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Dave Bailey startup coach

Great Communication Starts with Clarity

Clarity is a comprehensive framework that helps scale-up founders clarify and communicate their strategy and vision to all stakeholders.

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“Clarity is the ability to express exactly what you mean. If you can't find the right words, you don't have a communications problem—you have a clarity problem.”

Dave Bailey 

If you don't make time to clarify your strategy, who else will?

 

Your team relies on a clear business strategy to contextualise their work. Investors and recruits rely on your inspiring vision to decide whether to join you. And customers want to understand how you can help them.

Clarifying and communicating your vision and strategy takes time to get right—often time founders struggle to find. However, if it's not 100% clear to you, it's 100% unclear to everyone else.

Clarity is designed around a comprehensive set of frameworks that help you craft a compelling strategic narrative that you can communicate with confidence and precisionWe've compressed a complex exercise into just one session a week for six weeks.

Just show up, and we'll work through it together.

Start 2022 with Clarity

Applications are now closed. We're accepting early applications for our next cohort. 

Pre-apply now

How Clarity can help you

 

Clarity will guide you through powerful exercises and frameworks, with input and coaching from Dave throughout. Here's exactly how it works:

1.  Clarify your core strategic narratives

The first three sessions are dedicated to getting precise and concise about your customer need, vision and strategy. We'll help you reach the level of clarity needed to build powerful communications.

2.  Learn persuasive communications

In the following sessions, you'll practise techniques that help you communicate your vision and strategy with impact: storytelling, messaging, and top-down communication.

3.  Get peer reviewed by scale-up CEOs

The test of clarity is whether people understand. You'll collaborate in a cohort of 12 scale-up CEOs who will challenge your strategy, reflect back insights you take for granted, and help you strengthen your output.

4.  Leave with a concrete outputs

Wording matters—especially when clarity can come down to a single sentence. 
Writing out your vision and strategy will help you collaborate with your leadership team, your coach, and peers who can help.

We work on your narrative, not fluffy theory

 

In our first three sessions, we clarify in detail the fundamentals of your business—your customer, your vision, and your strategy. In the next sessions, we build on this foundation to craft powerful messages and stories.

Session 1

Customer Needs

Form a compelling narrative around your customer needs that resonates with them—and with others.

Session 2

Inspiring Vision

Communicate an inspiring vision narrative that builds urgency around your business and industry.

Session 3

Competitive Strategy

Design a defensible strategic narrative that explains how you create value and how you'll sustain it.

Session 4

Engaging Storytelling

Deliver insightful stories that capture the essence of your business, and hold your audience's attention.

Session 5

Compelling Messages

Craft careful and insightful messages about your value proposition and brand that land with your audience.

Session 6

Strategic Delivery

Work out how to use these narratives to align a scaling team and persuade investors and customers.

Session 7

Founder Feedback

Present to receive feedback on what you've worked on and learn from others... this is highly inspiring.

In addition, Dave runs two office hours sessions to discuss challenges related to vision, strategy and beyond, and allow you to further connect with your peers. One-on-one sessions with Dave are available for participants during the program, additional fees apply.

Leave with concrete outputs


When it comes to clarity, words matter, so the concrete output is a Google Doc containing carefully worded, concise and precise articulations of:

  • Your customer's core need
  • Your vision for the company and the industry
  • Your business strategy and strategic capabilities
  • Your strategically-worded origin story
  • Your core brand topic and beliefs
  • Key insights about your customers and market

This Google Doc has become a source of clarity for previous participants—and their teams—that they revisit and iterate on as they scale their business.

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Do you have enough time to do this?

 

Time is your most precise resource, so we've designed and iterated our process to be as efficient and robust as possible.

Here's a summary of the minimal time requirement:

  • 6 working sessions, 3 hours each = 18 hours
  • 1 presentation session, 2 hours = 2 hours
  • Prep/post work, 1-2.5 hours per session = 6-15 hours
  • Total = 26-35 hours over 6 weeks

To put this into perspective, this represents a little over 1% of your year, while the output of this time has the ability to multiply the efforts of your team.

  Who is the Clarity Program for?

 

The program was designed for scale-up CEOs. Co-founders can join for an additional fee, however, it's essential the CEO participates. We believe taking this program without the CEO either represents a deeper problem, or will create one.

