CEO RESOURCE LLC • CHIEF IMPLEMENTOR™ VIRTUAL EXECUTIVE SERVICE
I HELP STARTUPS START & STAY STARTED.™
How To Get Senior-Level Virtual Executive Help Now When Your Budget — Or Your Current Needs — Do Not Justify Another Full-Time Executive.
I help startup and emerging companies plan, strategize, fund and implement their vision by bringing experienced CEO / COO / CXO-level judgment into the company on a virtual, part-time and interim basis.
PLAN. FUND. IMPLEMENT. SLAY DRAGONS.
WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL MISSING SKILL SETS IN YOUR COMPANY?
Way too often, a startup CEO is forced to wear far too many hats — whether or not that CEO has the time, experience or specialized skill set required for every one of them.
Strategy. Finance. Fundraising. Operations. Sales. Marketing. Technology. Hiring. Investor relations. Financial modeling. Planning. Crisis management. Implementation.
The problem is not that a capable entrepreneur cannot learn these things. The problem is that your company may not have the luxury of waiting while you learn each one through trial and error.
What would you do differently if you could put some of those hats on someone who has already worn them?
My Virtual Executive Service lets you temporarily add senior-level experience without automatically adding another permanent executive salary, benefits package and long-term organizational commitment.
WHAT COULD THE RIGHT EXPERIENCE CHANGE RIGHT NOW?
Could you reach the market faster?
Could you avoid an expensive strategic mistake?
Could you discover that the problem everybody is trying to solve is only a symptom of a different problem?
Could you prepare for investors before spending months discovering the hard way that your company was not ready?
Could you free yourself to spend more time doing the things that only you, as founder and CEO, should be doing?
HERE ARE SOME OF THE WAYS MY VIRTUAL EXECUTIVE SERVICES HAVE HELPED CLIENTS
- Serving as an interim CEO, COO or other senior executive after a termination, resignation, illness, death or other unexpected management vacancy.
- Providing specialized senior-level management experience that is not currently available inside the company.
- Helping founders turn an idea into a genuinely realistic business model, business plan and implementation plan.
- Helping startup companies in which too many management hats have to be worn by too few people.
- Preparing companies for fundraising when the existing management team does not yet understand all of the pieces required to become genuinely investor-ready.
- Building and pressure-testing financial models to determine whether an exciting new business idea also makes economic sense.
- Temporarily serving in a senior executive role while helping the founder identify, recruit and bring permanent management up to speed.
- Providing more senior-level experience than the company could economically justify hiring on a full-time basis.
- Providing CEO mentoring and decision support ranging from focused brainstorming through detailed tactical and strategic planning.
- Mentoring newly hired or newly promoted executives who may be excellent in some areas while still developing other management skills.
- Helping management deal with an overwhelming problem or a time-sensitive opportunity before circumstances make the decision for them.
- Performing a business check-up of strategy, focus, management, assumptions, tactics, financial logic and implementation.
- Serving as an experienced Board of Advisors member who has personally dealt with many of the growth, financing and operating issues a founder hopes to encounter next.
- Accelerating implementation before a good idea goes stale — or before a competitor gets there first.
WHAT WOULD IT BE WORTH TO HAVE THESE SKILL SETS AVAILABLE WHEN YOU NEED THEM?
My work does not fit neatly inside one traditional consulting silo because startups rarely experience their problems one silo at a time.
Startup Companies
Idea formulation, concept development, organizational design, action planning, implementation, funding, staffing, marketing, sales and growth.
Action Planning
Identify the puzzle pieces, establish priorities, assemble them into an executable sequence and determine who owns each next action.
Business Planning
Develop a realistic, implementable business model, operating plan and financial model that make sense to both management and prospective investors.
Senior-Level Decisions
Augment missing management experience when the company faces a consequential decision outside the team’s normal comfort zone.
Fundraising
Investor readiness, offering strategy, financial assumptions, business positioning, due diligence preparation and fundraising process from a founder’s perspective.
Virtual Executive
Virtual and interim CEO / COO / CXO support to fill temporary leadership or experience gaps without automatically hiring another full-time executive.
High Tech + Business
Translate technical value into business economics and investor language while retaining enough technical understanding to communicate with founders and engineers.
Dragon Slaying
Troubleshooting, crisis management, chaos planning, turnarounds, management problems and the daily dragons that can block a company’s path.
Mentoring
Experienced one-on-one thinking support when the founder or executive needs another senior-level mind in the room.
Investor Relations
Investor communications, information flow, expectation management, conflict identification and business-side consideration of securities-related issues.
Real Estate
Investment analysis, due diligence, negotiation, syndication, acquisitions, management, refinancing, troubled properties and dispositions.
Content & Positioning
Help align web, investor, marketing and collateral content with the company’s strategy, target market, economics and actual capabilities.
Publishing
Practical experience with books, digital publishing, distribution, e-commerce and the business side of turning intellectual property into products.
