Let's Talk About Anything
415-890-3576
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Founder Coaching

Business Coach for
Start-up Founders

 
 

Lisa Andresen empowers successful founders with key skills

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Protect your startup from failing

Regain confidence in your company’s success

Stop procrastination and challenge self-doubt

Deal with burnout & what needs to change

 
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build productive communication skills

Regulate emotions

Moderate behaviors

Check your impulses

Think Flexibly

 
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resolve co-founder conflict

Fix what’s broken with a professional mediator

Problem-solve even when you’re fighting

Negotiate your company strategy, responsibilities, or exit

 

How important is your success as an entrepreneur?

Be resourceful. Connect with me for a complimentary consultation on how coaching could empower you to reach your goals.

You’re welcome to reach out through my website below, call/text 415-890-3576, or email me at lisa@letstalkaboutanything.com. Looking forward to getting to know you.

 
 
 
 
 

What Does a Founder Coach Do?

The key to a successful business is keeping the spirit of the entrepreneur alive.

 
 

Through mental-health informed business coaching, you get to leverage a confidential, empowering space to strategize your game plan.

  • Optimize your productivity, prioritize your focus, & stop procrastination

  • Persuade your co-founders, investors, and employees to see things your way

  • Resolve high conflict issues with your co-founder(s) and difficult personalities

  • Build New Ways for Work Skills:

    • Managing Emotions

    • Moderating Behavior

    • Checking Impulses

    • Thinking Flexibly

  • Turn burn-out around & facilitate smooth organizational transitions

  • Navigate high-pressure risks of failure & deliver on your promises

  • Gain awareness of strengths, blind spots, & growth opportunities

  • Stabilize your confidence; Reduce self-doubt, avoidance, & self-defeating comparisons

  • Address what makes relying on others difficult

  • Learn frameworks for providing difficult feedback & managing under-performers

  • Refine leadership skills including hiring, firing, negotiating, motivating, & retaining employees

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Lisa Andresen incorporates business problem-solving techniques into executive coaching grounded in industry best practices and advanced evidence-based training including:

  • High Conflict Institute - New Ways for Work Skills

  • Co-Active Coaching (CTI) Fundamental skills to grow you as a leader through conversation, actions, and awareness

  • Motivational Interviewing to mobilize changes & resolve ambivalence around key decisions

  • Skills-Building Exercises for Distress Tolerance, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

  • Value Clarification to address misalignments in work, life, health, or relationships

  • Assertiveness training to communicate concerns & frustrations productively

How I can support you

Individual and/or joint Co-Founder Sessions

Virtually or in-person in Financial District or Dogpatch SF office

4hrs confidential coaching sessions per month (adjusted as needed)

Available over Slack, email, text, or phone in between sessions

Professional Personality Assessments, shared Notion dashboards, personally curated recommendations for books, podcasts, resources, and customized productivity systems

$2100 monthly retainer
for as little or as long as is helpful for you

 
 

My Story

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Growing up in San Francisco with both parents working in tech, I was always encouraged to be my own boss. As my immigrant family chased the American Dream, success and prestige were non-negotiable.

With a Columbia Master’s degree in Advanced Clinical Social Work, I co-authored research on “Entrepreneurs on Fire” confirming the heightened prevalence of mental health challenges among entrepreneurs and their immediate families.

 
 
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With a Stanford degree in Psychology and Science, Technology, & Society, I joined a Palo Alto mobile payments start-up. I experienced my first rush of marketing and selling a product that people didn’t understand yet would become the future.

I witnessed how pivots and lay-offs overwhelm an ambitious culture, and pursued the more stable resources tied to intrapreneurship at Microsoft.

I sponsored tech-meets up in 20 tech hub cities around the world, pitching early adopter tech enthusiasts to believe Microsoft Consumer Apps could be cool again through demos highlighting innovative features.

In parallel, I coached college hires, moderated work-life integration panels, and saw how corporate office politics triggered self-doubt, over-working, and frustrations with people in positions of power and authority.

 
 
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I left Microsoft to found Well Connected Now which personally matched professionals and entrepreneurs with mentors, coaches, and therapists. I learned the value of supercharging your goals with specialized support. After 2.5 years of solving the chicken-and-the-egg problem, fostering an engaged community, navigating financial pressures, and attempting to fundraise and recruit, I realized the fundamental problem needing to be solved was the clinician shortage.

Humbled by my inability to boil the ocean of our broken mental health system, I understood first-hand how tough it was to let go of my big vision and start-up founder identity. I realized I wanted to be on the other side of my marketplace — I didn’t want to just refer clients; I wanted to be the one to help make their dreams come true.

By design, my entrepreneurial spirit lives on as I build my therapy and coaching practice.

 
 

Coaching Engagements —
Start-Ups, Accelerators, & Professional Associations

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  • YCombinator, The Founder Coach ‘21 —present

  • StartX Stanford Entrepreneur Accelerator, Mental Wellness Initiative ‘20

  • “Staying Mentally Strong through Corona Time”, Wish, ‘20

  • Hack Mental Health Conference, ‘19

  • Anxiety Tech Conference, ‘18

  • “Imposter Syndrome”, SmartBiz, ‘17

  • “Crucial Conversations”, Professional & Personal Development Network , ‘16

  • “Make It Work or Get Out Of There”, Resources for Advancement, Expert Dojo, ‘16

  • “Where We Belong”; “Psychology of Job Searching”, ProMatch Professional Network, ‘16

  • “Telehealth Implementation”, Seattle WebRTC Group, ‘16

  • B2B Startup Weekend Seattle, ‘15

  • “Work-Life Integration”, Microsoft Women in Advertising, ‘14

  • Microsoft Academy of College Hires, ‘13-’14

 

Published Entrepreneur Resources

 
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Therapy vs Coaching:

As a Founder Coach, I support clients with specific business goals, interpersonal challenges, or productivity barriers.

We problem-solve obstacles and develop strategies to persevere through extreme stress, navigate setbacks, address financial pressures, brainstorm strategic decisions, structure effective communication, identify plans of action, resolve value conflicts, and assert healthy boundaries. 

As a therapist for founders, I focus on individual resilience, whereas with coaching, we focus on how personal challenges impact your desired business outcomes.

With coaching, we also have the flexibility to meet more frequently, not just individually, and work globally beyond my San Francisco office and California clinical license.

 
 

Let's Talk About Anything

You’re one step closer to more support.

You’re welcome to reach out for a complimentary consultation through my website, call or text: 415-890-3576, or email me at lisa@letstalkaboutanything.com. We can talk through your goals, how coaching together would work, and cover any logistics. Looking forward to getting to know you.