FounderTherapy provides Transitional CTO and CPO leadership to non-technical, domain-expert founders.

We augment their teams with the leadership and executional resources to hit their next business milestone.  
Then we vet, hire and onboard replacement leadership so that they can continue without us.

When do Founders use us?

Transitional Leadership Team

Brian Tait
Co-Founder & CPO
Dana Spiegel
Co-Founder & CTO
Karen Schlesinger
Transitional CPO, Tech for Good
Ayman Awartani
Transitional CTO

OUR TRACK RECORD

18
Startups
16
Operating
$143M
Funding Raised
4
Acquired
"The FounderTherapy Team are experienced startup operators and I highly recommend them to Founders that need to bridge a leadership shortage and be well-positioned to attract the right CTO or CPO"
Jeff Wald
Co-Founder and President
WorkMarket (Acquired by ADP)
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The Challenges

1
CTOs and technical co-founders interested in joining early-stage startups are exceedingly rare.
  • You meet a lot of experienced and knowledgeable CTOs, but you just can't get them to sign on.
  • Your investors, however, insist that you find a CTO.
Most experienced CTOs are joining Series A or B startups where there is less risk. Have you considered that you might not need a full-time CTO? Our Transitional Product and Engineering leaders are an alternative to hiring a permanent, full-time CTO or CPO. We'll provide the expert guidance and hands-on leadership that you'll need from idea stage to Series B, and then we'll help you vet, hire, and onboard our replacements.
2
It's often not clear that your technical partner or team are building the wrong thing, until it's too late.
  • It's incredibly difficult to vet dev shops, freelancers and agencies when you're not a technical person yourself.
  • You gave them a bunch of "requirements", but they lacked the product skills to help ensure you're actually building the right product.
  • You have good advisors, but they aren't rolling up their sleeves to get into the details the way a true partner or co-founder would.
  • As a result, you spend time and money to bring a product to market, and then realize it doesn't solve a real problem for real users.
We're co-founders, without the title. With Transitional Leadership, you won't need to worry if product and engineering are building the right thing in the right way. Our job is to be both the thought-partner and execution-partner that you would get with a technical co-founder.
3
It's really difficult to find teams experienced in complex domains like enterprise, B2B, and marketplaces.
  • You're not just building a simple app - your product has some real complexity to it. Can your dev shop or offshore team handle it?
  • Are you over-building for the MVP? Do you have a trusted partner to help scope your roadmap?
Our expertise in building B2B products and multi-sided marketplaces means that you don't have to sacrifice usability and delight for functionality. We help ensure that you build the right product for the right market. We specialize in HealthTech, marketplaces, B2B enterprises, and Tech for Good platforms.
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HOW TRANSITIONAL LEADERSHIP WORKS

1
ONBOARD
During onboarding, we immerse ourselves in your product, roadmap, technology, current processes and practices, business goals and upcoming milestones. Using all those inputs, we develop an execution plan and hit the ground running.
Spending time up front understanding where you are and where you need to go ensures that all product and engineering work is tightly aligned to business goals and milestones.
2
PERFORM
This is where the fun begins! If you already have a team, we'll lead and level them up as needed, and fill any gaps with additional FT engineers and product resources. If you don't have a team, we'll build one for you.
With us at the helm of Product and Engineering, you can focus on driving the business forward toward your next major milestone. Our processes and practices will build capacity within your organization, and generate more rapid, predictable and transparent results.
3
TRANSITION
Transitioning begins by evaluating the type of leadership needed over the next 1 - 3 years, and developing a sourcing plan with you or a recruiter. We then vet the capabilities of candidates and handle the onboarding of the new hire(s).
Unlike a dev shop, agency or offshore firm, we will never just walk away at the end of an engagement and leave you on your own to figure out how to build your an effective, permanent product and engineering organization. When we transition off, you can feel confident that the team taking our place is the right fit for the mid- to long-term needs of the business.
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BENEFITS

RIGHT-SIZED TEAM & FINANCIAL FLEXIBILITY
Your needs will change significantly as your startup transitions from one stage of development to the next. We ensure you have the right Product and Engineering Team in place throughout every stage of the startup journey. Need to speed up, we'll speed up together. Need to slow down post-launch to work through sales related challenges? We'll adjust the team to extend your runway and give you the time you need.
EXPERT LEADERSHIP AND EXECUTION
We not only eliminate the need to source, vet and hire a permanent CTO and CPO, but also your entire dev team. Our Transitional Teams consist of a CTO and CPO, along with the product and engineering team members that are necessary to build your software. Every Transitional Team is tightly integrated and trained by FounderTherapy leadership. Already have a team, or most of a team? We'll lead and level up your existing team and as needed, compliment that team with additional FounderTherapy engineers and product resources.
REGAIN YOUR FOCUS AND GET TO PRODUCT-MARKET FIT
With Transitional Leadership, you won't need to worry if product and engineering are building the right thing in the right way. That's our job, freeing up the time you need to focus on selling and fundraising.
Worried about finding product-market fit? Our Development Playbook is specifically design to ensure that the product development process is nimble and can rapidly respond to the insights you are gaining from the market.
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what our clients say

"Working with FounderTherapy may be the best decision I have made as a CEO. It has brought us focus and collective expertise that we could not have found anywhere else. From engineering to product development and even internal communications, the FounderTherapy team has challenged us to be better and helped improve every aspect of our business. I would highly recommend any company that is looking to make a tangible step to improve its business and internal operations work with the FounderTherapy team."

-- David Mitnick, Founder & CEO

"FounderTherapy has been instrumental helping us get ramped up here at Organize. The products that they’ve built are innovative, creative, and high-quality. Their transparency, flexibility, and general demeanor have absolutely made this project easier to accomplish. Beyond just helping us design and build our tech products, they’ve been extraordinarily engaged in helping our partners understand what’s going on under the hood, and it’s really been a pleasure."

-- Zachary Werner, Head of Product

"FounderTherapy came in as we were really starting to grow our business and needed to invest in product and engineering. They spent a lot of time with us not just adding new functionality and improving what was already there, but importantly getting our internal processes in place. We continue to utilize their product and engineering practices to this day, after we raised a seed round."

-- Josh Hotzman, Founder
© FOUNDERTHERAPY, LLC. 2019 MADE WITH ♥ IN NYC.