The hardest moments in a company's life are not its biggest deals. They are the moments where the founder has to carry a story the company can no longer carry.
A board fracturing, a round failing, a co-founder leaving, a press cycle turning — these are the moments a first-time founder has never been in before, and the moments where the wrong move compounds fastest. The firm is the steady counsel a founder would otherwise have to invent under pressure.
The work is part strategy, part drafting, part composure. What does the founder say to the board, to the team, to the press, to the lead investor — and in what order. The narrative is not spin; it is the true account, structured so that the people who must hear it can act on it.
Because these moments arrive without warning, the engagement is built around a standing protocol rather than a project scope: a defined response window, pre-drafted templates for the communications a founder most often needs under pressure, and a sealed conflicts protocol for when investors and the firm's network overlap.
The architecture under which the firm holds counsel to a first-time founder. Quarterly written reviews, a defined response window for crises (under four hours during a board fracture or an inbound press cycle), pre-drafted templates for the most common communications a founder must produce under pressure, and a sealed conflicts protocol for when a founder's investors and the firm's network overlap.
The protocol is the reason a founder retainer is something a board will accept and a founder will rely on. It is not improvised.
What the founder says, to whom, and in what order — when the wrong sequence compounds fastest.
Counsel through a fracturing board, before positions harden into a written record.
Resetting a round or a cap table without losing control or the narrative.
The departure handled so the team and the market read it as strength, not collapse.
A relaunch built on a true account the company can actually carry forward.
A defined response window and pre-drafted templates, so the founder is never improvising under pressure.
A board is fracturing; a round is failing; a co-founder is leaving; a press cycle is turning; or a relaunch needs a story the company can carry.
The firm takes on a small number of new retainers each year. First conversations carry no fee and no commitment. They begin with a written introduction.
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