Founder coach Steve August

STEVE AUGUST

TRANSFORM YOUR FOUNDER JOURNEY

EXPERT COACHING FOR
SEED TO SERIES A
(FROM SOMEONE WHO'S BEEN THERE AND GOTTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE)

Are you crushing it? Or is it crushing you?

You’ve created something amazing. Something the world has said yes to in a big way. Customers are intrigued with your offering.  Investors back your vision with a nice Seed round. You look around and somehow you’ve taken something from a spark of an idea to a growing company.

But now, you’ve got new challenges. Things that were pretty easy in the early days have suddenly gotten a lot harder.

You’ve got a bigger team.
You've got limited runway.
You may have investors and a board.
You are making bigger decisions with more expectations and more pressure.

You’ve never led something like this and you’re learning on the fly.

At heart, you are an expert, a creative and a visionary - not a GTM expert or business operator.

Some days you realize you are over your skis and hope no-one notices. You’re reading book after book to come up to speed on leading a business at scale.

But it’s hard to get a handle on everything. Issues pop up like an unrelenting game of whack-a-mole:

A costly hire that flamed out.
A product or service fail.
An ongoing issue with a key team member.
Slower traction than you'd hoped for.

The things that worked to get you here aren't scaling. Grinding long hours and putting the rest of your life on the back-burner has got you nearing burn-out and wondering how anybody does this.

SEED TO SERIES A:
THE HARDEST HUMP

The journey from Seed Stage to Series A is one of the most challenging parts of the Founder Journey.

I know this first hand, having led my first startup from idea to successful multimillion dollar exit (and beyond).

Seed to Series A is where you go from someone with an amazing idea and some early wins to truly understanding what it takes to lead a high growth business.

If you’ve never done it before it’s can feel incredibly overwhelming. You constantly feel like you don’t know what you don’t know.

This is the focus of my coaching practice. I help Seed to Series A Founders to:

Accelerate Traction
Operate Brilliantly
Lead Confidently

Over the past three years, clients I’ve coached have raised over $100 million in funding, with a number of successful exits.

At the core of my coaching philosophy is a focus on the Founder Type of each entrepreneur.

By understanding the strengths and challenges that come with each type, I can tailor coaching specifically for you. supporting founders overcome obstacles and reach their full potential. philosophy into his coaching to help founders grow both professionally and personally.

TRANSFORM YOUR FOUNDER JOURNEY

You get to be a Founder just by starting something.

But becoming a CEO requires that you transform as your company grows.

When you are in the midst of it, when you are grinding long hours and fighting fires, it can feel really fuzzy and daunting, especially for a first-time founder.

How do you become the CEO your company needs when you’ve never done it before?

You just need to know the rules.

I know because I’ve been there. When I was a first-time founder, I suffered many painful lessons as I led my company from idea to multimillion dollar exit.

Along the way, I relentlessly tried to come up the CEO curve. I read book after book, I had a coach, and even though I succeeded, I made mistake after mistake that drove me to the edge of burnout and failure.

After nearly two decades of leading, studying, and coaching Rocket Ship companies and founders, I’ve developed a system for helping founders optimize their companies and themselves.

This system is not abstract or theoretical. It is based on hard-won lessons from being in the Founder seat.

It is pragmatic and immediately applicable to wherever you are right now. This is the MBA I wish I had when I was a first-time founder. This is the stuff you really need to master to create and guide a Rocket Ship.

Stuff like how to:

  • Create simplicity in every part your company (the key to scaling!)
  • Consistently hire the right people for the right seats.
  • Deal with co-founder issues
  • Master compelling customer journeys to create reliable revenue.
  • Ensure the team is aligned and bought in on the vision, current milestones and the plan
  • Foster a culture of accountability that can execute in the face of even the biggest challenges.
  • Turn uncomfortable HR conversations into positive coaching
  • Actually hold effective meetings
  • Keep yourself whole and healthy in the midst of the roller coaster of leading your business.
HOW
DO YOU
BECOME
THE CEO
YOUR
COMPANY
NEEDS?

I call it the 5 Rules for Rocket Ships.

Embracing the 5 rules will help you transform from Founder to Rocket Ship CEO.

  1. Ruthless Simplicity
  2. Flywheel Customer Creation
  3. Clockwork Execution
  4. Real-Life Leadership
  5. Bigger Game Mindset

The rules sound simple. But actually implementing them requires disrupting your current way of thinking and doing things differently. You have to stop operating like a Founder and start becoming a CEO. It can be almost impossible without a guide who has been there before.

That’s why I’ve created a coaching program to help first-time founders fully embrace and implement these rules – and transform into Rocket Ship CEO’s.

THE
FIVE
RULES
FOR
ROCKET
SHIPS

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE WORK WITH ME

"Only Founder CEO’s know what Founder CEO’s go through. Steve is someone who understands the Founder journey and CEO responsibilities. It's rare to have a coach who has been in the trenches which makes sessions both comforting and actionable. Last year, we 4x’d revenue and are on track to 3x this year. "

SHANE HEATH
Founder & CEO, MUD/WTR

“I got more out our first session with Steve than I did with other consultants we had worked with for 6 months.”

RUST FELIX
Co-Founder & CEO Slope ($20M Series A)

I've worked with a number of CEO coaches, Steve is by far the most effective. He is a natural coach and has lived experience as a founder/CEO that is incredibly valuable.

Scott Gallant
Co-founder & CEO, Forestry.io

“After working with Steve, we focused the business around my passion for science and geospatial mapping. Not long after, we landed $1M in funding and a large government contract.”

LIZ DERR
Co-Founder & CEO, Simularity

“Steve came to our organization at, what turned out to be, a critical moment in our company’s history. He not only helped us refine our business strategy on the fly (as part of our quarterly planning), but he also dropped into our operational challenges, including key relationship issues that had recently emerged. Steve is the perfect blend of an entrepreneur (he’s been through the trenches) and a coach. He is a fantastic listener, but is able to call upon relevant frameworks in real-time when working through issues.”

ANDREW PEEK
Co-Founder & CEO, Delphia

I was a bit skeptical when our COO invited me to meet Steve August because I didn't really feel like we needed an external “startup whisperer”. Within the first meeting, however, I was convinced that we had landed a tremendous ally because Steve talked clearly about the challenges of the seed stage with honesty, clarity and no BS: I have done 2 startups before and had never heard anyone  who addressed these challenges in a straightforward manner.

Ajit Banerjee
Xethub

“Steve is someone who’s been through the trenches and coaches from a place of experience and empathy. Because he’s been in my shoes, Steve is able to help me see things more clearly and walk me toward my own solutions. His approach is both strategic and free-flowing; blunt and kind; advisory and self-discovering.”

DAVID PAULL
Co-Founder & CEO, Engagious

“I felt like a train with the engines and cars all on different tracks – lots of power but not going anywhere.  Just going through one of Steve’s exercises in prioritization I realized a there was a massive amount of stress and anxiety that I didn’t even know I was suffering from at the time. In the first session it was like putting all the engines and the cars of the train on a single track speeding forward! It all just clicked into place. Incredible. I’ve made so much progress because of our sessions it’s mind-blowing.“

RUSS BORGNIN
Founder & CEO

LET’S LIGHT THIS CANDLE