London
1 Harley Street, London W1G 9QDBy Cavendish Square, a short walk from Oxford Circus and Bond Street.
Coaching for founders · London · Birmingham · Online
Coaching for founders
For founders whose company has outgrown the stage where they could do everything themselves: investors to answer to, a co-founder relationship under strain and a life that has narrowed to the business. I coach founders one to one in Harley Street, in Edgbaston and online.
What founders bring to coaching
Founding a company is personal in a way few jobs are. The company carries your idea, often your savings and sometimes your name, so its ups and downs land on you directly. As it grows, more of the hardest problems turn out to be about people.
Letting go of the work you love
You started the company to build something, and now the job is hiring, managing and raising money. Coaching helps you step back from the detail without losing what made the company yours.
Co-founder friction
Different ambitions, uneven workloads or a friendship that has hardened into a stand-off.
Investor pressure
Board updates, growth targets and the feeling that every month has to beat the one before.
Hiring people more experienced than you
Bringing in senior hires and leading them with authority when they know more about their area than you do.
An identity that has become the company
Your mood rising and falling with the metrics, and no clear sense of who you are outside the business.
Rejection and near misses
A funding round that fell through, an early hire who left or a product that didn’t land the way you hoped.
How I coach founders
The first job is to separate the company’s problems from yours. A missed target is a business issue. Lying awake over it for a week is a personal one, and coaching works on that second part so you can think clearly about the first.
Delegation is often the sticking point. You look at what you hold onto and why, from fear that standards will slip to a sense that your value lies in doing the work yourself, and practise handing over responsibility in stages you can live with.
Co-founder and investor relationships get the same practical treatment. You plan the conversations you have been avoiding, decide what you need and work out how to say it so the relationship survives. NLP techniques help with the anxiety that builds before those meetings, and hypnotherapy is an option if your sleep has gone.
For the broader service, see leadership coaching. If you are close to exhaustion, burnout coaching and my article on founder burnout are the places to start.
What a typical session covers
You choose the issue: a hire, a board meeting, a conflict, or the fact that you haven’t had a day off in months. The session stays with it until you have a decision or a next step, and you report back on that at the start of the following one.
Overcoming fear of failure
In this short video I set out how fear of failure works: avoiding anything you might not win, setting goals so high they prove the fear right, then putting things off. Coaching looks at where the fear started and helps you take sensible risks again.
Captions are available on YouTube.
Coaching that fits a founder’s week
Weeks in a growing company rarely go to plan. Sessions are built to bend with them.
- Confidential. Your co-founder, investors and team don’t need to know. You can pay privately or through the company, which receives an invoice, not a report, and what you say goes no further.
- Moveable appointments. Weekday sessions from 9:00 to 18:30, weekends on request, and you can rearrange with at least 48 hours’ notice when something urgent lands.
- In the room or online. Meet at 1 Harley Street or in Edgbaston, or join by Zoom, FaceTime or phone from the office, from home or from a trip to see investors.
- Between sessions. Email or text me after a hard board meeting or before a difficult conversation with your co-founder, and I’ll reply within 24 hours.
Problems that often come with the founder role include burnout and imposter syndrome. If you are still at the idea stage, coaching for entrepreneurs may suit you better; if you now hold the chief executive title, see coaching for CEOs.
What changes for founders
A team you can rely on
You hand over whole areas of the company and let your senior hires run them, which frees you for the work only a founder can do.
Straighter co-founder conversations
Disagreements get raised and settled in the open, before they harden into resentment or a split.
Steadier with investors
Board meetings and updates become regular business instead of tests you dread, and bad news gets delivered early and clearly.
A life beyond the company
You rebuild time for health, family and friends, and your sense of worth stops rising and falling with the latest numbers.
Typical patterns
These are common patterns, not individual client stories. Details always differ, and nothing about any client is shared.
The founder after a funding round
Newly funded, newly accountable and suddenly managing a board. Sessions on reporting, pressure and keeping their own judgement.
The founder whose partnership has soured
Started the company with a close friend and now barely agrees with them on anything. Sessions on what they need, honest conversations and what happens if the partnership ends.
The founder who can’t switch off
Working every evening and weekend, with relationships and health paying the price. Sessions on limits, delegation and remembering life before the company.
Coaching for founders in London, Birmingham and online
Birmingham
Quadrant Court, Calthorpe Road, Edgbaston B15Close to Five Ways, a short taxi ride from New Street.
Online
Zoom, FaceTime or phone, anywhere in the UK or abroad, with the same structure as sessions in the room.
Format and fees
Sessions are 90 minutes, weekly or fortnightly, and a package can follow the rhythm of a funding round or a busy launch period. Prices are published below, the same online, and payment plans are available by agreement.
Free call
30 minutes
By phone, before you commit to anything.
Discovery session
£165
One 90-minute introductory session, with no obligation to continue.
Five, eight or twelve sessions
£975 to £1,980
Every session 90 minutes, with support between sessions.
Payment plans
By agreement
Spread the cost of a package. The same fees apply online.
What clients say
Reviews published on this site, word for word.
Having already had talking therapy previously I found Stuart’s approach fresh and efficient.
I highly recommend Stuart. 10/10 experience. Right from the beginning he made me feel so comfortable and he seemed to genuinely care about what I had to say.
Qualifications
- Advanced Master Practitioner of NLP (DNLP)
- Master Practitioner of NLP (MPNLP)
- Psychotherapist (MNACHP)
- Master Hypnotist (DMH)
- EMDR Practitioner
- PSY-TAP Practitioner
- ADHD-CCSP
- Enhanced DBS
Questions founders ask about coaching
Do you advise on fundraising or strategy?
No. Your investors, advisers and board are there for strategy and funding. I work on you as the founder: how you lead, decide and handle pressure, and how you stop the company consuming the rest of your life. That usually makes the strategy conversations easier too.
My co-founder and I are in conflict. Can coaching help?
Yes. In your own sessions the work is about your side: what you want, what you are willing to change and how to raise it. Being clearer about your own position often changes the whole conversation, whatever happens to the partnership in the end.
Is coaching for founders the same as coaching for CEOs?
There is overlap, especially if you are both. Founders face a few distinctive issues: co-founder relationships, an identity bound up with the company and the move from doing the work to leading the people who do it. Sessions focus on whichever applies to you.
I’m exhausted. Should I see a coach or my GP?
If exhaustion is affecting your health, sleep or mood, see your GP first, because coaching works alongside medical care and never replaces it. Once your health is being looked after, coaching can help with the workload, delegation and habits that led to the exhaustion.
How do I get started?
Book the free 30-minute call. You describe where things stand with the company and with you, I explain how I would approach it, and you decide whether to go ahead with the introductory discovery session. Nothing is expected of you after the call.
Start with a free 30-minute call
You describe the problem. I tell you whether coaching is the right tool and how I’d approach it. If it isn’t, I’ll tell you that too. No obligation, and I reply within 24 hours.
- You send the formName, number and a line or two about what’s going on.
- I reply within 24 hoursBy phone or email, whichever you prefer, to book a time.
- A free 30-minute callYou decide afterwards. No obligation, no follow-up pressure.
Still deciding?
“I highly recommend Stuart. 10/10 experience. Right from the beginning he made me feel so comfortable and he seemed to genuinely care about what I had to say.”