Direction
Long-term direction connected to annual goals, ninety-day priorities, and planning retreats.
The Founder Independence Partnership
Build the company your growth now requires.
Leadership coaching and operations consulting combine to help your business grow with less chaos and dependence on you.
The problem we solve
Your workload is the symptom. The company’s design is the problem.
Speed, trust, and necessity made the founder the fastest route to every answer.
That works until demand, headcount, and complexity outgrow the arrangement. Adding people can spread tasks without reducing founder pressure.
The next stage requires authority, information, standards, execution, and learning to extend beyond the founder.
Who we are for
Built for a particular moment in a company’s life.
The clearest fit is a founder-led, expertise-driven service business with proof of concept—often $500K–$3M in annual revenue and a team of roughly 3–15. Stage, founder dependence, and readiness for change matter more than rigid thresholds.
It may be a strong fit if:
- Complexity has outgrown informal management.
- Too much depends on your decisions, delivery, or intervention.
- Owner dependence has become intolerable.
- You are prepared to transfer authority and share accountability.
It is probably not the right fit if:
- The business lacks proof of concept.
- You want relief without changing how ownership works.
- You expect the company to change without changing yourself.
- You want rescue while remaining disengaged.
- You resist implementation or avoid required decisions.
- You need a financial or legal turnaround.
The flagship engagement
The Founder Independence Partnership.
This initial six-month implementation engagement combines leadership coaching and operations consulting. Michael works in the trenches with your leadership team to build and execute the infrastructure the company needs—not hand you advice and leave. Selected partnerships continue when deeper implementation or leadership transition will create meaningful value.
What you can expect from the engagement
Ownership
A structure that clarifies who owns each function, outcome, and decision.
Execution
A disciplined weekly meeting that surfaces facts, solves issues, and maintains commitments.
Visibility
A focused scorecard that reveals problems early enough to act.
Process
Repeatable procedures for critical work, plus stronger hiring and onboarding.
Leadership
Direct coaching on control, conflict, trust, power, and the identity shifts required of a scaling founder.
How the partnership works
We plan together, execute together, and build the team that carries it forward.
The initial six-month engagement begins with strategic planning, continues through weekly leadership meetings and quarterly retreats, and builds the infrastructure and ownership needed to sustain the work. Selected partnerships continue longer when the next phase warrants it.
Discovery + diagnosis
Clarify the pain, cost, aspiration, readiness, and primary constraint.
Strategic planning retreat
Align the leadership team on direction, confront reality, solve immediate issues, and set ninety-day priorities.
First 30 days
Create visible wins and install the operating infrastructure that will make the greatest immediate difference.
Weekly leadership meeting
Meet with Life Unbound each week to review the scorecard and commitments, solve issues, and maintain accountability.
Quarterly planning retreat
Every ninety days, review results, confront the new reality, renew alignment, and establish the next priorities.
Initial six-month implementation
Build the leadership and operating infrastructure, then teach the team to maintain it without outside dependence.
Leadership transition
When desired, identify, hire, and prepare the internal leader who will carry the work forward as Michael backs out of the room.
Selected ongoing partnership
Continue when deeper implementation or leadership transition will create meaningful value.
One client’s result
The infrastructure made the company ready.
This founder hired Life Unbound for an embedded partnership. Together, we built the leadership and operating capacity the company needed to capture a favorable market opportunity.
Anonymous Tucson professional-services firm; first six months of consecutive years. Favorable market conditions also contributed.
Read the full story3 → 11employees
3.2×first-half revenue
8.1×first-half profit
Engagement pathway
Start with the work the company is ready for.
Choose the right starting point for the company you are building—from focused planning to embedded implementation.
Strategic Planning & Operations Retreat
A one-day session to establish direction, identify constraints, solve priority issues, and create a ninety-day plan.
Discuss a RetreatThe Founder Independence Partnership
An initial six-month implementation engagement combining leadership coaching, weekly execution, quarterly planning, and operating infrastructure.
Discuss the PartnershipSelected Ongoing Partnership
Continue into deeper implementation, leadership development, or leadership transition when sustained support will create meaningful value.
Explore Ongoing SupportCommon questions
The practical details.
What is founder dependence?
Founder dependence exists when too many important decisions, client relationships, quality standards, or operating responsibilities still require the founder. The goal is not to remove the founder from the business, but to build leadership and systems that let the company carry more of its own weight.
Is this consulting or coaching?
Both. The company needs practical operating infrastructure, and the people leading it need support to use that infrastructure differently.
How is this different from traditional consulting?
Michael works alongside the leadership team to build, practice, and transfer a stronger way of operating. The engagement is designed to leave the company with internal capability, not a report it must implement alone.
Do you implement EOS?
Some of the tools we use are informed by the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS, alongside leadership development, organizational design, and Michael’s operating experience. Where useful, we help companies apply disciplines such as written direction, clear ownership, weekly scorecards, leadership meetings, and quarterly planning. We adapt the tools to the company rather than treating any framework as a rigid formula.
Do I need a large leadership team?
No. Some clients have an emerging leadership team; others are beginning to hire. The structures are scaled to the company’s actual stage.
How long is the engagement?
The Founder Independence Partnership begins with an initial six-month implementation engagement. Selected partnerships continue longer when deeper implementation or leadership transition will create meaningful value.
How does the engagement eventually end?
The goal is to build what the company is missing, teach the team to use it, and develop or hire the internal leader who can carry it forward. As that capacity grows, Michael deliberately backs out of the room.
What does it cost?
Investment depends on scope, access, team involvement, travel, and the level of embedded support. Michael recommends a clear engagement and discusses investment during discovery.
What if I only need a retreat?
A one-day retreat can be the right intervention for concentrated alignment, diagnosis, planning, or decision-making.