David Hochberg,
Advisor to the Founder

I'm David Hochberg.

I advise founders and business owners on consequential decisions involving business partners, executives, key employees, ownership, money, and the direction of the company.

I help them make those decisions, and when needed, I help them carry them out. A good decision isn't worth much if it falls apart in the execution.

What I do

Most of the founders I work with run established businesses.

By that stage there is a lot to protect: the business, the people in it, relationships that go back years, money, and often the founder's sense of who they are.

That makes some decisions much harder than they look from the outside.

The founders who call me have usually made hundreds of hard calls already. But there is a decision that has stayed open for months.

It often involves an executive who helped build the company and may not be the right person for where it's going next, a partnership that worked for years and has stopped working, an offer to buy the business, or an opportunity that looks right on paper and keeps getting put off.

Sometimes the real question turns out to be whether the person they've been blaming is actually the problem.

What it looks like

By the time a founder calls me, they have usually talked to their team, their attorney, their accountant, and often their spouse.

They know the numbers and the history, and they have a good idea how most of the people involved will react.

But they're standing too close to the decision to get a clear look.

And the ones who might see it clearly are the ones who have the most to lose.

My first job is to see what is actually going on and explain it clearly.

That sometimes confirms the decision the founder already believed they had to make, and sometimes it shows them that the problem is somewhere else.

The decision itself stays with the founder.

Once the founder makes the decision, it has to be carried out inside a real business with real people.

We work out which conversations need to happen and in what order, what each person needs to hear, what reaction is likely, what may go wrong, and what needs protecting.

Then, when needed, I stay involved while the founder acts on it, so that when a conversation goes differently than expected or someone reacts badly, I'm there to work it through with them.

Why I work this way

The tough decisions are much more than business decisions.

Loyalty, fear, history, and identity all shape them, along with how the people around the founder will react and what the decision will cost.

I work on the business question and what's underneath it at the same time, because when they are handled separately, the answer often falls apart once the founder tries to act on it.

The founders I work with

I work mostly with founders and owners of established businesses.

They tend to be decisive people, which is why it bothers them that they can't make this decision.

What they want from me is someone who will look at the situation without protecting any relationship, anyone's ego, the history, or a preferred outcome, and tell them clearly what I see.

Decisions founders bring me

Many of these decisions involve partners: conflict between business partners or co-founders, a partnership that has stopped working, an ownership split that no longer matches what each person contributes, or buying a partner out.

Others involve people in key roles, such as whether to fire or replace a key executive, whether an executive still belongs in the job, what to do about a longtime employee whose loyalty has outlasted the fit, or a decision that involves a friend or family member in the business.

Ownership and money come up as well, including equity questions, compensation disagreements between partners, and whether to sell the business or accept an offer.

Some are about direction, such as whether an opportunity is right for the company, a change in strategy, or a situation where the founder knows something has to change and hasn't been able to figure out what that will look like.

How to start

The first step is The SEE Table, a 90-minute session focused on one consequential decision.

You leave with the decision made and what it takes to do it.

That includes the conversations that need to happen, the reactions to expect, the possible fallout, and what needs protecting.

We can continue working together while the decision is being implemented.

Where else

I also write about founder decisions on LinkedIn and Reddit.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hochberg/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/DavidHochbergAdvisor/

Get in touch

If there's a decision you haven't been able to make, tell me what's going on.

Tell David