“The company story is the company strategy.”

CEO ENGAGEMENTS


Align your leadership team around a strategic narrative

In these engagements, I help venture-backed CEOs and their leadership teams align around a high-level story that powers success—in sales, marketing, fundraising, product development and recruiting—by getting everyone on the same page about strategy and differentiation.

If you're a CEO and would like to learn more, email me at andyraskin@gmail.com or start a chat.

Testimonials


My clients include leadership teams funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, NEA, Google Ventures, First Round Capital, KPCB, Cowboy Ventures and other top venture investors.

Justin Yoshimura CEO and co-founder 500friends (acquired by Merkle)

“Andy's biggest contribution was raising the credibility of 500friends — on our website, in sales discussions, and with investors. When it comes to boiling down complex offerings into understandable, targeted stories, Andy is the most talented person I know.”

Andy Wilson CEO Logikcull

“We’ve always had a vision, but Andy helped us see it—and crystallize it—in a way that’s going to make for a much brighter future.”

Spenser Skates CEO and Founder Amplitude

“Andy crafted new positioning and messaging for Amplitude that immediately increased our win rate and helped us gain traction faster with investors. We were really lucky to work with Andy, and I highly recommend him.”

Alex MacCaw CEO Clearbit

“As our product offering expanded, we needed a story to help people—inside and outside the company—boil down why we matter. Andy got us aligned on one that's already driving future growth, which is no small feat given the strong personalities in my team!”

Mike Kijewski CEO and Founder Medcrypt

“As an engineer, I used to believe building the best product was the only real priority at an early-stage company. I've come to understand that's useless without a compelling story about how that product helps customers win. Working with Andy is the best investment we've made as a team.”

Deepa Subramanian CEO and Co-founder Wootric

“Andy's process is agile and iterative, and the outcome has given us a powerful way to communicate with customers, investors, and our team. I look forward to every single meeting with Andy because of the way he gets us thinking about the bigger strategic picture.”

Zack Rosen CEO Pantheon

“Most importantly, Andy got us aligned around a really good articulation of the story that was in our collective heads. My leadership team is now bought in that this is the story we're going to tell—everywhere—for the next 3 to 5 years.”

Karl Garske CEO Outer Labs

“Thanks to our work with Andy, my team's ability to articulate our market focus is much stronger. And for a startup, that's everything.”

Nate Skinner VP Product Marketing Salesforce

“Andy's strategic storytelling training changed how we market. We now start with ‘What is the Promised Land our customers will see / feel / experience as a result of our product?’ rather than leading with the product itself. As a result, we're creating emotional connections that are more memorable.”

Randi Stipes CMO IBM Watson Media and Weather

“We gave Andy the toughest time slot of our sales conference—8:30am following karaoke night!—and his keynote literally and figuratively awakened us to a new, customer-centric approach to pitching. The team’s feedback was overwhelming positive, with sellers and marketers buzzing with new ideas for putting Andy’s framework into practice.”

Dharmesh Singh CEO Fullcast.io

“What we built with Andy isn't just a marketing message. It's the category-defining story that guides our strategy—what we build, how we go to market, how we interact with our customers and investors. It's our North Star.”

Marc Morin CEO Auvik Networks

“I describe Andy's process as frustrating, infuriating, exhilarating and awesome all at once—and exactly what we needed at Auvik. We now have a great, clear story that I believe will be foundational in helping us achieve our objectives in the years to come.”

Jamie Roche CEO Flux (Google X)

“Andy led us to a simple, powerful way of telling our story. Now, prospects and investors ‘get it’ in minutes, sometimes seconds. As expected, Andy made our selling conversations more productive—what I didn't anticipate was the dramatic, positive effect his process had in focusing my team.”

Roque Versace Head of Americas Sales Intel Services

“Andy is the best I know at crafting company and product stories that help us win business. I hope to be working together for a long time.”

Catherine Liao Senior Director, Platform Solutions Riverbed Technology

“Andy's Storytelling for Marketers workshop provided a great team-building exercise and gave us the tools to tell our marketing story in a more engaging way.”

Alexander Garcia-Tobar CEO and Co-founder ValiMail

“Andy helped us get crystal clear about who our current customer is, and which of our many value props are most important to that customer. The result is new messaging that quickly gets customers, investors and potential hires excited about what we do.”

Mark Chung CEO and Founder Verdigris

“In just one month, Andy rebuilt our messaging, clarified our positioning, focused our brand, delivered a compelling company narrative, and gave us a powerful marketing strategy that's the foundation for our growth.”

Paul Lynch CEO Assembla

“Andy led us to a Eureka moment around how we define our category and tell our story to prospects, customers, investors—everyone. My team is super-psyched about our new narrative.”

Sandra Lewis Founder and CEO Boldly

“Andy breathed new life into the way we talk about our business by calling forth our story and then boiling it down into strong, compelling messages that we had never considered. Andy has done more than help with our story — his process, the fresh perspective, and the end results have invigorated our whole team by giving us a unified way to describe what we do. It's powerful stuff and well worth the investment.”

Jason Fischl Co-founder and CTO Blipboard (now VP Engineering, Remind)

“By getting our story straight, Andy made our investor pitches, product demos, and product development more successful. Andy is great at helping early-stage companies build a narrative for how customers will interact with their products.”

Zen Ohashi CEO and founder Sugoi Kaigi

“Andy is the rare individual who sees the truth about how a company presents itself to the world, without dogma or bias. Through dialog and questioning, he can create a story that makes impossible goals achievable. It's a kind of magic.”

Contact


LinkedIn

Connect with me

Twitter

@araskin

Medium

@raskin