It depends on the level of intensity the founder wants. That is the honest answer, and it is also the most useful one, because the intensity is the thing you choose.
What drives the price
With one founder I coach, the cadence is one hour a week, and I do not just act as a mentor. I do document reviews with her, I produce work with her, and I hold her accountable at the end of each week. Others I coach are self-starters. They do not need that level of management; one of them contacts me every time there is a crisis and not otherwise. Both are coaching. One costs more than the other, because one takes more of my week.
So the price moves on three things: how often we meet, how much I do between the calls, and how big and complicated the business is. A founder at half a million a year with four people and a founder at three million with thirty are solving different problems, and the second one takes more of me.
What it costs with me
My coaching plans are on my page, from two to five calls a month, and the prices are published there so you do not have to ask. Beyond the plans, where the work is really an assessment of the whole business or me inside the team, the fee is agreed on a call, because it depends on the size of the company and which phases you take.
Is it worth it?
Founders often look at coaching or outside advice as a cost. The reality is that if you have not done this before, or you have only done it once or twice, you will save money by having a coach who has been there and done it with you, because they will guide you around the minefield. The longer you keep shooting with a blindfold on, hoping something sticks, the more it is costing you. That opportunity cost is almost always bigger than the fee.
The test of whether a coach is worth their salt is twofold. Do they have scars of their own, so the advice comes from having done it rather than having read about it? And do they have a network that can help you scale, because introductions move a business faster than advice does.
What the first hour looks like
The first hour is you talking eighty per cent of the time and me twenty. I want to understand everything about you and the business before I say anything useful. If a coach starts with their framework before they have heard your situation, that tells you what you are paying for.
The real cost is getting it wrong. A founder of a healthcare startup I advised was about to give away almost half of her cap table to team members and advisers. It felt generous. It would have left her close to losing control of her own company straight away. One conversation changed the structure, and she kept the company.
I have been on the other side of that too. When Silta was closing a deal with a major financial institution, I had a mentor who knew that institution well and had worked in the industry for years. He showed me how to package the offer so it fitted the way they bought. Without him I would not have presented it in the right way, and we would not have closed. That is what you are paying for: the person who has already walked the ground you are about to cross.
If you want a straight conversation about what level of support fits, the coaching page has the plans and a short form. I come back to everyone who fills it in.