For Founders and Startup Leadership Teams

You built it.
Now lead it your way.

You've got product-market fit and runway. What you've lost is speed. And everyone's selling you their playbook.

Book a Clarity Call

The principle

Every business is different. Build your own playbook, don't copy someone else’s.

Startups I've worked with:

What gets harder as you scale?

You're the bottleneck.

Every decision queues outside your door. Delegating more hasn't fixed it. It's a trust problem, and it runs both directions.

Alignment doesn't last.

Everyone nods in the meeting, but the conflict resurfaces during the week. You have agreement, not alignment.

Strategy isn't executed.

You agree the strategy, set the OKRs and build the dashboard. Three weeks later, urgent work has taken over again.

Growth has slowed.

Product-market fit isn't permanent. You had it, but the market moved. Finding it again at scale is a new challenge.

Who I help

Founders, CEOs and the leaders around them.

Mostly Series A–C startups, working with founders, senior leadership, and teams across product, tech, GTM, and operations.

I also work with solopreneurs who want to build, grow or reshape a business that works for them.

What this looks like in practice

A Series A CEO and his leadership team were stuck on direction. We worked together to clarify where they were going and how to make decisions as a team. They moved forward with clarity and conviction.
A Series C CEO clarified strategy and unblocked a critical bottleneck his team had been stuck on for months. They found a scalable solution in weeks. The company went on to raise a successful Series D.
A Series A CEO was making every decision himself and slowing everything down. We rebuilt his management approach around clear delegation and rapid decision-making. He went from bottleneck to leading a scalable organisation.
A Series C VP Engineering had the capability but not the confidence to shape company strategy. He started bringing technical insights into business decisions, found new product opportunities nobody else had seen, and is now CTO.
A Series C Director of Product was at risk of being fired. He transformed from defending his team against the CEO to becoming a true partner with his peers. He's now one of the strongest members of the leadership team.

More Results

What they say

Hessam Lavi
CEO & Co-Founder, Climatiq
Shared direction, real action.
"Richard helped us get clear and move forward, both as a leadership team and as individuals. His strategy facilitation gave us a shared direction, and his coaching turned that into real decisions and action."
Rob van den Heuvel
CEO & Co-Founder, Sendcloud
From mess to efficient execution.
"Richard helped us bring clarity and structure to a messy operating system. His advice was practical, easy to apply, and led to a real boost in how efficiently we operate... I couldn’t recommend him more highly to any team needing clarity and structure."
Bella Bardswell
Senior Director, Sage
Stepping up to a new level.
"The conversation I had with Richard got me to an insight I definitely wouldn’t have reached on my own. It’s going to shape how I show up and the impact I make as I step into this new role... I recommend him extremely highly."
Alberto Grazi
Engineering Leader, Google
He's someone who actually listens.
"Richard skips the buzzwords, and helps you see things from an angle you hadn’t considered... A conversation with him always leaves you with clarity you didn’t have an hour earlier."

Hessam Lavi
CEO & Co-Founder, Climatiq
Shared direction, real action.
"Richard helped us get clear and move forward, both as a leadership team and as individuals. His strategy facilitation gave us a shared direction, and his coaching turned that into real decisions and action."
Rob van den Heuvel
CEO & Co-Founder, Sendcloud
From mess to efficient execution.
"Richard helped us bring clarity and structure to a messy operating system. His advice was practical, easy to apply, and led to a real boost in how efficiently we operate... I couldn’t recommend him more highly to any team needing clarity and structure."
Bella Bardswell
Senior Director, Sage
Stepping up to a new level.
"The conversation I had with Richard got me to an insight I definitely wouldn’t have reached on my own. It’s going to shape how I show up and the impact I make as I step into this new role... I recommend him extremely highly."
Alberto Grazi
Engineering Leader, Google
He's someone who actually listens.
"Richard skips the buzzwords, and helps you see things from an angle you hadn’t considered... A conversation with him always leaves you with clarity you didn’t have an hour earlier."

How we work together

Every engagement is handcrafted for you. Here's some common forms it may take.

1:1 executive coaching

For founders and senior leaders making difficult decisions, stepping into bigger roles, delegating more effectively or working out how they need to lead as the company grows.

Leadership team facilitation

Remote or in-person workshops for strategy, vision, priorities, OKRs or a difficult question that needs the right people in the room and a clear outcome.

Leadership team development

For leadership teams that need clearer ownership, better decisions, stronger alignment, or a better way of working together

What it costs

I don’t publish fixed fees because every engagement is different.

We’ll agree the scope first, and I’ll give you a clear price before you commit.

I've been there

I spent six years at Google and two at Amazon, including leading a 100-person organisation. Since then I’ve worked with startup founders, senior executives and leadership teams in tech and larger organisations.

So I know what it’s like to make difficult decisions with incomplete information, lead people smarter than me, and work in environments full of opinions about what a successful leader is supposed to be.

I’ve had to work out what kind of leader I actually wanted to be, and how to put that into practice in my life.

Today I bring that experience together with professional coaching. I’m ICF-accredited, and I’ve worked as an operator, executive and consultant as well as a coach.

More about me

I've been there

I’ve had to work out what kind of leader I actually wanted to be, and how to put that into practice in my life.

Today I bring that experience together with professional coaching. I’m ICF-accredited, and I’ve worked as an operator, executive and consultant as well as a coach.

More about me

I've been there

I’ve had to work out what kind of leader I actually wanted to be, and how to put that into practice in my life.

Today I bring that experience together with professional coaching. I’m ICF-accredited, and I’ve worked as an operator, executive and consultant as well as a coach.

More about me

Next steps

You Book

A short conversation. No preparation needed.

We Talk

You tell me what’s happening, where you want to go, and what's holding you back.

We Decide

If we both think I can help, we work out the right way to do it and what the engagement should look like.

Book a Clarity Call

Frequently asked questions

Both. Sometimes something is clearly going wrong: decisions are bottlenecked, the leadership team isn’t aligned, or execution has slowed. Other times the business is doing well, but what got you here won’t get you through the next stage.

That can fit too. If the main question is how to build, grow or reshape the business, this is the right place. If the bigger question is what you actually want from your work and life, UNLEASHED may be a better fit.

Yes. The same leadership, alignment and execution challenges show up. The corporate environment gives you both more resources and more constraints. We work with those rather than pretending they don’t exist.

Probably not very early-stage founders who are still trying to validate whether there is a business, or people looking mainly for tactical startup advice, fundraising support or a ready-made operating system to copy.

Both, where useful. You know your business, your team, your customers and yourself better than I do. The best answers usually come from working that through together, rather than me handing you someone else’s playbook. I also bring experience as an operator, executive and consultant, so if a framework, example or direct perspective would help, I’ll share what I’ve seen working elsewhere.

It depends on what we’re working on. We might work together for a week or two around a strategy session or offsite. 1:1 coaching and leadership team development usually work better over time. We’ll agree the scope before we start, and if we need to change it as we go, we will.

No. You need to know what’s happening, where you want to go, and what seems to be getting in the way. We can work out the right form of engagement from there.

Still have questions?Send me an email. I read and answer every email myself. No bots. No VA.

richard@richardrussell.co

No. You need to know what’s happening, where you want to go, and what seems to be getting in the way. We can work out the right form of engagement from there.

Still have questions?Send me an email. I read and answer every email myself. No bots. No VA.

richard@richardrussell.co

In the meantime…

Get Unstuck

Download The Unstuckifier, my guide to getting unstuck as a leader: where clarity, energy, and commitment break down, and how to get each one back.

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