Founder Wayfinder tells you where your time should go. Your co-founder, early hires and investors weigh in, and you get a short list: what only you should be doing, what to hand off, and what's quietly slowing the company down.
As a founder you get feedback constantly. Most of it arrives one of two ways: a deal falls through, a hire quits, an investor goes quiet, and you're left reading tea leaves about what it meant. Or your personal cheerleader tells you you're doing great. What doesn't exist is a structure for the thing in between: what the people around you actually see, said plainly, in a form you can use.
The question the Founder Wayfinder answers isn't "are you a good leader." It's what you need to do to build the company and the future you want. The habit that costs nothing now is the one that can break you in a year; knowing what to do differently, what to start doing, and what to continue can be the difference between success and failure.
Delegation is the first challenge: handing off something you've always held.
Communication falters: what everyone used to overhear now has to be said on purpose.
Your habits become culture — people copy what you do, not what you meant.
Four steps, start to finish.
You go first.
About 30–40 minutes.
You answer the self-assessment: the same questions your panel will get, from your side. This is the biggest ask in the whole process, and it's yours, not theirs.
You pick your panel.
5–10 people who watch you operate: co-founder, early employees or contractors (1099s count), an investor or advisor, a peer founder, a client, a former colleague, one friend or family member. Aim for at least three relationship types and one person who'll say the hard thing. You can do this with zero staff.
They answer what they actually saw.
10–25 minutes each.
Short surveys, different by relationship: investors are asked about coachability and how you keep them informed, employees about delegation and safety, and a friend only how you're doing. Short is why they finish.
You get two things back, and use them the same week.
A report that puts every view side by side with your own, and an advisor memo you can edit and send. A coach walks you through both in a debrief. Re-run it when the company changes: first hire, ~5 people, ~15.
Answers from people who work in your company are anonymous and only reported in aggregate.
Answers from investors, advisors, and peers come with their name — they'd say it to your face, and attribution raises quality.
You own the report and choose what to share. It never goes to your investor or your program unless you send it.
The report
Three parts: a one-page executive summary that tells you the finding, what's in the way, and where to start; "what now" — the founder you want to be, where your attention belongs, what scale will require, specific recommendations; then detailed results across all four areas. No scores — not a single number. Built to be read in ten minutes or two hours.
Download the sample report
Sample report — Katie's actual Founder Wayfinder.
The advisor memo
Your report is for you; the memo is what you hand to someone else. One page, in your own words, that turns "how's it going" into an hour of real work: where you've landed, what you're trying over the next 90 days, what you've already decided not to do — and a short list of things to push you on, so someone who cares about you has permission to be useful instead of encouraging.
The debrief
A conversation with an executive coach to review the report, decide what to do first, and build an accountability plan so that you actually change what you're doing.
... and five things you can't learn by asking around
This isn't just what you're good at, it's what people say it would genuinely hurt to lose.
You have a theory about what's holding you back. This tests that theory.
Your co-founder, your investor, your first hire and a friend all have a view. In Founder Wayfinder, they get compared and aligned with your plans for the future.
What's draining you, what puts it back, and whether anyone but you is doing that work.
One thing you can start this month, and how you'll know whether it worked.
You should finish it knowing what's working, what's in the way, and one thing you can do tomorrow. Not wondering whether you're a good person.
Founder Wayfinder is built on the framework from Uncharted Leadership: Navigating Disruption Without a Map — Katie's book on leading when the old playbooks don't apply.
Not ready for the full thing?
Try the Founder Snapshot — free, 5 minutes, instant.
Wayfinder 360 is the parent product Founder Wayfinder is built on.
Founder Wayfinder is running its first cohort with Foundervine, fall 2026. Founder testimonials land here as debriefs finish.
Founder Wayfinder is running its first cohort in fall 2026. Founder testimonials land here as debriefs finish.
I've spent most of my career watching capable people get stuck in a place they couldn't see.
Early on, I worked closely with two leaders who had built an organization with people who'd known them for years. One had a hard time connecting with the people around him. The other cared so much he never noticed how his reactions landed on everyone else. It worked while the team was small and everyone was a friend. Then they hired people who weren't, and had deadlines to hit, and the organization nearly collapsed.
I coached both of them. I talked to the people around them. And I couldn't close the gap, because the only way to show them what everyone saw was to break the confidence of the people who'd told me. That problem stuck with me for years.
I later ran performance management at Teach For All and set up 360 assessments at Marriott, for leaders from mid-level up through the future C-suite. Good tools, expensive tools, and they all failed in the same three places. Everyone could tell who said what, so the brain rejected anything it didn't want to hear. The scores turned into an argument about the number instead of a conversation about the behavior. And the report was so hard to read that people left uncomfortable and with no idea what to do next.
Then I became a founder. I have more feedback coming at me than at any point in my life, and fewer ways to get something useful. No manager, no review cycle, just me reading tea leaves and getting smacked in the face most days. I built the version I wanted: one that tells you what's working and what to do about it tomorrow, without leaving you wondering whether you're a good person.
I also believe this is the stage where it matters most. Bad habits at three people are fixable. At fifty they're culture. And I think effective founders are how big change happens, so I'd rather help fix it here.
Nobody can tell who said what.
Answers from people inside your company are aggregated and never attributed. Investors, advisors, and peers are attributed by design — they'd say it to your face, and attribution raises quality. You always know which kind you're reading.
There are no scores in your report.
Not a single number. The analysis uses them; the document you read describes behavior instead. You can't argue with a number that isn't there, and nothing in the report can be reduced to one.
It's built to be read in ten minutes or two hours.
One page tells you the finding, what's in the way, and where to start. Everything after that is evidence, organized so you can go as deep as you want and stop when you're done.
Offer Founder Wayfinder across your portfolio.
If you run a fund, a cohort, or a program, every founder in it can do a Wayfinder. Here's what you get:
- Portfolio pricing.
- A cohort summary with coaching recommendations across the portfolio. Never individual reports.
- Who's done it and who hasn't. A coachability signal.
- A debrief, plus connections to training, executive coach matching, and fractional leaders.
On method: the psychological safety questions are Amy Edmondson's, used as written. The rest is built for this specific problem and grounded in the research on founder stress and recovery.
How much time does it take me?+
30–40 minutes for the self-assessment — 36 questions, about a dozen of them open text — plus 10 minutes picking your raters, plus the debrief.
How much time does it take my raters?+
Depends on the relationship. Peers, advisors, and investors answer about 17 questions in 10–15 minutes. Current or former direct reports answer 31, including the psychological safety block — 20–25 minutes is honest.
I'm a solo founder with no employees. Can I still do this?+
Yes — two peers, an investor or advisor, a client, and a former colleague is a real panel.
Who sees my report?+
You. Nobody else unless you share it. If your investor or program sponsors your Wayfinder, they see completion status, never content.
Is it really anonymous?+
Honest answer: employees and contractors, yes — anonymous and aggregated. Investors, advisors, and peers are attributed by design; they'd say it to your face, and attribution raises quality.
What does it cost?+
$500, which includes the report, the advisor memo, and a debrief with a coach. Nonprofit and program rate: $300.
When should I do it again?+
When the company changes: first hire, around 5 people, around 15.
Start your Founder Wayfinder.
Two business days to get started.
Katie will be in touch within two business days with your self-assessment and rater instructions.
Or see a sample report first.