Executive Advising

Executive Advising for Entrepreneurs

This stuff is hard, don’t go alone

• Personal support for you – the Entrepreneur.
• Personal and team work on communication, productivity, emotional intelligence, anxiety, and trust.
• Tactical input on strategy around marketing, growth, customer service, culture, recruiting, fundraising, etc. (See more details in the FAQs below.)

What is included?

• 4 hours per month of customized and dedicated time for you and your business – use in blocks as small as 30 minutes or schedule a half day strategy review once a month – it’s up to you!
• You can use all these blocks for yourself, or you can assign them to specific team members (if you want me to work with them on a specific project or goal).
• Unlimited email & messaging
• Access to the Revelry network of mentors, founders, investors, and partners who can introduce you to new opportunities, help you solve problems, or just answer questions.

Who will I be working with?

Howdy! I’m Thomas Knoll. I have been building online community for 19 years, and working in or building early-stage startups for 10 years. I love hockey, TacoBell, my wife, and my new baby. (not in that order)

• Recovering Entrepreneur: Founder @ Primeloop (exited), Co-Founder @ LaunchRock (exited), Co-Founder @ Glocally (failed)
• Mentor: 500Startups, Up Global (TechStars), NewMe Accelerator
• Community Architect: Zappos (Amazon), Uservoice (growing), Seesmic (exited)

How is Executive Advising different from a Startup Advisor?

For the past 5 years I have been advising and mentoring startups individually and through 500 Startups and Up Global. Startup advising is broken. Even though I own on average 0.25% of the startups I advise, I rarely get tapped for help. And, being an entrepreneur with my own advisors, I know how easy it is to get buried in the insanity and forget to reach out.

As your Executive Advisor, I provide hands-on help so you get as much value as possible. That is why we schedule 4 hours per month of dedicated time to dive into specific issues/opportunities, document the next steps, and measure impact. The retainer model helps keep both of us accountable to fully utilize the time we have together.

Why are you doing this?

I have been building startups for the past 10 years. I have lived through the hustle and the fear. I’ve failed a few times. And I’ve sold a few. I know how difficult it is to fight the odds.

I’m doing this because I love startups and entrepreneurs. I want to see you succeed in business AND in life.

How long will this last?

That’s up to you. It will last as long as it is helping you succeed, on a month-to-month basis. Generally, it is best to start with 3–6 months so that we can get deep and really address your opportunities. Some people want to work together for several years. That is great too, as long as we are making measurable progress.

What are the specifics about the time we spend together?

We will always use the highest fidelity communication as realistically possible.
In person > video > phone > email. The occasional emergency phone call is super valuable at the right time. But scheduled “one on ones” will always be highest priority. And, I will always let you know when I will be in town so that we can meet-up in person.

How do we measure success together?

During every session we will capture our next actions. I will have some homework to do. You will have some homework to do. Some next actions will be moved into your own company workflow. Some things will be one-off tasks that are quickly completed. Others will be long-term goals that we will track over time. But, all of this will be captured and available to you at all times.

Schedule your FREE 30 Minute Discovery Session

What are some specific things we could work on?

Some of the things I have worked with founders on:

Culture & Community

• How can we improve our company culture?
• Can we take some lessons from Zappos to build a training program for new hires?
• How can we create company values that aren’t stupid?
• Should we build a customer community?
• How do we get our community more engaged?
• We need to fix customer service. What app should we use?
• Should we implement a customer success team?

Customer Development & Product

• Can you train my team on customer development?
• What’s the deal with Lean Startup stuff?
• We need a better flow for product development.
• How can we use Trello, Slack, Quip, gCal better?
• What would make our sprints go better?
• How can we start beta testing our app?
• Can you help our product lead implement some user testing?

Marketing & Growth

• Should we try retargeting? How would we test some ads?
• Can you work with ____ on our content marketing?
• We have a Twitter and a Facebook and a Pinterest and an Instagram and I think three other accounts. What should we do with them?

Fundraising

• When should I start raising my next round? Do you know ____ VC?
• Can you give me feedback on our pitch?

Personal & Leadership Growth

• How can we fix our team communication? It feels like a lot of people are getting frustrated about basic things.
• I want my team to trust me more.
• Is it normal to feel like I am a fraud? I know they say fake it till you make it, but… this feels shitty.
• I can’t sleep, because I constantly wake up worried about 100 different things.
• What can I do to improve my relationship with my co-founder? I think we’re about to have a huge fight soon.
• My email inbox is out of hand. How can I get back on top of things?
• Shit keeps falling through the cracks. I need something to change now.
• People talk about work-life balance, but I think they are full of shit. Is it real? Can I have some?
• How do I say no?
• What are some tricks for getting better at setting priorities?

“Crushing It”

• Investors are breathing down my neck, my team wants to know what the plan is, I barely see my boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/kids, and I think something is wrong with me. What am I supposed to do next?

Schedule your FREE 30 Minute Discovery Session