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Address your most important challenge as Tech Founder-CEO, so you can...

Align & Lead your Team 

to Greatness

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As Tech Founder-CEOs...


So much of our time is spent reacting to urgent problems that there is not enough time to make steady progress on what matters most in the mid 
to long-term.

Many of our challenges come with so much uncertainty and ambiguity, that it is difficult to know what is the right decision to make or what is the right way to respond.

We wish we could spend most of our energy on crafting a truly great product or service. But in reality, most of our energy is drained by interpersonal challenges and people problems.

Kru is the support structure you need to...

Prioritize & Focus

So you can carve out the time you need to make steady progress toward building an organization that sustains and grows in the long-term.

Make Wise Decisions

So you feel confident you will not regret the decisions you have made or the way you have responded to a situation.

Solve People Problems

So you can spend less time managing your executive team and more time leading them toward realizing your vision.

How does Kru work?

1️⃣ Apply to become a Member

Kru is a membership based support structure specifically designed for Tech Founders who is either a first-time CEO or is a CEO leading their company through a particular growth phase for the first time.

There is an application process to become a member. There are basic qualification requirements as well.

Membership lasts 12 months, during which time you will receive various types of support you will find valuable in performing your role as CEO. You can renew your membership every year.

2️⃣ Clarify Your Vision & Strategy

Before your membership begins, you will meet with a CEO coach to document your current vision & strategy so that it can be clearly communicated to others. The CEO coach will also deliver a document containing your vision & strategy.

This serves as the compass by which you will know you are making progress.

You may find that your articulation of the vision and strategy is not as clear as you thought. In this case, you will receive feedback from the CEO coach on how to communicate it more clearly and be kept accountable to making it so.

3️⃣ Regularly Receive Support

After your membership begins, you will be assigned to a small group of 4~6 Founder-CEOs along with an expert facilitator. This small group is known as a small Kru.

In a span of 12 months, you will have 12 group meetings with them, totaling 48 hours spent together. The first two meetings serve the purpose of getting to know each other. The next 10 meetings serve the purpose of providing you with the support you need to navigate the most important challenges with which you are faced as CEO.

4️⃣ Regularly Set and Update Priorities

In the span of 12 months, you will also set and regularly update your Top 3 priorities as CEO. You may receive support to do this or choose to do it by yourself.

Your priorities as CEO will be aligned with the vision & strategy.

You will be kept accountable for making progress on your priorities so you can stay focused.

5️⃣ Socialize (Optional)

Every 2 months, your group will meet for food or drinks. This is optional, but recommended. It is recommended, because the more you know each other the better you will be able to support each other.

6️⃣ Receive Adhoc Support (Optional)

From time to time, workshops will be held by one of the Founder-CEOs in your group. The purpose of the workshop is to help you learn concepts and tools beneficial to performing your role as CEO. Attendance is optional.

There are also other optional forms of support you can receive if there is enough interest in your group. For example, some commit to meeting together every Monday morning for 30 minutes to keep each other accountable for planning out their week in advance.

Additional support is available in the form of workshops run by expert facilitators or 1-on-1 coaching sessions provided by CEO coaches as well. Spaces will be limited for these events and some will require an application & selection process.
STEP 1

Apply & Interview

Click the button below to apply.

Once your application has been received, you will be asked to schedule a time to interview with our Head Coach.
Apply for Membership
STEP 2

Onboard & Await Curation

If you are accepted to become a member, you will onboard with a CEO coach.

After the onboarding process, we will take time to curate you into a group of 3~5 other Founder-CEOs from whom you can learn the most.
STEP 3

Start Membership

You will receive a notification once your small kru has been curated.

The first small kru session will be scheduled on a date where everyone can make it.

Your membership will start from the date your small kru meets for the first time.

What makes Kru different?

If you have been part of other CEO forums, you’ll appreciate Kru even more.

1️⃣ Alignment of Values

As qualifications for membership, we require personal stories that demonstrate your embodiment of both compassion and empathy as well as a mission to make the world a better place.

This sits in stark contrast to CEO forums that merely use quantitative measures (i.e. annual revenue or number of employees) as qualifications for membership.

2️⃣ Clear Business ROI

As part of the onboarding process, you will be asked to pick a method of measurement for the business ROI of your membership.

We will monitor the progress of your chosen measurement to ensure you are satisfied with the support you received.

This sits in stark contrast to other CEO forums, where the business ROI is elusive.

3️⃣ Rigorous Structure

There are 3 rigorous structures in place to support you.

1. Vision & Strategy structure
2. Meeting structure.
3. Accountability structure.

There is a structure in place to help clarify your vision & strategy. A lack of clarity in communicating the vision and strategy is one of the biggest culprits in team misalignment.

At each regular small kru session, an expert facilitator guides you through the meeting structure. This is to keep the conversation focused on providing everyone the support they need in the most efficient and effective manner.

Accountability structure is in place to keep you accountable to making progress on you Top 3 priorities as CEO as well as following through on any commitments you have made. Without this you are likely to procrastinate on your priorities.

This sits in stark contrast to CEO forums, where there is no rigor or structure in place, because the primary activity is socializing and networking.

4️⃣ Deeper Conversations

Our focus lies in helping you lead your business and organization.

As a result, we will spend much time getting into the details of your strategy as well as your progress toward achieving your goals.

