Building startups

You are not short on effort.

You are short on signal.

The usual cycle is dashboards, debates, and interviews that start at zero.

Roadmaps wobble. Messaging stalls. Confidence dips.

There is a calmer way. Start with what your market already says in public.

Turn open-web signals into patterns you can brief the team with.

Pair that with a simple monthly view of how competitors and language shift so decisions stop feeling like a guess.

That’s where I come in.

I run TrendLoom’s Market Radar, a high-touch insight system that gives Seed–Series A teams a continuous, structured read on customers, category, and competitors.

It uses only ethical, public data and an academically grounded framework that combines statistics, ML, and LLMs.

Interviews are not replaced. They are sharpened so you walk in with better hypotheses and leave with decisions you can defend.

I have advised 100+ founders on GTM, messaging, and discovery, and built Zaqlick from my Kellogg-WHU EMBA research into AI-assisted personas. I treat AI as an engine inside a method, not a magic trick.

I help with

• Open-web signals turned into clear patterns
• Competitive intelligence that tracks what changed vs last month
• Product discovery that starts deeper, not from zero
• Messaging that uses real customer language
• Decision protection for roadmap and GTM

Results

• Teams align faster because debates shift from opinions to signals
• Interviews get sharper, messaging tightens, and weak bets are dropped
• Leaders report a steadier sense of “what’s happening now” month to month

There are a few ways to work together:

Start with a 15-minute Signal Check. Bring one question. I will tell you if strong signals exist, what they suggest, and the next best move. If you want deeper support, we roll into Market Radar.

DM me the word “SIGNAL” to see if you are a fit and which path makes sense.

Elena Tsemirava

Helping leaders do more with less | OKRs & Leadership | ex Amazon & Google

The leaders I work with are some of the sharpest people in the room. Scaleup CEOs who think fast, see patterns others miss, and carry real responsibility for what happens next.

What they want is simple: execution that consistently matches their capability.

Most aren't lacking vision, intelligence, or drive. They're dealing with something more frustrating — the persistent distance between what they're capable of and what's actually getting done. Priorities that don't hold. Important work that keeps getting displaced. A nagging sense that the company isn't quite running at the level it should be.

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I've spent the last decade working at that level.

Six years at Google and two at Amazon leading product teams of 100+ people across $1B+ revenue impact. Since then I've coached and consulted with founders and executives across Europe and the US — from Series B/C scaleups to global organisations including Vodafone, IKEA, Nestlé, Deloitte and Intuit. I've supported leaders from CEO to VP and more, from firefighting to calm execution, from stalled momentum to consistent delivery.

I know what execution at that level looks like. And I know what gets in the way — including things nobody talks about openly.

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At 47 I was diagnosed with ADHD. That diagnosis prompted me to retrain as an executive coach at Henley Business School — one of the world's leading business schools — and I'm working toward ICF accreditation.

Many of the leaders I work with have since been diagnosed too — or are simply recognising a similar pattern. All of them are fast-brain leaders who want to perform at the level their capability deserves.

Not by working harder. By building a way of leading that works with how their brain actually operates.

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If that sounds familiar, let's talk.

Richard Russell

I’ve just completed my Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching (PCEC) at Henley Business School (with this great bunch of now professional coaches)!

Next stop: ICF ACC accreditation.

To get there, I need more coaching hours.

So I’m offering a limited number of “Pizza Coaching” sessions.

€20.
One focused hour.
Serious thinking.

If you’re smart, capable and slightly stuck — this is for you.

Link in the comments.

Executive Coach for Scaleup CEOs | Helping Fast Brain Leaders Execute with Clarity and Consistency | ex-Google, ex-Amazon

There are two versions of my career story.

Version one focuses on the wrong turns, the burnout, the times things didn't go to plan. It's not inaccurate. But every time I told it, I got a little smaller.

Version two focuses on the wins, promotions, new challenges I faced, what I learned, my resilience even when things didn't go to plan, and the positive impact I've had along the way. It's accurate too.

Same facts. Completely different person.

