ADVISOR · BOARD DIRECTOR · TWO-TIME CEO
I've made these decisions before. Most founders are making them for the first time.
Raising capital, finding customers who stay, hiring the people who will run your company — these are the decisions that get expensive when you're learning them in real time. I've spent thirty years making them.
01 · PRACTICE
Three domains. One operating system underneath.
I help founder-CEOs build companies that scale. Large businesses aren't small businesses bigger. They're different — and the difference has to be built in from the start, because retrofitting it later costs a year you don't get back.
The work splits three ways, and most engagements touch all three.
Raise it, or sell it.
Fundraising and M&A. Term sheets, diligence, investor dynamics, the negotiation itself. There isn't an investor for every risk-and-return point on the map — the round you can raise is a function of the company you've built and the investors who actually exist.
Make the curve bend.
Segmentation, positioning, lead generation, sales, and what happens after the sale. When growth stalls, the cause is rarely effort. It's usually that the motion you have and the motion the market rewards are two different things.
Run it so the rest is winnable.
The operating system: cadence, goals, board management, and hiring. One coherent set of numbers from the financial model down to the individual contributor. Run the company this way and fundraise diligence stops being a translation project.
"Working with David has changed how I lead and think about being a founder. The work is uncomfortable in the best way. He finds the thing you have been avoiding and makes you deal with it honestly. Our latest round closed in six weeks because David had helped us walk through the hardest parts already."
Justin Keene · Founder & CEO, Moveris
02 · HOW WE START
The first session is about you, not the company.
How you learn, what you believe about your business, and what you're most afraid to tell me. Then the company in the same detail. We close by imagining the year is over and it went extremely well — then asking why it didn't.
How we work together →