The primary use cases of previous participants have been:

  • Align a growing team around a strategy and vision that provides direction while preserving their functional ownership,
  • Form a compelling narrative ahead of a fundraising process, often Series A–C,
  • Increase sales and sign-ups by clarifying the company's positioning and messaging for customers.

If you don't yet have a leadership team, the Clarity Program isn't appropriate. But if your company has 10–300 people with ambitions to scale, we’d be a good fit.

Pre-apply now

What CEOs and Co-founders say about Clarity

 

Our last cohort had an NPS of 100. Here's what participants had to say in their own words.

Alexandre Remor CEO, Medway

Alexandre Remor

CEO, Medway

Raised $15M from SoftBank and others

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Clarity helped my co-founders and I stretch our thinking and align on a clear and powerful strategy. I was excited before each and every session, and the outcomes have been transformational for Medway. I’d do it again!

Joshua Martin CEO, Fortify

Joshua Martin

CEO, Fortify

Raised $32M from Accel, Cota Capital

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Clarity Program provided several frameworks which I am using as prompts for deeper thinking, along with different tools for arriving at clarity with my team. As a CEO, the Clarity Program is a great way to take a step back and work on the essentials of how to create and share an inspiring story about your company.

Joao Vitor Fernando CEO, Medway

Hana Mohan

CEO, MagicBell

Raised $2.5M from Cherry Ventures, Connect Ventures and others

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The experience felt full of kindness, curiosity and fun, and it’s given me a structure to think about communication, and strategy. If you’re looking for an actionable framework to the most important things a CEO must think about, this is it. 

Tim Heyl CEO, Homeward

Tim Heyl

CEO, Homeward

Raised $500M from Norwest Venture Partners and others

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Absolutely incredible. Thank you for leading and teaching us. Clarity has made a huge impact on me and my business. It’s helped me think critically about vision and strategy, and has already led to new opportunities with the biggest players in our industry. Excited to continue working with you on future programs!

Aharon Horwitz CEO, AutoLeadStar

Aharon Horwitz

CEO, AutoLeadStar

Raised $17M from Olive Tree, Target Global

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dave's Clarity program relentlessly delivers on its promise session after session. I left with pragmatic tools and concepts that were immediately impactful on our company. I recommend this to every CEO with aspirations of growing as a leader.

Victor Ekelund CEO, Albacross

David Kell

CEO, Gyana

Raised $7M from Fuel Ventures, Green Shores Capital

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Clarity is like a secret recipe and it feels a bit like cheating. Dave has distilled his experience working with hundreds of companies into six sessions. You'll understand a lot more about your company, how to explain it to your customers/investors/team, and you'll confront all those hard questions you've been avoiding, and make you more confident about what you're doing.

Victor Ekelund CEO, Albacross

Amy VanHaren

CEO, Pumpspotting

Raised $1.8M from Punchbowl, Moodoos Investments

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Clarity expanded my knowledge of how to be a successful CEO. The exercises with my team helped us unearth a deeper value prop and a more focused message, which has already led us to close two big deals! The workshops were a great combination of thought-provoking questions, video inspiration and exercises, and delivered a vast amount of value in every slide. I feel I’ve been given permission to build vital strategy and storytelling time into my day-to-day work. Thanks for an amazing experience!

Eugene Mizin CEO, JobToday

Eugene Mizin

CEO, Job Today

Raised $40M from Accel, Felix Capital

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Clarity program helped me create the mental space I needed to focus on clarifying my vision and strategy for the company. During the program, I practiced my strategic communication skills and learned from other founders, which was an amazing experience. I realized that creating clarity was a journey, not a destination, and left the program much better prepared! Thank you, Dave!

Erik Bornstein CEO, Toolbx

Erik Bornstein

CEO, Toolbx

Raised $13M from Index Ventures, Overton

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Clarity program is a great framework to not only meet likeminded founders but also follow a very easy and repeatable process. The sequencing and templates were easy to follow and very meaningful, and Dave's delivery of the presentation content and group exercises was extremely effective. Highly recommended.

