I have built three companies and sold two of them. These days I work with a small number of early teams on the unglamorous things that decide whether they make it, pricing, hiring, and knowing what to stop doing.
Built, backed, or advised
Work
Short engagements with a defined question. I am not a fractional anything and I do not sit on calls for a retainer.
Most early pricing is a guess that nobody revisits. We rebuild it from what customers actually compare you against.
Who to hire, in what order, and which roles you are hiring far too early. This is where most of the runway goes.
Every struggling team I meet is doing four things adequately instead of one thing well. Cutting is the work.
An honest read on whether the round is fundable at the number you want, before you spend a quarter finding out.
Track record
Combined exit value
Operating, not advising
Early teams advised
References
Elias told us to kill the product line we were most attached to. He was right, and we would not have got there on our own.
Two sessions on pricing moved our average contract 40 percent. He does not pad the engagement to make it feel bigger.
He talked us out of a raise we did not need. That is not the advice you expect from someone paid by the hour.
Tell me what you are stuck on in a paragraph. If I am the wrong person I will say so and point you at the right one.