Three-Legged Stool of Leadership Transformation
We are all familiar with the founder narrative of a long-haired hippie coding in his garage, existing on ramen and Redbull. This founder works all night, neglects his relationships, forgets how to speak to anyone who doesn’t code, and is fueled exclusively by his passion for bringing this project into the world. However, what we don’t hear much about is how this smelly, garage dweller steps into a shiny downtown building as the CEO of a billion-dollar company and eventually manages hundreds or thousands of employees. Nor do we hear about how most of these founders never make the transition, but rather crash and burn(out) somewhere along the way.
At Alpha Bridge Ventures, we invest at the precise moment that founder CEOs are being called to undergo this transition. This gives us a front-row seat to the growing pains and teenage awkwardness that can come at the beginning stages of this metamorphosis.
Our deep belief is that the qualitative pieces of a business make the difference between companies that merely survive and those that flourish. Therefore, we attend to the qualitative first and the quantitative second: people over businesses. Peter Thiel suggests in response to the question, “Will this business still be around a decade from now?” that, “Numbers alone won’t tell you the answer; instead you must think critically about the qualitative characteristics of your business” (Thiel, 47).
Being first to a market or the market leader today is not predictive of where the value will be generated tomorrow. To make those predictions you need to look at the lifeblood of any company, its people.
Having both been founders, Howie and Jake understand first-hand what it feels like to suffer through self-sacrifice, incredible stress, and personal failure in service of moving a company forward. Born of their personal experiences and observations, along with their “people-first” mentality, they founded Alpha Bridge Ventures to help founders overcome these challenges and launched Project Atlas (now Pilea) as the fully personalized, all-in-one, solution.
Project Atlas has a big mission with a targeted focus. In its initial rollout, the program is developed specifically for startup founders who want to leverage self-awareness, physical wellness, and business expertise to build their companies without burning out. The program itself was developed from the insights of founders who contributed their experiences and opinions to make Project Atlas a founder-approved program. You can see the results from our qualitative research study here.
Project Atlas is run by Dr. Kari Sulenes and is structured to ensure confidentiality for all participants. Kari contributes 10 years of experience working with organizations and program development and organizational behavior.
The foundational ethos of Project Atlas is that healthy people build healthy companies. Furthermore, our philosophy is distinct from those you will find at most executive coaching firms or typical wellness centers. Our services are designed for the business world and are centered on the holistic nature of humans.
We take a 3-legged stool approach by focusing on mind, body, and leadership as well as the habits that support each of these areas. This approach can help founders become the best version of themselves by uncovering blind spots and identifying growth edges.
The ideal Project Atlas candidate is a tech start-up founder who has been enduring the stresses of building their company and is ready to move into effective leadership. A founder who can benefit from Project Atlas acknowledges the importance of building a strong company culture and finding a flow between work and life. These founders understand that they are running a marathon and that a small investment in themselves today will dramatically improve their business’ chances in the future increases longevity and navigates around the risk of burn-out.
Upon signing onto Project Atlas, each founder receives a comprehensive assessment or “personal audit” to determine the make-up of their custom-tailored “Life Board of Directors”. Within your LBOD, a Chairman of The Board is appointed who keeps the team focused and helps leverage the expertise of other board members. One partner said about Project Atlas, “it’s like mentorship on steroids”.
The integrated approach of our program makes it a powerful resource for founders who are open to learning about the infinite ways that their minds, bodies, and experiences all work in tandem to support peak leadership performance and overall executive wellness. This can be especially helpful for founders who are in the beginning stages of building their personal mentorship and support networks.
Project Atlas is unique because of its dedication to accessibility, affordability, and personalization paired with the philosophy that the whole person: physical, emotional, and mental health are necessary to develop sustainable leadership excellence.
We want Project Atlas to represent a place where all people can come for transformational self-renewal because we believe each of us should have been given an LBOD the day we were born.