Tactical Founder Support: Operational Audit & Optimization

 

What We Help Achieve

We get our hands dirty with founders to help move the needle on things that matter most. When you confront unnecessary drag— mental, tactical, and/or material— we will help you reorient for greater speed. Some areas where we have been noticeably helpful as of recent (but not limited to):

  • Optimize operations for better visibility and speed. We have helped founders audit key functions of their businesses — sales, product & engineering, customer success, finance and people— to identify huge deltas for improvement in cost, speed and effectiveness. For example, find early PMF, boost revenue 2-3X, and create paths to profitability within 12 months.

  • Grow revenue through fractional support with sales, business development, and partnerships. Some examples include helping founders increase ACVs to $500,000K+ (from $100K) and structuring partnerships to add >$65M revenue in 2 years. The focus is on moving the revenue needle with what you have versus waiting to hire the perfect leader for the role.

  • Secure more capital with a proven strategic fundraising process. In 2023 alone, we helped more than five founders secure additional capital (Series A+) with both inside and outside capital — a round that was considered to be impossible to secure.

WHy This service matters

Startup company-building is already saturated with inefficiencies and failed experiments. Without a reliable operational system for discovering truth, problem-solving, making decisions, and evaluating results continuously— you will be spinning your wheels with sand in the gearbox: 

  • A long, convoluted process of discovering the truth — what’s actually going on?

  • Data and reports that you simply do not trust.

  • A team that fails to reliably triage information (internal and external)  to arrive at a set of critical decisions that will move the needle.

  • A CEO calendar that is out-of-control and contextually asymmetric. 

  • A frustrating amount of meetings that take time away from the team’s highest priorities.

Who We Work With

  • Early/Early-growth B2B Companies (mature Seed to Series C): we have experience working with startups spanning numerous industries such as: Freight, Finance, Life Sciences, Healthcare, Creators, Real Estate, Hospitality, Aviation, Advertising & Marketing, E-Commerce, and Education.

  • Our clients are backed by venture investors such as: Menlo, Sequoia, Goodwater, a16z, Lightspeed, Accel, Tiger Global,Softbank and Founders Fund, to name a few.

Deliverables

The following are some sample key deliverables — the sequencing is subject to the founder’s specific needs. This list is also non-exhaustive:

  • CEO Time Audit: What rules do you set for when you need solo-time versus when you need to spend time with your team(s)? How do you optimize your energy to be of greatest service to your business? How do you sequence context-shifting so it is least entropic to your effectiveness?

  • Functional Performance: What are the leading indicators of success for each function of your business? How quickly do you receive those signals? What does high-performance actually mean to you— what is a fair expectation? 

  • Leadership Health: How do you know if your leaders are set up for success? How do you know if they are accelerants or blockers to emerging rock stars in your organization? How quickly can you confirm if they need to stay or need to leave? 

  • Team Communication: How does everyone communicate important information to the right people, at the right time, and in the right format? What processes and guidelines do you have in place so that your team is strong at asynchronous work by default? How do you manage the flows of communication vertically and horizontally? 

  • Meeting Choreography: When is it appropriate to have a meeting (1:1 or 1:many)? How are your standing meetings scheduled? How should time in the meeting be allotted? How do you structure 1:1s versus 1:many?

  • Board Management: What do you need to communicate to the board and how? What is your modus operandi for looping them into key decision-making? How can you activate their unique abilities/networks to serve your company? How do you manage boundaries so they are not overly-bearing or overly checked-out?

Engagement

A typical engagement for fundraising support is approximately 4-months:

  • Weekly Calls with the Founder and other Key Executive(s). Weekly cadence of 45-60 mins a week (Zoom and/or in person when available).

  • Asynchronous Input & Support. We will be available for support and additional meetings (zoom/in-person) within reason. We are typically very responsive (same hour same day).

  • Monthly Retainer Fee. This fee is subject to the startup stage and the specific scope of services. We charge a cash retainer only for initial engagement—we are not broker-dealers.