If you put in the work, you will get results. I know this because it’s a proven methodology time and time again. We’ve spent countless hours testing, adjusting and streamlining techniques and programs so only the most effective curriculum is used. We’ve spent years diving into the mindset of a CEO and how to understand what it takes for not only short term rapid improvement but also long term impact, happiness and success.

We don’t need lengthy off-site workshops, endless training seminars, or even spending time with your team to have radical improvement in your ability to lead and manage in a much more powerful way. There is a time and place for those tools, and Seed/Series A start-ups don’t need them to capitalize on massive low hanging fruit.

If this program is resonating with you, that means that this will work.

Although this work can be hard to measure, it has immediate felt effects. Even if a founder claims this program alone enabled their annual revenue to increase by $500,000/year, there are still other major impacts that happened. It’s flat out hard to measure!

Well known executive coach Patrick Lencioni mentions in his book Advantage 3 biases why CEOs of Fortune 500 companies don’t take this work as seriously as they should. In brief, there is (1) a sophistication bias, (2) an adrenaline bias, and (3) a quantification bias.

(1) The sophistication bias is that the more complex something is, the higher quality it must be. (2) the adrenaline bias is that the more action packed and urgent an activity is, the higher quality it must be. (3) the quantification bias is the more easily measured an activity is, the higher quality it must be for the business.

The bias towards quantification is real, but experience proves this work is highly impactful.

The primary way we measure success is through founder’s satisfaction (testimonials) and continued company growth. Company growth metrics is something we value highly as a focus point for how we can define successful impact over time.

Let me attempt to rephrase this question to what I often hear. Then, I’ll directly answer this important questions: Andrew, you’ve never sold your unicorn company for over $1B, and you’re not a HBS professor.

What I would point out to you is first to notice someone’s trust and assumption that academic professors or tech billionaires understand the moving parts of how to affect organizational change at a start-up. I’ve worked with academics before, and oftentimes they are more experienced in theory. I’ve actually also worked with successful tech billionaires before, and although they might have done it themselves, they not only have trouble explaining what they did, but they aren’t currently structured to take the time to understand a company like yours, right now - like today, and hold their hand each step of the way.

The Lean Leadership Methodology is grounded in real founders improving their leadership. It’s designed exactly for tech startup CEOs at Seed/Series A size.

That’s why someone like me.

Why me?

I’ve done the work, I have some great results, with a proven methodology.

Enrolling in this program will SAVE you a lot of time.

There’s no way around it. When you go the do-it-yourself route, you inevitably end up losing time going down dead-end paths and dealing with unexpected consequences.

When you have an experienced guide, you get results much faster. I’ve worked with people who wasted years trying to advance their leadership, but once they finally invested in working with me their leadership improved dramatically and in short order.

While the Lean Leadership Method is not cheap and is still an investment, it pales in comparison to NOT JUST alternative approaches like a corporate consultant ($50,000+), self training (100’s of hours of trial and real impactful error), or hiring an employee like a Chief of Staff who isn’t even really trained in this area ($120,000+/-), BUT ALSO the missed opportunities costs.

I’ve worked with founders who have previously struggled with the following:

• Failure to raise additional capital because of a lack of time ($1M+ missed opportunity cost)

• Employees not empowered to think critically and therefore a lack of innovation from them - as opposed to one of my clients where one employee realized an untapped opportunity to 2x SaaS revenue ($1M in revenue, $10M+ lifetime value)

Again - if you’ve made it this far, that means that this program resonates with you and your needs. That means this program will probably help you dramatically. I do this work because I know that I can make a difference with CEOs. The results from this program are not binary, there are many ways people get massive value.

CEOs of startups are a unique kind of person in this world. They want to take it all on themselves and the crazy part is they can probably do a pretty damn good job at it. But, they can only be so focused and dialed in on good enough that they can miss massive opportunities in front of them with their leadership and management skills

Which is better?

• Good enough on your own (hoping it actually is good enough and you didn’t terribly miss something)

• Excellence from the experts (confidence that you have it all locked)

You work hard every day to build something, whether it’s because of the impact, the prospect of being the CEO of a big company, or the potential financial upside.

I get the need to tell yourself, “it’s just easier to keep doing it myself” and not seek guidance in management.

But the stakes are too high.

Your team is going to be growing, expectations are exponentially increasing, hopefully.

It’s ok to tell yourself, “It’s easier to just keep trying to improve my management and skills myself. I know what I need to build, let me keep trying to make it happen.”

And you may just do that, provide some impact to your team, possibly from some of the insights you’ve even learned from my newsletter. And you might even be totally successful!

But, how fast do you want to go? How sure are you that your leadership won’t have unintended long term consequences that negatively impact your team? Or even that you could have become even more successful.

If you’re thinking of improving your management on your own, I invite you to consider how much faster a high quality training like this could do for you and your team if you brought in the experts.

I invite you to bring the support your company needs to continue scaling fast, and not have to worry about exploration and testing of how to be the best manager. Instead, reserve that attention for your company’s core product.

​People committed to a program are more likely to do the work and therefore get better results. So if you’re not sure whether this is a good fit, don’t enroll in the program. Check in with yourself. How does the idea of enrolling in this program feel? If you’re at the intersection of excited and nervous, that’s a good sign!

If you have any questions about if you think you’d be a good fit, you can send an email to info@andrewelliotstern.com. I’ll answer your questions and let you know if I think this is the best next step for you.

This program is designed to be the first serious structured step for a Seed and Series A tech startup CEO. If that is you and you have challenges in your leadership, this is probably the best next step for you. If the messaging didn’t 100% resonate above, this program can probably still massively impact your company.

If you’re seriously considering doing this program, you can email info@andrewelliotstern.com, you will get a reply within 24 hours.

