Separate the business problem from the identity problem
Most stuck founder decisions are two problems wearing one coat. Pulled apart, one turns out to be simple and the other turns out to be the real work.
For founders
Founder coaching for when the company and the person have become the same question.
Vana Cristina coaches founders and entrepreneurs privately. She has built and exited companies herself, so the business conversation is real — and she is unusually good at seeing the part of it that is actually about you.
What founders arrive with
The company has grown past the version of you that started it. Or it hasn't grown, and you can no longer tell whether that is the market or you. Or it is going well and you feel nothing, which is the most disorienting outcome of all.
There is a co-founder conversation you have been avoiding. A hire you should have made or unmade. A partner at home who has been patient for longer than is fair. A body that has started sending invoices.
And underneath: the quiet question of who you are if this doesn't work — and, more uncomfortably, who you are if it does.
The work
What we actually do together.
Make the decision you have been circling
Not a five-year plan. The specific next move, made with a clearer view than you had last week, and made in a way you can stand behind when it gets tested.
Find where you have become the bottleneck
What you keep delegating that you shouldn't, and what you refuse to delegate because being needed for it is load-bearing to your sense of self.
Protect the life the company is being built inside
Relationships, health, attention, faith. Not as balance, which is a word founders rightly distrust, but as the infrastructure your judgement runs on.
How it runs
Engagements begin with one conversation, at no cost, to see whether the fit is right. From there, most founders work with Vana on a regular multi-month rhythm with access between sessions — because the weeks that matter rarely land on a calendar.
If what you want is a strategic thought partner on the business itself — positioning, opportunity, the people you should know — that work lives on the advisory for founders page. Many founders end up doing both, in one relationship.
Common questions
How is founder coaching different from executive coaching?
A founder's identity and company are fused in a way an executive's usually aren't. Founder coaching has to work on both at once: the business decision and the personal meaning attached to it.
What stage of company is this for?
Vana works with founders who have something real — revenue, a team, consequences. The common thread is a decisive chapter rather than a particular funding stage.
What if the problem is that I am the bottleneck?
That is one of the most frequent reasons founders come. It is usually less about delegation mechanics and more about what the founder is unwilling to stop being needed for.
Can we talk about my marriage and my health, not just the company?
Yes, and most founders eventually do. They are not separate subjects. The company is usually being paid for somewhere, and it is worth knowing where.
Working together
Build the company. Keep your peace.
Tell Vana where you are with it. She reads every inquiry herself.