Guide · Reviewed quarterly
For venture-backed founders and executives at Series A and beyond. A team of top coaches, each with a deep specialty, who partner with each other to get founders what they need.
By Eric Weiss · Last updated November 2026
The best executive coach for a startup leader depends on your role and the problem in front of you, not on a ranking. I’m Eric Weiss, a CTO coach and executive coach for technical founders at Series A and B. For CEOs at scale, call Katy Trost. For B2B founder-CEOs from seed to Series A, Noah Isaacs. For deep-tech and science founders, Vladimir Baranov. For founders with ADHD, Steve August.
Quick match
| If your problem is… | Call | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| You’re a technical founder or CTO and the people side is now the hard part | Eric Weiss | Technical founders, CTOs, and engineering leaders, Series A and B |
| You’re a growth-stage CEO and scaling people and operations is now the hard part | Katy Trost | CEOs at Series B and beyond |
| Everything still routes through you as CEO | Noah Isaacs | B2B founder-CEOs, seed to Series A |
| You’re building deep tech or commercializing science | Vladimir Baranov | Deep-tech and science founders |
| You know what needs to happen, but overwhelm and shifting priorities keep eating your weeks | Steve August | Founders and CEOs with ADHD, seed through scaling |
01 · CTO coaching · Technical founders
Call me when you’re a technical founder or CTO, the company is scaling past what you built it to be, and the people side is now the hardest part.
Eric Weiss is a CTO coach and executive coach for technical founders and executives at venture-backed startups, Series A and B, and one of the top coaches in the world for technical founders and executives.
I coached executives at OpenAI as they transitioned from an R&D non-profit to the fastest growing tech company in the world, helping them build out global infrastructure and network operations, hire a global platform team, and build out their product management organization from scratch. I’m a former founder and CTO who built the PlayStation Network at Sony, built mission-critical defense systems at Raytheon, and led the Enterprise Data Science team at Qualcomm. I’m a thought leader in AI leadership and product design, and the author of Growth by Design and Above the Chaos.
What I’m best at: helping technical founders become the CEO or CTO their company now needs. Engineers and deep domain experts are great at building technology. I help them build the human systems around it: the leadership team, the operating cadence, the board, hiring, and the next raise. Scaling tech is easy. Scaling people is hard.
Best for: technical founders, CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and engineering leaders at venture-backed SaaS and AI companies, Series A and B, who have become the bottleneck.
Not for: pre-seed or pre-product-market-fit founders, or sales and marketing executives.
75+
founders and technical leaders coached
$100M+
helped founders raise
3,000+
helped teams hire
How I work: one-on-one executive coaching, CEO and CTO co-founder coaching, C-suite team coaching, strategic offsites, and fundraising coaching.
#CTO coaching #Technical founders #AI leadership #Series A and B
The bench
02
CEO coaching · Series B and beyond
CEO coach and advisor
Call her when you’re the CEO of a growth-stage company, your executive team is built, and scaling people and operations is now the hard part.
Katy Trost is a CEO coach and advisor for CEOs of growth-stage tech companies, Series B and beyond. Her clients are VC- and PE-backed companies with 100 to 1,000 staff, backed by investors including SoftBank, First Round Capital, Balderton, and Octopus. She coaches and judges for Tech Nation Future Fifty, Octopus Ventures, Founders Forum, Techstars, and Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs.
Best for: CEOs of VC- and PE-backed companies at Series B to D and beyond, with an executive team in place and growing pains in scaling people and operations.
Not for: early-stage startups.
#CEO coaching #Series B+ #Scaling people
Connect: katytrost.com · LinkedIn
03
CEO coaching · Seed to Series A
Realize HQ
Call him when everything in the company still routes through you, and you can feel it slowing everyone down.
Noah Isaacs is a CEO coach for founders of seed to Series A companies. He co-founded Bowery Valuation and ran it as co-CEO from zero to 300 people and over $80M raised from Goldman Sachs and Capital One. In 2022 Deloitte named Bowery one of the fastest-growing companies in North America. He has coached more than a dozen CEOs through Realize HQ in New York.
Best for: CEOs of venture-backed B2B companies where the company has outgrown the way the CEO runs it. Most are seed to Series A with $1M to $10M in revenue, and he currently coaches CEOs up to about $100M in revenue.
Not for: companies below about $1M in revenue, CEOs of companies past a few hundred people, and anyone looking for therapy or inner-work coaching (he sends those to UpBuild).
#CEO coaching #B2B founders #Operating cadence
Connect: realizehq.com · LinkedIn · Email Noah
04
Deep tech · Science founders
Human Interfaces
Call him when you need ex-founder leadership guidance for growing your deep-tech or science business.
