Mike Agar
Executive Coach
Tech Founder
CTO
Technical Co-Founder
You don’t need an MBA to start a business, but you do need to understand how it makes money.
CTO
You don’t need a fancy tech stack to run your business, but you do need the ability to innovate at scale.
What is Executive Coaching?
Hiring a Coach is like using cheat codes in a video game. You gain super powers without the pain that comes with learning from your mistakes. An Executive Coach brings a wealth of experience to your problems and provides independent counsel specific to your needs.
Your risk of failure shrinks when you leverage the insights of an experienced mentor.
Who is Coaching For?
Typically you’re the CEO or a Leader of a growing team. You have new decision making responsibilities where a mistake in judgement could prove fatal to the enterprise. Your past experience did not prepare you for this level of responsibility.
Goal Setting
KPIs, KRIs, OKRs, oh my! It’s all about making your metrics matter.
Recruiting and Hiring
A bad hire among your first five employees can end your startup.
Strategy
Great execution in the wrong direction is worse than poor execution in the right one.
Startup Advice
Lean on an experienced mentor to avoid hidden pitfalls.
How does it work?
Much like a personal trainer, executive coaching is tailored to your situation with a 1 on 1 focus on your success. Contrast that with standard incubators where whole cohorts are subjected to the same program regardless of the stage of their business.
We employ various techniques that adjust to the scope of your work. A Startup CEO faces many urgent challenges all at once, while a Senior VP in a large has fewer goals that take much longer to realize. Personalized coaching means you get actionable advice instead of the generalities found in books and podcasts.
Startup Coaching
A Startup CEO is best described as someone with too many top priorities. We’ll work on “Focus” and “Time Management” skills. When you get that right you unlock your true potential.
1. ELI5 Interview
You’ve polished your “Elevator Pitch” but can you Explain It Like I’m Five? Through the process of teaching me about your business you’ll learn much.
2. Fire Fighting: Let it Burn
One of the most difficult skills to acquire is the ability to ignore urgent matters that don’t matter. We’ll assess where your time disappears and then help set your focus. You’ll gain a framework for deciding what really matters.
3. ???
A personalized coaching experience means there is no set program from here on out.
We’ll work together to work on what most improves your business right now. It might be Sales, Engineering, Team Management, Recruiting, or Fund Raising.
4. Profit
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Startup Life is one big OODA loop that repeats step 3 over and over again. There’s always a new top priority, always an opportunity to improve the business, and always something to learn about management.
About Me
I believe a good manager elevates a team and a bad one causes harm.
I’ve lead a software company with over 80 developers. I’ve lead medium sized R&D teams where project velocity meant success. I’ve been the Solo Tech Founder where time constraints governed all.
Over the many years spent honing my craft, on thing I’ve learned is that management is a skill. A skill that takes time and effort to master.
When you’re ready to work on your management skills, I’m here to help.