I spent longer than I'd like to admit telling myself version one without realising I was doing it. And it made me less willing to ask for help, less confident in rooms I had every right to be in, less able to back myself when it mattered.

Here's what I know now: we go to the negatives automatically. The brain finds that stuff compelling because that's where the emotional intensity is.

Which means telling yourself a better story isn't positive thinking fluff. It's a deliberate choice you have to make against the grain.

The exercise I give people when they're stuck: write down every moment in your career where you felt proud, or where someone said you did something well. Look for the patterns, extract the best version of your story.

That list is evidence of who you actually are, not the story you've been quietly running in the background.

When you know who you are, you ask for help from that place.
You back yourself from that place.
You make decisions from that place.

That's a different game entirely.

If you're a senior leader who knows what to do but keeps getting in your own way — that's exactly where I work. DM me, or find the link in my profile.

Europe (yes, even Italy) has a coffee problem. Sometimes you're genuinely safer going to Starbucks.

At least Starbucks is consistently mediocre.

Strangely, it's easier to find great coffee in Seattle (home of the pumpkin spice latte, which I refuse to call a coffee) than in Milan.

Order an espresso in Italy and your lips pucker at something bitter, over-extracted, and fiercely defended as tradition.

Here's the thing though.

Coffee came from Africa to Italy in the 16th century. Italy invented the espresso machine in the 20th. Italian immigrants brought it to Australia.

And then Australians did something unexpected with it.

They obsessed. They questioned. They refined. They built a culture of craft around a borrowed thing.

Walk into many of Europe’s best specialty cafés and you’ll hear an Australian accent behind the bar. London didn't become a serious coffee city because of heritage. It became one because someone refused to accept average.

(Footnote: New Zealand actually has better coffee than Melbourne. We Australians don't like to admit this, so we claim the Kiwis as Australians and hope nobody notices)

Being early doesn't make you excellent.

Heritage doesn't guarantee quality.

"This is how we've always done it" produces a lot of burnt coffee.

The leaders I work with aren't struggling because they lack intelligence or experience. Most of them have built something genuinely good.

But there's a feeling, quiet and persistent and easy to ignore, that the way they're currently thinking, deciding, and operating won't carry them where they're trying to go.

What changes things isn't more knowledge or more effort. It's raising the internal standard. Deciding that good enough, actually, isn't.

Better coffee didn't come from defending the past. It came from someone deciding this can be better, and meaning it.

That's where good leadership starts too.

But more importantly: where's the best coffee in your part of Europe? And is there an Australian behind the bar?

It's time for a new website. Over the years, my old website has become confused. So I've done some thinking, and clarified who I serve and what I do. You can see that in my updated Linkedin profile, and also my new website:

https://richardrussell.co

If you're interested in working with me, send me a message any time.

Open article: Richard Russell - The Fast Brain Coach for Scaleup CEOs by richardrussell.co

Richard Russell - The Fast Brain Coach for Scaleup CEOs

You've shipped harder things than this.

And yet right now you cannot write this email.
You cannot start this presentation.
You cannot make this decision. 

This isn't laziness. Something specific has seized up. 
Once you know what it is, fixing it is usually straightforward.

I wrote a guide about it. 

It's got sixteen tools you can use today.

It's free.

richardrussell.co/unstuck

I stole this image.

Not from the person who stole it from the person who stole it from the person who cropped out the watermark. I went straight to the source.

Waterfall → Agile → AI

The future belongs to those who don't ask for permission.

Anthropic is no longer sure Claude isn’t conscious.

But it’s just “big math equation” - how could it be conscious?

If you don’t believe in the metaphysical, it follows that our consciousness arises purely from physical processes, all of which could be modeled mathematically.

Suppose we made a perfect model of our physical selves - would that model be conscious? If not, why not?

What is it about the specific selection and configuration of atoms and molecules and cells that makes us conscious while a perfect model of us would not be?

Speed?
Experiences?
Specific inputs and outputs?
Can consciousness only arise biologically?
Why?

What is “consciousness”? What defines artificial intelligence as “artificial”, while ours is real?

—

At university one of my favourite subjects was Cognitive Science. We explored these topics and the questions still stuck with me today.

