You cannot tell your team that you are unsure. Your co-founder is inside the same problem. Your investors and board judge you on results. Even close friends do not know the business well enough to help.
The job also keeps changing. First you sell. Then you hire. Then you lead people who lead others. Nobody trained you for any of it.
I am the person you can be fully honest with. I tell you what others will not tell you, and I look at your real numbers with you to find the blind spot. I also act as your accountability partner, so the important work that is never urgent finally gets done.
Founders usually describe their problem in one of these ways. Every line comes from a founder I have coached or spoken to.
The problem you bring is rarely the real problem. Underneath, it is almost always one of these five things in you.
You get clear on where you want the company, and yourself, in 5 to 10 years.
One founder wrote his first personal five-year plan.
You pick the few things that matter and say no to the rest.
One founder used three years of his own data to decide which clients to refuse.
You find the belief that holds you back.
One founder saw that he kept people who were not delivering, because he always chose the person over the job.
You learn what the next stage needs, such as selling, hiring, delegating and hard conversations.
One first-time CEO got comfortable with cold calling.
You stop spending your days fighting fires. Your time and attention go to the work that grows the company, and you have the energy to keep going.
One founder found he was taking 32 of 36 sales calls himself.
Most founders do not need more advice. You already know you should build the sales team, write the process down, or have that hard conversation. You have known for months. What is missing is someone who notices when it does not happen, and says so.
I studied at IIT Bombay and left JPMorgan Chase after three months to start a company. I am a two-time founder. My first company, Nearfox, failed, and we shut it down. I then co-founded Growisto and built it over ten years to 140 people.
I started as an introvert who found cold intros hard. I went on to sell to Tata CLiQ, HUL, Puma and Bajaj Finance, in India and the US. I have made more than 500 hires from over 2,000 interviews.
I was a bad manager for years, and I made most of the mistakes founders make. I learned to fix them with real people and real revenue at stake. That is what I bring to your problem.
I spent ten years building a company. I want to spend the next ten helping founders build theirs. Today I coach founders of IT services, design, infrastructure and AI companies.
Send me a message with a few lines about you and your company. If I am not the right person, I will tell you.