CEO Coach

Gillian and Anne look at pattern matching beyond gender lens issues, reminding listeners that good pattern matching habits can be learned. While it is true

Early stage companies need Executors. There are so many Wizards out there. Gillian and Anne provide clarity around the value of finding and working with

Seattle investor, founder and startup advisor Dan Kihanya joins Gillian and Anne to talk about his new podcast “Foundersunfound.com” with which he expects to create

Gillian and Anne discuss a recent report in the Washington Post that power reveals who we really are and people with certain tendencies will gravitate

Gillian and Anne discuss the defining characteristics of a successful advisory board and how they will benefit your startup. In your early stages you will

Gillian and Anne chat with Seattle investor Dave Parker, founder of ‘6 Month Startup — Ideation to Revenue’. Dave breaks down the three components of

Gillian and Anne discuss the differences between management and leadership from a metrics perspective. Metrics seem to be all about management. But leadership is setting

Where to find capital is the number one question heard from founders at almost every stage of entrepreneurship. For that reason, Anne and gillian keep

Every entrepreneur dreams of selling the company and cashing out. It is almost a trope that founders need to have their exit in mind from

Gillian and Anne chat with Amy Margolis, founder of The Initiative and The Commune, an accelerator and coworking space for women launching cannabis businesses in

Anne and Gillian talk about different dimensions of financial models —  or more clearly, how to paint the best financial portrait of your startup —

Anne Gillian review the critical elements for your pitch decks, and the two most often included by novice founders that are unnecessary, and sometimes even

Marcia Zaruba O’Connor joins Anne and Gillian to talk about how startups can best approach hiring and benefits and how to build your staff and

Gillian Anne chat with Eveline Buchatskiy, co founder of One Way Ventures, a fund for investing in startups by immigrants. What was the business opportunity

Now seems like a good time to address keeping your team motivated. Near the end of Q3 post-summer spirits may be flagging, especially if your

The National Bureau of Economic Research reports there’s “robust evidence of age discrimination in hiring against older women, especially those near retirement age.” Based on

What makes you tick? Where are your team members happiest and most productive? These are questions you must understand, first about yourself and second about

There is growing evidence that indicates that impact investing supports the conventional bottom line with better returns for investors. In other words, investments in impact

Carlee Price, investor and advisor to early stage companies joins Gillian and Anne to talk about her just-launched a consultancy – Pique Ventures – that

You hear it all the time ‘The CEO’s Prime Directive is to build value for her company’. Gillian and Anne take a closer look into

Professor Brianna Caza, an organizational psychologist at the University of Manitoba has studied early stage founders to find what helps them avoid ‘creeping strain’ and

Remember elevator pitches? Well, elevators may not be the only place you find the venture capitalists you want to tell about your company. There are

Anne Gillian revisit bias from a fresh perspective — how are your unconscious biases affecting the decisions you make in your business, for example in

It’s not news that women founders got a miserable 2% of venture capital last year and have averaged 20% of all VC deals each year

When do you take money out of your startup? When do you start planning for that happy day? Gillian and Anne discuss key signs you

Flash: the startup failure rate is considerably less than the 90 percent we hear about all the time. Since 2001 the total number of startups

Gillian and Anne describe a new venture capital fund they are forming to fund startups with at least one woman in a critical and strategic

Anne and Gillian host Drexel University’s Katherine Jordan who directs the program there funded by the Coulter Foundation, a nationwide resource for developing and commercializing

Gillian and Anne take a full look at an entrepreneur’s CEO journey and lay out strategic and tactical insights to help them plan their company’s

Anne and Gillian kick off the new year with a fresh look at whether women founders are receiving any more VC backing, and they are

Anne quizzes Gillian on funding options for startups. They discuss traditional equity. Debt. Convertible notes. Convertible securities, also known as SAFE’s. Even self-funding. Which is

Every startup needs a cap table, even if the only shareholders are the founder and perhaps a partner or two. As you grow, you will

Anne and Gillian return with more questions to and answers from James Newell, partners at early venture firm Voyager Capital in Seattle. What do you

Ever want to ask a venture capitalist everything about how VC’s work? Gillian and Anne chat with James Newells, partner at Seattle’s Voyager Capital, early

Gillian and Anne talk with Luni Libes, founder and Managing Director of Fledge, a global impact accelerator which launches businesses that do good by doing

Gillian Muessig and Anne Kennedy discuss how cities like Seattle are dominated by the Amazons and Microsofts at the top of big business, overshadowing mid-sized

A unicorn is a start up that achieves a billion-dollar valuation. A scalable company is one that finds a way to increase revenues and profit

Anne  and Gillian continue their discussion of your funding options when you are starting a company, including some new takes on old methods, such as

We hear from Elaine Bennett, an award-winning speech writer who has written for Warren Buffet and Governor Howard Dean, and numerous financial and business consulting

We continue our conversation with Janis Machala about how to seek early stage investing, because we just couldn’t get everything we wanted to hear from

Janis Marchala of Palladin Partners has been called the ‘Oracle of Startup mentoring and early-stage investing” which she has been doing since the mid-1990’s in

“Silicon Valley is the only place in the US where rich people want to meet with poor people” — that is, if they have compelling

How important is it to raise your head up from your startup and read blogs regularly? Very important. A breadth of sources gives you a

Gillian and Anne revisit metrics to take a deeper dive into finding the right measurements in your business for clarity and intelligence-based decisions. Rigor is

While it’s true that VC funding to women founders has more than doubled in 10 years, the actual amount is paltry. Anne and Gillian discuss

Every startup needs a cap table, even if the only shareholders are the founder and perhaps a partner or two. As you grow, you will

Eventually your startup will need a board of directors. But, when do you shift from advisors to directors, and what are the need for them,

Every successful person speaks of mentors that led the way and provided encouragement.  This is especially true when you are founding a startup, a time

Term Sheets 101Terms sheets are good news, but they can be intimidating. Gillian and Anne break down what some of the confusing terms and what

Gillian and Anne continue their discussion of the best ways to fund your very early stage company. This week is all about how to find