What Got You Here Is Now the Constraint
Being smart and working hard got you this far. Now you’re stuck.
The pattern I kept seeing, across every industry: founders with sharp minds and real vision, stuck. Not because of a lack of strategy. Not because of a bad market. Because they were in conflict with themselves. Business problems are almost always identity problems in disguise.
Someone less talented than you is growing faster & charging more. They’re not smarter. They just found their leverage.
Your analytical mind brought you this far. Now it’s the thing standing in your way.
What Leadership Development Coaching Actually Is
Think on your feet, decide with confidence, communicate with clarity: this is the minimum asked of a leader today. You’re also asked to be transparent, empathetic and forward-thinking. All of these are soft skills that can be honed with the help of a coach.
A mentor can support you and share their experience with you. That’s hugely valuable. Yet their limit is: they can teach only what they themselves experienced.
A coach can support you no matter what their experience is. Their skill is supporting you in who you are and who you want to become.
I too bring my own experience, in marketing, communication and storytelling, yet I also bring an ability to listen, ask hard questions and challenge your mindset.
Leadership development coaching is part of your continuous development. Especially once you reach the C-suite, your needs change. The shift is more internal than external. The progress is more interpersonal than factual. The journey becomes more spiritual than practical. And this is what coaching supports.
I help leaders become so vulnerable that they become invulnerable. Not through frameworks or “best practices.” Through permission to be unreasonably you.
The Four Ways Founders Lead
Archetypes literally run your company.
Myth Maker
You create leverage through ideas. You are a world builder and a brand builder. You create influence and a sense of community and belonging.
If you have been looping, it is often because your ideas are ahead of your expression. The next level is not more thinking. It is translation. Turning what you see into something other people can feel immediately.
Group Guru
You create leverage through people. You create networks of trust. You create collaboration. You create influence.
When you use this well, you create networks that grow on their own. When you do not use it, you can feel like everything depends on you. You carry too much. You keep the group together, but you do not get the leverage back.
Logic Legend
You create leverage through systems. You create leverage through logic. You create leverage through solutions that work.
If you have been looping, it is often because you are solving the wrong problem. Or because you are trying to systematize something that is actually about people or story. The next level is not more optimization. It is choosing the right problem.
Wealth Wizard
You create leverage through money. Through assets. Through resources. Through the long term.
If you have been looping, it is often because your need for certainty is blocking motion. The next level is not more caution. It is more openness.
Where Leadership Development Usually Fails
The corporate world rewards those who fit in. Who follow frameworks. Who perform confidence instead of embodying it. That game is over.
The frameworks aren’t wrong. They’re just borrowed knowledge. Useless.
Trust their gut over best practices. Go deep into their craft, mindset, and passion. Lead from authentic power, not borrowed authority. Build not just a personal brand but a personal mythology.
“Most coaches sell a generic playbook, but Matteo operates as a true partner.” Ged Ossmann, Founder and CEO, Interf.com
“Don’t accept advice at face value. Push back.
We really don’t need another framework. We have plenty already.”
What changed for the leaders who did this
Some of my clients’ stories
Sophie: “A PARTNER THAT HELPS AMPLIFY MY WORK”
“He’s my coach, but he feels like a friend. A partner that helps amplify my work. He understands things I’m doing but don’t even know I’m doing.”
Before: Sophie left corporate and built two companies. But they felt like jobs. She’d assigned herself a job description. She hadn’t detoxed from corporate.
The shift: She learned entrepreneurship isn’t following VC rules or someone else’s playbook. It’s doing what you love. Clearing doubts. Focusing on who you are.
After: In less than a year she is running leadership retreats & masterminds in two continents.
In the process she doubled her revenue.
From “How am I going to make it?” to “I know exactly what to do: get out of my way.”
She stopped worrying. Started feeling serene. Confident. Focused.
JEN: “He spotted what everyone else missed”
“He was the only one who could spot the root cause and say: ‘Let’s follow this thread and unlock it.’”
Before: Jen ran a B2B marketing agency. She was working hard but her business wasn’t growing. Multiple coaches told her: “It’s your mindset. Fix that.” Years of coaches & masterminds, but nobody could actually help her.
The shift: They did deep work. Not just talking about feelings. Actually unlocking the block.
After: Within one month: her biggest client ever. Within one year: pivoting from marketing to M&A. Working with businesses far larger than her previous experience. Her 5-10 year dream? She’s doing it now.
“It’s like healing a broken leg you’ve been limping on your whole life. Now I can actually run.
If you’re a high-performance decision-maker and you’re not integrated, you will always be struggling.”
Mario: €5M in funding by telling the right story
“Working with Matteo was a game-changer. He helped me shape my pitch like a compelling story. I learned to direct listeners’ attention exactly where I wanted it and I closed a €5 million funding round with European investors.”
Before: Mario had a brilliant business. Solid technology. A winning idea. But his pitch was too technical. He had all the ingredients. He just didn’t know how to make them appealing to investors.
The shift: Three months of work together. Taking the technical pieces and building a narrative around them. Not changing what he had. Translating it into something investors could understand and feel.
After: €5M Series A funding.
The lesson:
To create a winning pitch, you need to be vulnerable, believe in yourself, find your confidence, tailor a story for your audience, and then have the guts to go out there and change the world.
And that’s exactly what Mario did.
How the Work Runs
Two 60-minute calls a month. Your chaos is the curriculum.
That’s why I only work with 5 leaders at a time. Not because I want to be exclusive. Because this level of transformation requires my full attention.
One better decision can be worth millions. One avoided mistake can save your company. One moment of genuine confidence can transform your leadership.
How we can work together
All prices excluding VAT
start here
Intro call
Tell me where you want to go. I’ll tell you how we get there.
monthly coaching
A custom coaching journey
Two 60-minute calls a month
Unlimited emails and messages in between calls
1:1, Online
Bring the mess you can’t show your team. Let the chaos in, sit in it with me, and sort it into what matters and what can wait. You leave thinking clearly under pressure, with a plan you believe in.
From 1,000 Eur a month
in real life
In-person intensive
A beautiful location immersed in nature. No phones or computers. An active day with time to brainstorm, exercise, hike, eat and relax. My undivided attention, curiosity and care. You leave connected to your world and yourself.
From 10,000 Eur
Questions founders ask about leadership coaching
It’s not for people looking for a ready-made plan. I don’t do playbooks. If you need someone to tell you what to do, we’re not a fit.
How long does the work take?
The average engagement is nine months. But some clients come for a single session and get what they need. No minimum, no lock-in.
Is this for founders or for managers?
Being a founder means applying leverage but not being a generalist. Successful founders who took the test score high in one or two categories. Managers who took the survey tend to score average in 2-3 categories. No peaks.
How do I know I need this?
“I do it alone until I burn out” is the most common failure pattern amongst my community. We tend to lone wolf our way out of the problem and then fail because we’re alone. Money, wealth, sustainability, the future: all of these are our most frequent blind spots.
Leadership coaching, one to one
If you’re a founder or C-level executive looking for deep leadership coaching, let’s talk and see if there’s a fit for us to work together.
Someone less talented than you is growing faster & charging more.
The 3-minute Founder Assessment shows you exactly what kind of founder you are, the blind spot that’s costing you revenue, and one clear move to make first.