Victor Ekelund CEO, Albacross

Alex Omeyer

CEO, Stepsize

Raised $8.2M from Connect, Index, Stride

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I loved every session of the program from the introduction of concepts, to filling out the exercises, and Dave’s insightful feedback. The atmosphere and delivery was always bright and optimistic and I could apply practical advice straightaway. I now have a complete framework to understand the most important aspects of my company which I’ll be able to apply throughout my career. 10/10 amazing stuff!

Victor Ekelund CEO, Albacross

Rob Holland

CEO, Feedback Loop

Raised $29M from Crosslink Capital, Spider Capital

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Designed for CEOs by a CEO. Clarity is an effective way to focus on the why behind your business & learn from an expert while interacting with a quality peer group. Focused, concise & practical, filled with real-life examples to demonstrate key points. It was great to be pulled out of the day-to-day and spend time with such quality people working on the same problem.

Rajeeb Dey MBE CEO, Learnerbly

Rajeeb Dey MBE

CEO, Learnerbly

Raised $17M from Beringea, Frontline Ventures, Playfair Capital, others

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I just wish I’d done the program a few months earlier! Clarity gave me the headspace to develop a compelling narrative for investors and the team. A clear and structured process, personalised feedback, and the ability to connect with other entrepreneurs with similar issues. Keep up the great work, Dave!

Victor Ekelund CEO, Albacross

Cosmin Ene

CEO, Laterpay

Raised $37M from Angel Investors

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Clarity Program is a MBA on steroids that provides founders with a vast set of tools and mental models. The exercises hold tremendous value and the content is both educational and inspirational. Dave’s delivery is littered with real life examples and is well paced and entertaining. Super helpful!

Joao Vitor Fernando CEO, Medway

João Vitor Fernando

Co-Founder, Medway

Raised $15M from SoftBank and others

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Clarity was a game changer! By the end of the program, we were able to craft a more effective pitch deck with a very compelling narrative. This has made a huge difference to Medway's future and our confidence and ability to raise capital has increased. I’m glad we did this together as co-founders as we came out more aligned and united.

Igor Wos CEO, Neat

Igor Wos

CEO, Neat

Raised $20M from Pacific Century Group, Vectr

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dave has put together an incredibly applicable program with structured sessions, backed up by practical examples. Clarity helped me to clarify our mission, vision and strategy enormously, as well as improving overall focus. The group format also allowed me to share ideas and experiences with fellow founders in a friendly and collaborative way. I recommend Dave’s Clarity program to anyone seeking a pragmatic and logical way to enhance and clarify their business outlook.

Joao Vitor Fernando CEO, Medway

Christoph Wagner

CEO, Scanbot

Raised $10M from Target Global, Evoco, e42

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Time and energy very well invested. The program is positive, upbeat and gave me a methodical way to think about what really matters as a CEO. As my organisation scales, my role will revolve more and more around communicating my thoughts, plans, strategies with as much clarity as possible. Thank you very much for the stellar program Dave and team.

Joao Vitor Fernando CEO, Medway

Tyler Vorce

Co-Founder, Truffle Shuffle

Raised $500,501 from Shark Tank

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I loved the templates and how the class was structured from the bottom-up of needs, vision, strategy, story telling, pitch, and delivery. I really like Dave's teaching style and it really helped me understand the root of our business and how to best explain what it is that we do exactly! I'm definitely going to recommend it to others.

Joao Vitor Fernando CEO, Medway

Max Stratmann

Chief Sales Officer, Scanbot

Raised $10M from Target Global, Evoco, e42

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This program was exactly what I needed to shift my focus away from operations to strategic mode. It’s like a management "offsite" with other founders working towards a common goal: thinking more strategically and clearly. Dave’s clear thinking helps immensely when it comes to nailing your approach on vision/strategy. This program is a must.

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About your coach


Dave is an experienced founder coach who designed the Clarity Program end-to-end over a period of four years. Previously, Dave co-founded Delivery Hero and other scale-ups, and he's coached hundreds of scale-up CEOs across the US, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australasia and Latin America.

Dave studied at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Oxford University. His writing has been featured in many of the world's top business publications. He has a passion for communication and strategy.

Dave Bailey delivering a CEO workshop

In case you had more questions

 

Pre-apply to the next Clarity Program

 

If you're interested to join the next Clarity Program (dates to be defined), please fill in your details below: