As Gillian and Anne warp up 11 years of CEO Coach they address the essential elements of real leadership. Every CEO must lead with empathy, structure, and comfort with not knowing all the answers. While the duo is leaving CEO Coach, they are not going far. Watch this space for Gillian and Anne's new podcast 'VC Confidential', launching soon. Meanwhile, all the CEO coach podcasts you know and love will to be available right here on WMR FM.

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Gillian and Anne share some excellent tactical advice from Cascadia Capital in a recent Geekwire article. In addition to exhibiting strong empathic leadership, there are several additional actions CEOs can take to ensure durability through this crisis. From stabilizing your finances to protecting your team, these insights from Cascadia provide valuable guide rails as you plan for today, tomorrow, and long after.

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In times of crisis, like right now, CEOs find themselves frustrated by general advice. “But what do I DO!?” entrepreneur leaders ask. Leaders always deal with ambiguity—it’s timeless and comes with the job. During crises, ambiguity becomes exponential. As fear becomes contagious across organizations, leaders must manage their own responses to ambiguity. Gillian and Anne talk about how to do so in your company...

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Gillian and Anne return to talk real-time tactics entrepreneurs need right now to weather the uncertainty and unpredictability during this global pandemic. From leading with compassion to stashing cash, they list actions and resources to help you stabilize your team, your business, and your profitability. What do you need to do right now? How to make hard decisions. What do you need to do to plan for the long game?

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Anne and Gillian welcome guest Lindsay Tabas, The Lady Engineer (which she trademarked 15 years ago) and product market-fit expert. Her e-book Start Before the Product’s Ready, subtitled ‘The Unavoidable Market Part of Product Market Fit’, which pretty much says it all in her view. Lindsay guided User interface and User experience design for many companies and their products before launching her own consulting group. Her near two decades engineering tech products tell an intriguing story, and even frustrating at times. For example the deep ‘bro’ culture in tech, and how hard it was to raise money for her own startup. Meanwhile, observing product development misfires, she saw a big need for tech to change the way products are created Her mission is simple: help founders sell the right product before they build the wrong one. Lindsay tells what steps founders need to take, and how to bring successful products to market.

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Gillian and Anne address just why marketing managers struggle to create demand for products, as recently reported. They take a look at those products and the process for creating successful ones. Because without that success, how does all the rest come to pass – the stable economies with good jobs? Spoiler alert, product development today succeeds today not by ‘creating demand’, but rather, by listening to customers and hearing what problems they are trying to solve. And then ask why your customers should care about your product, as Steve Jobs famously did. How will it change their lives? And most important, is that change something they care about? As Eric Reis, the Lean Startup guy, said the question isn’t “Can this product be built?’ but, “Should this problem be solved with a product we can build?” and then “Can we build a sustainable business around it?” Gillian and Anne break down the steps to getting the answers right.

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Anne and Gillian talk about raising capital, which is the hot topic on everyone’s mind when they talk to them, especially women. There is a bigger hurdle for women: perceived bias against them as founders. When the stats clearly show that women-led teams run capital efficient, profitable companies, returning more value to investors than all-male ones, and more ROI at exit, women still get just a tiny slice of venture capital. They found some encouraging news in recent reports from Crunchbase and The Angel Resource Network indicating that funding for women-lead startups from angels in Seed and Series A, and VC’s at later stages is indeed inching upward, even though more than 80% of funding continues to go to all-male teams. They close with tips for listeners to help them organize their capital raises better.

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Anne and Gillian talk about how to raise capital other than by equity – that is, providing shares in your startup to investors in return for cash. Somewhere in start-up school, all budding entrepreneurs hear about is raising funds with equity. Why do other forms of funding their startups seem to be news to them? What’s more,. recent research by the Center For American Entrepreneurship crunched years of Pitchbook data and found that less than 4 percent of VC-funded companies have a successful exit in 8 to 10 years, such as an M&A or IPO. Were the VC’s wrong about the potential of the other 96%? Not at all. They were wrong about the appropriate funding methods. Many companies can become successful, sustainable businesses without holding out for the big 10x return in 10 to 15 years. Listen to the many benefits of using debt, revenue sharing, dividends or royalties to finance your growth.

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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 pattern matching may keep investors from investing in women. But women can develop good pattern matching habits that will help move capital their way. That’s why they examine pattern matching beyond the gender lens. In other words, taking something holding women founders back and turning it around to work in their favor. It's about following the pattern of companies that have accomplished whatever you want to accomplish. Understand their path and the path of similar companies. Follow that roadmap – not slavishly, of course. But be aware and be mindful of what your colleagues are ‘doing right’ in the capital raise area of the business. In this episode you will hear specific actions you can employ to turn the tide your way.

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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 a brilliant Executor so they can experience the kind of personal and corporate financial success they dream of. And Executors are the key to that success. We talk endlessly on CEO Coach about Wizards and Executors. In truth, it’s hard to remember a business conversation in which Gillian has not mentioned the winning duo of Wizards and Executors. Just in case this is the first time you've heard of it, here’s the meaning of this "tribal-speak." Wizards are the idea people, often technologists, even inventors. They are focused deeply on the ideation, design, development, and production of the company's product. Executors are the 'business people.' Executors literally execute on the ideas of Wizards and build companies around them. It takes both Wizards and Executors to build a truly powerful tech company. Hear why you want an Executor sharing leadership in your startup as early as possible, and some tips on how and where to find yours.

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