Facilitation & Training

Overview

This facilitation service was intentionally designed to support the dynamic, unpredictable environment of early-stage company-building. Typically, founders engage us to facilitate a 1-day workshop for the following reasons: 

  • Enable your team to quickly work towards an outcome (or solve an important problem) with the assistance of a neutral party who is more detached from your day-to-day activities. 

  • Optimize team choreography through a deeper appreciation of individual motivational drivers, working styles, and patterns of behavior.

  • Avoid the need to learn an entirely new framework or curriculum from a larger, institutional training vendor. Rather, you want simple, practical frames that will help you develop your in-house approach over time.

  • Remove the stress of having to be both facilitator and participant for your working session.  

The workshops are custom-designed for your needs— they are 95% practical (real-time application) and only 5% theory. Furthermore, the simple tools, frames, and exercises are designed to augment (rather than conflict with) any framework, tactic, or process you have learned or will learn in the future. These workshops work best for groups of 6 to 18 people.

Who This is For

  • Early/Early-growth B2B Companies (mature Seed to Series C). We have experience working with startups spanning industries such as: Finance, Life Sciences, Hospitality, Aviation, Freight, Advertising & Marketing, E-Commerce, Real Estate, and Education.

  • Our clients are backed by venture investors such as: Tiger Global, Sequoia, Goodwater, Softbank, a16z, Lightspeed, Accel, and Founders Fund, to name a few.

Relevant Topics

We cover a range of topics that can be seamlessly put together in a 1-day workshop experience— it all depends on what you want to achieve now. Much of what we cover is built on first-principles— providing the foundation for teams to come together and orient for greater speed. Here is a list of some relevant topics (not exhaustive):

  • Strengthening Team Trust, Psychological Safety, and Alignment: understand the anatomy of fear and how to work with it to unlock performance. This has become even more relevant as startups navigate the challenges of a remote and more siloed working environment. 

  • Network Activation for Fundraising, Sales & BD… Anything: learn a tactical, proven playbook to get anything you want by systematically activating your networks— even if you don’t believe you have a strong network already! The world is a smaller, more accessible place for you.  

  • Team Alignment: early-stage startups are much about running towards the hard things without flinching. Learn how to see what is so you can navigate towards what can be, together. 

  • Operational Hygiene: simple frames for effective communication (vertically and horizontally), ownership/accountability, tracking progress, and new decision-making. 

  • 10X Thinking & Problem-Solving: learn how to identify and challenge limiting assumptions/beliefs (yours and others’) so you can gain new perspectives and develop better solutions. This is applicable to achieving outcomes and removing roadblocks. 

What We Help Achieve

We get our hands dirty with founders to help move the needle on things that matter most. When you confront unnecessary drag— mental, tactical, and/or material— we will help you reorient for greater speed. Some areas where we have been noticeably helpful as of recent (but not limited to):

  • Secure more capital with a proven strategic fundraising process. In 2023 alone, we helped more than five founders secure additional capital (Series A+) with both inside and outside capital — a round that was considered to be impossible to secure. 

  • Grow revenue through fractional support with sales, business development, and partnerships. Some examples include helping founders increase ACVs to $500,000K+ (from $100K) and structuring partnerships to add >$65M revenue in 2 years. The focus is on moving the revenue needle with what you have versus waiting to hire the perfect leader for the role.  

  • Create paths to profitability. For example, we have helped founders find early PMF, boost revenue 2-3X, reduce burn, and create paths to profitability within 12 months. 

  • Fractional people support. Assuming you are scaling, you don't have time to find and hire the best VP of People— we have provided fractional leadership to help lay processes and coach IC’s so your people function can hum until you secure the leader you want. 

Typical Engagement Structure

We typically expect at least 2 weeks notice to help tackle your immediate facilitation needs. We understand that an emergency situation means shorter notice— we will accommodate you to the best of our needs. Assuming we work together, a typical engagement is as follows:

  • Kick-Off Call with Founder/CEO: we typically start with a 60-minute call to deeper understand your most immediate need— key outcomes, top challenges, and core constraints. 

  • Agenda Preparation: we draft an agenda for the day that we believe will meet your needs. You are invited to provide input, feedback, and suggestions. We typically turn this around within 24-48 hours. 

  • Brief Pre-Workshop Survey: a short, 5-minute survey that will help us check the pulse of the participants (and your company) so we can hit the ground running on the day. 

  • 1-Day Facilitation: 8:30AM - 5:00 PM day with relevant breaks throughout the day. We recommend participants be as well rested, hydrated, and prepared for the day’s activities. 

  • Debrief Call with Founder/CEO: we schedule a 60-minute debrief with you to help you organize any thoughts, learnings, and actions going forward. 

Fee is a lump-sum amount plus any travel, accommodation, and food costs.

About Your Facilitator: Jon Low

Jon Low is a performance coach, facilitator, and tactical advisor to early-stage founders and their core teams. He helps them move the needle on the hard things such as: fundraising, board leadership, strategic comms, GTM, and operational hygiene & accountability. Over the past five years, Jon has helped founders raise more than $500 million in venture funding (Seed to Series C) from funds such as: Menlo VC, Sequoia, Goodwater, Tiger Global, Softbank, a16z, Lightspeed, Accel, and Founders Fund, to name a few.

Jon’s professional experience spans the disciplines of design & engineering, business development, training & facilitation, strategic communication, and portfolio management development (software). He holds a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo (Kukkiwon), and a BComm/Engineering (Honors) from The University of Sydney. Alongside Arjun Dev Arora, Jon was also co-founder & partner at Format One advisory, leading efforts to support founders during clutch moments of their growth journey for five years.