Lead the company you started
A structured 1–1 coaching program for first-time founders of funded startups who want to lead with more confidence.
Seb Agertoft
Coach and advisor
There are three common paths from here, each with downsides
1
Take no deliberate action and you risk making fatal mistakes for the company.
2
Follow a traditional coaching model and you may find it lacks direction and specificity for your role as founder.
3
Follow a traditional leadership development model and you’ll find so-called best practice intended for middle management of large corporates in a bygone era.
4
A fourth way
A structured 1–1 coaching program designed for first-time founders of funded startups looking to deepen their leadership.
8 core modules that lay the foundations for scale
Specific to the particular challenges faced by first time founders, worked through in depth to understand how they apply to you and your context.
That’s followed by an integration session to bring it all together, defining your leadership approach for the next chapter. It is paced according to your needs but will typically last ~4 months.
01
Identifying your blindspots
Know your own patterns, what they cost, and how to experiment with change.
02
Working with uncertainty
Acknowledge the reality of uncertainty, understand how you relate to it, identify strategies that work for you.
03
Determining where you matter most
Identify the things you should really spend your time on, shorten your to-do list, create the organisational structures to support this.
04
Processing stress and emotion
Establish healthy habits, develop your equanimity, disrupt the organisational patterns.
05
Enabling others to do their best work
Communicate priorities, delegate clearly, coach your team.
06
Having hard conversations
Work out what you’re avoiding and why, get better at saying the hard thing, use hard conversations as a positive catalyst.
07
Making critical decisions
Label different decision types, analyse how decisions are made by you and the team, design the decision-making process.
08
Communicating your vision
Articulate where you’re going and why, learn to tell it in your own voice, build the alignment that follows.
PLUS
Integration
A final session where we bring all of your learnings from across the program together, articulate in your own words what 2.0 means for you, and then make commitments around putting it into practice.
A new, more effective version of your leadership
Outcome 1
You’ll know your own patterns, what they cost, and how to experiment with change.
Outcome 2
You’ll be focused on what matters most with a shorter to-do list as a result.
Outcome 3
You’ll have had the hard conversations you’d been avoiding.
Outcome 4
You’ll be communicating a vision that the team buys into.
Outcome 5
Your team will be taking more responsibility, lightening the load for you.
Outcome 6
I won’t say you’ll never feel stressed, but you should feel more resilient and capable of working with uncertainty.
Ultimately
You’ll be embodying a new, more effective version of your leadership that quietens that nagging feeling you used to have.
Each module has three parts
Part 1
A 90-minute session with me
1–1 time to work through each topic in depth, and how it applies to you, your company and your context.
Part 2
Materials curated for the topic
Reading and resources chosen for each module, specific to the challenges first-time founders face.
Part 3
Experiments between sessions
Small experiments to run in your real work between sessions, so the change shows up in how you lead.
Plus
Integration session
We close with a 90–120 minute integration session.
Plus
Support between sessions
Between sessions I’m available on email and WhatsApp to support.
One program. One price.
Limited offer
£6k
For those who commit before the end of October. Full price £10k (or local currency equivalent). Enquire now to book a free introductory call.
8 × 90-minute 1–1 sessions
A 90–120 minute integration session
Materials curated for every module
Experiments to run between sessions
Email and WhatsApp support throughout
Built on 15 years alongside founders
The program draws on 15 years of my experience working alongside founders, initially as a product leader and then as a coach; and on more than 10 years of deep transformational work and training across meditation, facilitation, coaching and psychology.
As a coach
I’m an ICF-accredited coach with training in neuroscience, behaviour change, IFS/Parts work and relationship counselling.
I’ve coached dozens of founders, backed by top-tier investors across a wide range of industries. I’m a Partner at Evolution, a leading coaching and advisory firm working with clients such as Slack, Instacart, Notion, Dropbox.
As a thought partner
I’ve been in the trenches as a product exec at Pelago Health from pre-seed startup to scaleup with $150m+ in VC funding; leading new product innovation at GoCardless from growth stage startup to multi-unicorn; and innovating at scale at eBay.
I’ve built teams, hired and fired, sat in front of boards, pitched to investors, and made my fair share of screwups along the way.
As a depth partner
When I was in my twenties my Mum went through an abusive relationship. That was my catalyst for many years of deep work, which led me to teaching yoga, then meditation, then coaching.
I know what it’s like to do the hard, deep work, and to lead others to do the same.