We’re living in exciting times where perhaps we’re starting to see these theoretical conversations play out experimentally.

What’s your take?

You’ve read the books.

Tried the systems. Done the courses.

Deep work. Time blocking. Getting things done. The second brain. Eat the frog.

And some of it worked — for a while, or in patches. Enough to keep you trying the next one.

But if you’re honest, none of it quite fits. Not in a sustained way. Not in the way it seems to work for the people writing about it.

So you conclude the problem is you. Your discipline. Your consistency. Your inability to just stick with something.

Here’s what I’ve noticed working with founders and senior leaders who think fast and carry a lot:

The systems weren’t built for your brain.

They were built for a different cognitive style. One that finds comfort in routine, moves linearly through tasks, and doesn’t get derailed by a single interesting problem at 2pm.

Every system has an expiry date. It works until it doesn’t. And then you need a new one.

It’s not about finding the right system.
It’s about getting comfortable with change.

Why “just do it” doesn’t work for some of the smartest leaders I know:

You know exactly what needs to happen. The decision is obvious. Everyone’s waiting.
And you’re not moving.

Not because you can’t. You’ve proved that wrong too many times. When you’re locked in, you’re the most focused person in the room. The problem is you can’t guarantee when that version of you shows up — and neither can anyone else.

Most advice assumes you’re motivated by importance. That knowing something matters is enough to start. It isn’t. Not for you. Never has been.

Your brain runs on a different fuel: interest, challenge, urgency. One of those three needs to be present or nothing moves, regardless of stakes, regardless of consequences, regardless of how many times you’ve told yourself this time will be different.

That’s not a discipline problem. It’s a different operating system.

The leaders who stop fighting this and start working with it get deliberate about one thing: what specifically triggers their focus. Not in general. Not “I work better under pressure.” Precisely. Which kind of challenge. Which flavour of urgency. What makes a problem interesting enough to engage.

That map exists. You’ve built it accidentally your whole career. The work is making it explicit.

Coach Flywheel Coffee Hour today
1pm Europe / Noon UK / 8pm Singapore

If you're a coach building a business, and want to do so in a community with other coaches building businesses, join the free Coach Flywheel community - we've got a weekly coffee hour each Friday, including today:

Looking forward to seeing some of you again today - bring your wins, your challenges, and questions, and we'll work through them together.

I'll also share a few ideas about how to get meetings with potential clients, without needing social media.

Link to join in the comments (you'll need to join in advance so I can approve you - this is so we only get genuine coaches, not people trying to sell to coaches).

Wrong is better than vague.

Wrong gives you data about what doesn’t work.

Vague gives you nothing.

Get specific enough to be wrong.

The meeting where your strategy died probably felt perfectly reasonable at the time.

Someone pushed back.

Too narrow.
What if we’re wrong?
Shouldn’t we keep our options open?

So you widened it.
Softened the edges.
Made it broad enough that everyone could agree with it.

That’s where most strategies die. 

Not in execution. 

In the meeting where the hard choice gets talked out of existence.

What’s happening in that moment?

It’s not better thinking. 

It’s Resistance.

Nobody wants to back the wrong horse.
Nobody wants to close off options too early.
Nobody wants to sound reckless in front of other smart people.

So the strategy gets blurred. More caveats. More flexibility. Less actual commitment.

Resistance doesn’t show up with a knife. It shows up with reasonable questions.

A real strategy has to rule things out. It says: this, not that. If intelligent people couldn’t make a serious case for doing the opposite, the choice isn’t sharp enough yet.

You haven’t made a call. You’ve made a mood board.

Good strategy feels risky because it is risky. It exposes you. It makes it possible to be wrong. It gives people something real to disagree with.

But that’s where the big win lives. The ground nobody can take from you. None of it is available without the call that makes your stomach drop when you say it out loud.

The question isn’t how to remove the risk.
It’s whether you can stay in the chair when Resistance asks its reasonable questions

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The Battle

Elena Tsemirava

Richard Russell

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taplio

The Battle

Elena Tsemirava

Richard Russell

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Richard Russell's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreRichard Russell's LinkedIn Performance