In short, this program is definitely the best next step for you if you’re a start-up interested in moving fast and having rapid impact. While a 2 year training intensive program could benefit you, getting down the most foundational principles and applying them to your leadership in this way first I have seen is always the best next step.

That means rapid skill building of essential tools, and then building on that. That mean this is not reading a full textbook and only then applying those skills.

If appropriate at the end of the workshop, we can explore further options. However, this program really is designed to give you massive value that will give you tools and skills for life.

“Everything is streamlined, we have a plan, we’re growing, our investors are happy, and we’re super focused on a couple goals this quarter. I’m in my groove. Why shake things up?”

I’m setting the bar high with this course. And that bar is much higher than settling for what you have. I work with entrepreneurs that are out to make a massive impact in the world and to make a lot of money while doing it. A lot of them are doing extremely well. Their metrics are great. AND they want to up-level their leadership skills.

If that isn’t you, and you’re looking to cruise, that is totally and absolutely ok. This just isn’t the program for you.

I will say that I’ve worked with a lot of people that have been ok with their pace and things have been great, but they just need a little push to up their game. That little push could have a massive upside.

So if all you need is a push, then here it is: you’re better than this! Come join an amazing program that is designed to totally up level your leadership. Hit the apply button and let’s get you started.

That’s totally ok if you don’t think now is the right time.

As you consider if now is the right time, I invite you to think about both the real impacts your current leadership skills are having in your organization and the possible outcomes if those skills were transformed. What would that enable to happen?

Venture backed startups by definition have the stakes being raised indefinitely. Now is always the time to bring on leadership skills where mistakes being made have much less impact.

We only want to work with CEOs that want to commit to doing this program.

Yes. The program is designed for all industries.

“Will this signal to my investors, advisors and circle of trusted friends that I’m having trouble and am incapable of managing my team?”

While I understand this entirely when CEOs say this to me, I respond quite strongly that your investors should be overjoyed that you’re taking this training. I also refer you to the testimonials of venture capitalists above.

Most tech startup CEOs are not seasoned business executives with decades of experience managing executives and managers. And the ones that are, shouldn’t be doing this program. This is a great opportunity to share with investors that you are in a management training program. I’ve found that when CEOs confidently share the programs that they are in and have accomplished, it gives investors a sense of security and trust in your ability to execute on your vision and gain the skills you need to.

I definitely get that you want your investor to think that you have everything together all the time, but if your investor wants to look down on leadership training, then they might not be an investor you want to impress.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen CEOs pushed out of their role because their investors haven’t felt confident in their ability to lead the team. These are hard situations to say the least. Lean Leadership is designed to focus on empowering and training CEOs so that they can be the ones to take their vision from first steps to actualization.

Yes! Bring it on! This program has been tried and tested.

For specific dedicated individualized support needed, there are personalized, confidential channels for guidance on any tricky situations. You won’t be the only one.

This program is the result of years of iteration, testing, exploration, etc. This is a proven system that will get results. Each participant gets different results based on effort, willingness to test new things, and of course their individual company circumstances.

But, this is tried and tested. This will move your leadership forward.

If this question is important to you, it sounds like you tried to improve your team before, but you didn’t get the results you wanted. Maybe you’re thinking, “I’m different,” or “my team is different?” Or “How can you change my team, I just have this employee who is so difficult who I can’t fire or change?”

Are any of these your current plan towards your leadership problems?

• Keep focusing on goals (do nothing) and hope it gets better

• Be overly alert and attentive to your team

• Have pump up meetings to get the team more motivated

• Increase pay

• Be more controlling

"I tried something like this before, but it didn't work."

I would encourage you to be open and ask yourself to think and consider if what this program is presenting will actually make an impact for you? For everyone that is reading this far into the sales page, the answer is yes.

In my experience, the real question is whether you trust your decision making.

I would also invite you to consider the worst case scenario: a program investment not fully capitalized.

I will say that this program can only have an impact if you’re open and willing to invest time and energy into what can be possible for your team. If you apply, make sure that this is something you’re open to investing your time and energy into. If this is for you, I’m looking forward to helping you have a really successful program together despite past roadblocks!

I’ve sat with founders ready to sell for any price with just a little bit of traction because they’ve been so burnt out and not confident in their ability to go for 5 more years. While I definitely respect any decision a founder makes, I will say that working through the exercises and methodologies has enabled a lot of “burnt out” founders to reclaim their power, their original mission. With new tools and a new found confidence, they have gone on to continue to grow their companies.

If you once had that passion, and now find yourself having trouble getting excited about more responsibilities, more investor dollars, and a bigger team, this program can be a great way to entirely flip your approach to your business.

Confidentiality is a very important value that this program holds in the highest regard.

All program participants sign NDA agreements to enter the program. However, at the end of the day, you only share what you’re comfortable sharing. Participants can go through this entire program and not share anything confidential without a problem.

To gain the benefits of the group of other CEOs, ultimately a level of sharing of seeking perspectives is needed. With that comes sharing potentially sensitive information about your company. Our policy is to encourage CEO participants to share management related challenges - which is what the program is about - and to be extremely careful sharing any compromising information.

I will point out how common it is for CEO mastermind groups to openly share in an environment of trust and support.

I will record all of the calls so you don’t miss a thing. You can send questions to me in advance if you know you won't be on a call.

​I’ll provide multiple ways to download and save the materials during the course. At the end of the program, I’ll give you a link that has all the materials in one easy-to-download location so you can refer back to them.

Yes. But, this is a limited program. Right now, there are no future dates planned.

​You will have access to the course platform for a year and can download all of the program materials, so even if life happens, you still get the full value of the program. If the disruption in your life is significant, please contact me. I’ll work with you to ensure you get what you need.

You can email info@andrewelliotstern.com. You can expect a reply within 24 hours.