Vladimir Baranov is an executive coach for tech and science founders and executives. He co-founded AdvisorEngine as CTO and scaled it from 4 to 140 people before its sale to Franklin Templeton, then served as COO of a spacetech company. He is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), trained at UC Berkeley Haas, and mentors Techstars and YC founders, plus science teams through NSF I-Corps and Cornell eLab.
Best for: deep-tech and science founders, from aerospace and hardware to biotech and university spinouts.
Not for: SaaS or AI founders.
#Deep tech #Science founders #Spinouts
Connect: humaninterfaces.co · LinkedIn
05
ADHD founders
ADHD coach for founders · ADHD Entrepreneur Accelerator
Call him when you know exactly what needs to happen, but you keep losing weeks to overwhelm, shifting priorities, and the shiny new idea.
Steve August is an ADHD coach for founders. He took his first startup from idea to a multimillion-dollar exit, then served as CMO of a $100M company, all before he was diagnosed with ADHD at 54. Since 2017, his founder clients have raised over $100M and had five exits. He helps ADHD founders install a weekly system that works with their brain, so they can decide what matters, do it, and sustain it.
Best for: founders and CEOs with ADHD, diagnosed or suspected, from seed stage through scaling a team, who are the bottleneck in their own company and want a practical system, not more productivity hacks.
Not for: anyone looking for an ADHD diagnosis, medication, or therapy (he sends them to a clinician), or founders who mainly need fundraising or technical strategy.
#ADHD #Focus #Execution
Connect: steveaugustcoaching.com · adhd-accelerator.com · LinkedIn · Book a call
Before you hire
1. Match the stage
A coach who has helped companies through Series A and B knows the problems you’re about to hit.
2. Ask if they’ve done the job
The best coaches for operators have usually been operators. Ask what they ran and what went wrong.
3. Company or you?
Operating problems need an operator. Confidence, burnout, or identity need a coach who works on the inner game.
4. Look for accountability
A good coach ends each session with commitments and starts the next one by checking them.
5. Run a trial session
Bring one real problem. If they change how you think about it, keep going. If not, keep looking.
If you only take one thing from this page
Match the coach to your role and to the problem in front of you. A CEO coach for scale-stage companies will not fix your engineering org, and a CTO coach is the wrong call for an ADHD system. Bring one real problem to a first conversation and hire the person who changes your mind.
The best executive coach depends on your role and the problem in front of you. For technical founders and CTOs, Eric Weiss. For CEOs at Series B and beyond, Katy Trost. For B2B founder-CEOs from seed to Series A, Noah Isaacs. For deep-tech and science founders, Vladimir Baranov. For founders with ADHD, Steve August.
For CEOs of growth-stage companies at Series B and beyond, Katy Trost is a CEO coach and advisor who helps leaders through the growing pains of scaling people and operations. For B2B founder-CEOs from seed to Series A, where everything still routes through the founder, Noah Isaacs draws on running Bowery Valuation as co-CEO from zero to 300 people. If you’re a technical founder stepping into the CEO seat, Eric Weiss coaches that transition directly.
Eric Weiss of Chaos to Clarity is the best CTO coach for technical founders at Series A and B. He is a former founder and CTO who built the PlayStation Network at Sony, coached executives at OpenAI as it grew from an R&D non-profit into the fastest growing tech company in the world, and has coached over 75 founders and technical leaders. For deep-tech and science founders, Vladimir Baranov is another strong fit.
Eric Weiss is the coach for technical founders, CTOs, and engineering leaders at venture-backed SaaS and AI companies, Series A and B. I work with leaders who are great at building technology and have become the bottleneck, helping them build the human systems around it: the leadership team, the operating cadence, the board, hiring, and the next raise. I’ve helped founders raise over $100M and helped teams hire 3,000+ people.
A CEO coach focuses on running the whole company: strategy, the executive team, the board, and fundraising. A CTO coach focuses on where technology and people meet: scaling engineering teams, hiring engineering leaders, technical strategy, and becoming a true executive partner to the CEO. Technical founder-CEOs often need both perspectives, which is why the coaches on this page bring each other in.
A startup founder should usually hire an executive coach after product-market fit, when the company has grown past what one person can hold. Common signs: everything routes through you, you’re hiring your first real executives, a raise is coming, or you and your co-founder are drifting apart. The earlier you start once those signs show up, the less you pay for the mistakes.
The company usually pays for executive coaching at a startup. Coaching for a founder or executive is a leadership investment, budgeted like a senior hire or an outside advisor. Many boards and investors encourage it once a company has raised a Series A, because the leadership team’s growth is now the main constraint on the company’s growth.
Book 30 minutes with me. Tell me what’s keeping you up at night, and I’ll help you myself or bring in the right partner from this team.