This sits in contrast to CEO forums, where the conversations stay on the surface without getting deep into the details of everyone’s business.

It requires greater level of vulnerability to speak about the details of the business and organization we are leading. 

So we take great care in curating people who can and will exercise the courage required to be vulnerably honest about their businesses. The meetings will also be facilitated by expert facilitators who know how to promote the kind of psychological safety required for participants to exercise said courage.

Therefore, the kind of conversations you have in your small Kru will be markedly different from the conversations you have at other Founder events, especially those that promote hustle culture, using phrases such as “crushing it.”

5️⃣ Greater Intimacy

Each small group (know as a “small Kru”) is comprised of 4 – 6 members.

This sits in stark contrast to CEO forums with small groups that have 8 or more people per group,

This also means that we only accept those who are committed to being present at each and every meeting unless a crisis event has occurred.

This sits in stark contracts to CEO forums, where participants routinely miss meetings.

6️⃣ Hybrid Flexibility

We curate our small Kru to be composed of people living in the same or nearby city. For each meeting, we allow each participant to choose whether they wish to meet in person or on video. In most cases, people prefer to meet in person for the first few meetings, before meeting on video afterwards.

This sits in stark contrast to CEO forums that force members to choose whether to join an in-person group or a virtual group.
“
By the 3rd [regular small Kru session,] I felt as if I were meeting with old friends. There is no other community with which I can be this honest in discussing the vulnerable realities of what I’m going through. I now look forward to every session feeling confident that I will leave with clear and concrete action items with which to navigate my challenge.

Male Founder-CEO

B2C Tech Startup in the EduTech Industry
“
After receiving support from the CEO coach to clarify the strategy with which my company is playing to win, I was able to distinguish between the opportunities we had been overlooking and the projects we had been pursuing for the wrong reasons.

In hindsight, what I used to do is pursue anything that made money. Now our entire team is aligned around the question, ‘In what game will we win?’ This allowed us to boldly drop projects that didn’t fit our game and focus on the opportunities that truly mattered. My executive team and I are finally looking at strategy through the same lens.

Male Founder-CEO

B2C Tech Startup in the Travel Industry
“
With the support of Kru, I was finally able to make progress on organizational change after being stuck for over a year!

Prior to this, my schedule was packed with meetings from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., and I had no time to respond to incoming requests except by cramming them into weekends—sometimes causing work to be delayed by an entire week. After the change, I now have at least one hour each day to think and respond, and I’ve gained the ability to make proactive choices instead of being stuck in situations where I inevitably delayed others.

Rather than just processing incoming tasks, I now spend time reflecting on strategy and vision for the company’s growth—and I also have the time to act on those reflections.

Female Founder-CEO

B2C Tech Startup in the Human Resources Industry
“
After each [small Kru session,] all the thoughts jumbled up in my head becomes clearly organized and I’m confronted with the “real problem.” I now know that it is when I lack clarity of the “real problem” that I doubt whether I’m cut out to do this. Once I have clarity of the “real problem,” it becomes obvious what it is I need to do and that inspires the courage I need to lead.

Female Founder-CEO

B2B Tech Startup in the Renewable Energy Industry
“
Kru always helps me clarify what is truly important right now—the one thing our entire organization must focus on and solve.

Before joining Kru, I used to think I was clear, but in reality I was chasing every metric in parallel, from A to Z. I was proud of frequently setting and sharing goals with the organization, but I came to realize that because they included everything, they effectively meant nothing.

Looking back, I think I was afraid that being more clear and focused may lead to failure, so I tried to sow seeds everywhere and hold on to everything. Summoning the courage to make a clear decision is not easy, but it is very important.

Female Founder-CEO

B2C Tech Startup in the Food Industry

Membership Qualifications

Qualitative

Has all of the following qualities.

  1. Can exercise the courage to be vulnerably honest.
  2. Has compassion for others.
  3. Has the empathy to understand when compassion can actually be harmful.
  4. Ambition to grow their company by at least $1M in one of revenue, profit, or valuation during the 12 month membership period.
  5. Has the humility to admit what they do not know so they can learn.

Quantitative

Meets at least one of the following conditions.

  1. Experience running a company for 10 or more years, where they gained experience leading 30 or more employees.
    or
  2. Experience exiting as a Founder of a company valued at over $10M.
    or
  3. Currently Founder-CEO of a company that has raised $5M+ in equity capital.
    or
  4. Currently Founder-CEO of a company with $2M+ in annual revenue.
    or
  5. Experience running 4 or more startups, each operational for at least 4 years.

Hello!

My name is Slim.

I am the Founder of Kru.

Born in 1977, I have spent the past 13 years as CEO coach to Tech startup founders faced with the challenge of aligning and leading their organizations to achieve their next stage of growth. My role has been to help them navigate this process with greater lightness, confidence, and clarity, both from their own perspective and that of their team members.

Over the past 25 years, I have guided organizations of various scales through transitions into their next stage of growth or innovation—ranging from ultra large institutions such as the U.S. Department of Defense, to global enterprises like General Electric and Eaton, to numerous startups with fewer than 100 employees.

I have also been invited by Techstars, Google for Startups, Singularity University, Hampton, and others to coach hundreds of founders across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

The precursor to my coaching philosophy is described in my book Realizing Empathy: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Making.

I currently reside in Chicago, IL, USA.


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