Launch Readiness Assessment

Dan Wu is incredible. His CEO coaching has been transformative for me. He adeptly, patiently, and carefully facilitates conversations so that we both come away with new insights, to which he immediately follows up with strategies and practical steps. While we started work on product managing, Dan uncovered that my priorities shifted to go-to-market, sales, fundraising, and operations, and was able to step in all these other domains to provide support.

I look forward to my calls with Dan more than any other. After each call, I come away with tangible work products that we can immediately apply. His questions, content, and templates elegantly clarify problems, break them down into smaller pieces, and generate new experiments to test. Our work together has resulted in faster learning and growth across these critical and diverse domains. Maybe most importantly, our work has instilled a new sense of progress, hope, and energy that is so valuable in the ups and downs of being a startup CEO. His capacity to distill challenges, unlock creative solutions, and his keen ability to make individuals feel heard and valued has been a major reason for our productive sessions.

He’s a light, helping me see with more clarity where to spend my energy and how to move us forward. I highly recommend Dan to others seeking coaching for their startup, in GTM, product, sales, or all of the above!

He helped me navigate through the complexities of the larger ecosystem in which my work is embedded to simplify what matters most for my local market, authentically reflecting my approach. Dan’s workshops helped me understand what I needed or didn’t need and speak to a broader audience, outside of a very slim academic one. The clarity and cohesiveness he brought to my messaging, especially around the 'Co-Cities' framework, have been invaluable. In addition to his live workshop sessions, he shared very useful guides and templates in advance that I could easily understand and apply, helping me sharpen core concepts like what success means for my website, the differentiated value proposition, and the call to action. Dan truly cares and I’m grateful for this opportunity to work with him and I’m dedicated to finding more ways to work with him on more projects. If you're looking for someone who can help you cut through the noise and truly amplify your message, Dan Wu is the strategic expert you need. Highly recommended.

Dan Wu has been an exceptional executive coach. In short, there were moments when I could not see light at the end of the tunnel. I survived because of his guidance and support. He has provided invaluable strategic guidance with a diverse array of problems — including target market selection, GTM opportunity prioritization, operational efficiency, grant proposals, sales, pricing, negotiation, product strategy, & board management — helped me secure new revenue and validate emerging business models. His responsiveness, project management skills, and proactive approach have also helped me enhance organization, focus, and clarity to our GTM and revenue operations. Dan's coaching has been instrumental in tackling challenges in real time, and his ability to pivot seamlessly based on new information has proven invaluable. He is also a pleasure to work with. In summary, I wholeheartedly recommend him to any organization seeking transformative growth.

I've always approached coaching with a certain skepticism, believing that the value lies in someone who has outperformed me by tenfold. My work with Dan as a CEO coach has dramatically altered this perspective. Dan showed me the power of an excellent coach, introducing me to fresh models, novel approaches, and assuming the roles of both thought partner and accountability advocate. His guidance has been pivotal in driving me towards strategic objectives that often slip down the priority list, but with his insights, are now achieved more swiftly and thoughtfully.

For instance, Dan’s coaching has been invaluable in accelerating our fundraising and recruiting process. His proactive approach in identifying our most pressing priorities, prioritizing our top jobs-to-be-done, and linking them to our success criteria to our hiring process has already made a significant impact. With his assistance, we not only pinpointed an exceptional candidate but also nimbly steered away from potential pitfalls.

Furthermore, what sets Dan apart as an CEO coach compared to others I’ve worked with is his ability to translate blockers and priorities into action in real time. The artifacts we craft together in our sessions build upon prior work, setting us up for immediate impact and continuous progress and learning. I highly recommend him and am grateful for his expertise. I’m excited to refer him to my portfolio companies.

Dan is an excellent product leader. His work as our product lead for our major partnership with a global, public digital workflow company was outstanding. He owned this strategic project with minimal onboarding and delivered results weeks ahead of schedule. Because Dan generated the trust he could lead the project, he ultimately freed up my time to focus on broader co-founder-level priorities & advanced us in a big way towards one of our major strategic GTM goals. Dan is willing to not only roll up his sleeves to create detailed API specs but also think broadly about project risks and success. For instance, he thoughtfully helped us avoid a potentially suboptimal experience with a major lead and made progress, despite coordination challenges, by working with the devs on both teams directly. Ultimately, his focus on GTM/CS-aligned product management is a breath of fresh air. I’m excited to work with Dan on more projects as a thought partner. He made a difficult project look easy!

It’s hard to put into words how transformative my time with Dan has been. He was the catalyst for a real turning point in my career, helping me see myself as a strong manager and leader before I even believed it myself. Dan has an uncanny ability to match my direct, to-the-point communication style, which created a deep level of trust right from the start. I always felt I could be completely honest with him—and his thoughtful, in-kind responses never failed to steer me in the right direction.

Because of Dan’s guidance, I’m now far better equipped to lead the Working Families Party’s data and technology department, particularly in the realm of fundraising—a space that was uncharted territory for us. With his help, we’re opening up new revenue streams to support our data and tech ambitions, which is something that simply wouldn’t have happened without his strategic insights. Gosh, I think I've only just scratched the surface of what Dan knows; we could have another year-long engagement to go deeper.

There were times I walked into our sessions feeling like I’d hit a wall—that I couldn’t possibly keep going. Dan was always ready with tangible, practical advice that helped me push through an incredibly tough year. His knack for translating complex ideas into direct, actionable steps gave me the momentum I needed in everything from leadership challenges to startup-style fundraising efforts.

If Dan and I hadn’t worked together, I wouldn’t have gained the perspective, clarity, and level-headedness needed to navigate critical conversations both internally and externally. I can say with total confidence that our organization, WFP, is in a much better spot because of Dan.

I wholeheartedly recommend Dan to anyone seeking an advisor with deep business expertise and an empathetic yet rigorous, action-oriented approach.