engagement | Fee | Shape | Included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founder engagement | $24,000 | 9 months 16 sessions | Stakeholder Read · board-observation session · exec-team mapping |
| Founder + exec team | $58,000 | 9 months 16 + 6 team sessions | Combines with leadership team coaching at a blended rate |
Questions people ask about founder to ceo
Do you tell the board what we discuss?
No. Board members interviewed in the Stakeholder Read are told the same confidentiality terms as everyone else.
What if the answer is that I should not be CEO?
That conclusion belongs to you, and a few founders reach it. Our job is to make it a decision rather than a slow attrition.
Can my co-founder join?
Not in the same engagement. Co-founder work is a two-person team engagement and we would scope it that way.
Chemistry call
Start with a conversation, not a contract
Thirty minutes with up to three coaches, free, with no sponsor in the room. You choose who you work with — we never assign.