Pivotal Brainstorming
Generate alternatives, challenge assumptions, identify possible pivots and turn useful insights into executable next actions.
PLANS DO NOT IMPLEMENT THEMSELVES: W3
WHO Is Doing WHAT, WHEN?
One of the recurring failures I have seen in startups is confusing a decision with implementation.
“We need to improve sales.” “We need to raise capital.” “We need a better website.” “We need to hire somebody.” Those may be correct conclusions, but none of them tells the company what actually happens next.
Implementation begins when somebody owns a specific action, knows what result is expected and has a deadline.
WHO is doing WHAT, WHEN?
WHAT ONE CLIENT SAID
“Robert Lee Goodman is an excellent colleague to work with, and collaborate on the details of your business needs. He is highly professional, and will far exceed your expectations.
Mr. Goodman listens to your needs as a businessperson, and knows exactly what it will take to implement your business, introducing various questions and concerns that every businessperson should be aware of. He is a pro-active thinker, who establishes a plan of attack of what you will need to fulfill on your concerns and have all of your needs handled, and does not waste unnecessary time.
I would highly recommend Mr. Robert Lee Goodman to anyone who is looking to launch their business, or who needs a person to trouble shoot their problems with existing structures of their business. A definite 5 STAR performance!!!”
— GoldStream Associates
WHO IS ROBERT LEE GOODMAN — AND WHY DOES HE THINK HE CAN HELP YOUR COMPANY?
I am Robert Lee Goodman, MBA — founder, CEO, capital raiser, syndicator, investor-relations practitioner, author, expert witness, startup mentor and Chief ImpleMentor™.
I have founded 49 companies and partnerships. Of those 49, 44 of my own companies and limited partnerships successfully raised outside investor capital.
Those 44 raises totaled $120.1 million in today’s dollars from 1,342 investors.
At various points, my businesses have included real estate investment and syndication, commercial real estate, securities, software, technology, financial services, asset management, distressed debt, property management and startup consulting.
Combined organizations grew from ideas on paper to more than 550 full-time employees.
My real-estate organizations were involved in more than $355 million in today’s dollars of transactions, managed more than 45,000 rental units and approximately four million square feet of property, and built a self-storage operation that became the 7th-largest in the United States.
I built a software company from a program I initially designed and wrote into an organization with more than 50 employees and more than a dozen products placed in more than 5,000 retail outlets. The company ultimately became publicly traded through a reverse merger.
I was also Founder, CEO and Chairman of Goodman Securities, Inc., a direct-participation broker-dealer and member of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation.
For roughly the last three decades, CEO RESOURCE LLC has allowed me to work directly with thousands of startup and emerging-company CEOs in 49 states, more than 70 countries, across six continents and more than 200 industries.
The deeper version of that history is on my Profile page.
49
Companies & Partnerships Founded
44
Successful Capital Raises
$120.1M
Raised In Today’s Dollars
1,342
Investors
$355M+
Real Estate Transactions
45,000+
Rental Units Managed
FUNDRAISING EXPERIENCE THAT CAME FROM ACTUALLY RAISING THE MONEY
I did not learn fundraising solely by advising other people about it. I successfully raised outside investor capital 44 times for 44 of my own companies and limited partnerships.
The 1,342 people who invested were only one side of the learning experience. My fundraising efforts also involved directly approaching more than 20,000 prospective angel investors who ultimately said NO.
Learning why sophisticated people reject an opportunity can be every bit as instructive as learning why someone ultimately writes a check.
My current funding network includes approximately 6,000 angel investors, 4,500 venture capitalists and 1,500 family offices — 12,000 people in total whom I personally know.
That network is part of my experience base. It is not a promise that an engagement automatically produces introductions, investment or funding. The first question is still whether the company is genuinely Ready For Fundraising Prime Time™.
BRIDGING TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS AND INVESTOR THINKING
My undergraduate training in Engineering Physics, postgraduate work in Computer Science, and an MBA gave me three complementary lenses: technical systems, information systems and business economics.
Earlier in my career, I worked in technical environments associated with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Rockwell International during the Apollo-era space program.
And, yes, I really was a rocket scientist!
That background later became particularly useful with technology founders because I can listen to technical language while simultaneously thinking about business models, economics, investor expectations and implementation — helping translate “tech speak” into “business speak” and “investor speak.”
FROM A CLIENT WHO USED ME AS HIS VIRTUAL COO
“Thank you for the great job you did for the past four months during your consulting contract as the Virtual Chief Operating Officer of Internet Community Concepts!
As I have mentioned to you several times, you are one of the best business persons I have come across in more than 23 years of starting and running my various businesses. The breadth and depth of your insights and acumen, your consistently cool and logical problem solving abilities, your quick and decisive ‘dragon slaying’ and your management style — along with your honesty, integrity, outstanding charisma and leadership skills, have continually impressed me as you have used those talents to help ICC.
Between your work on our business plan, establishing our web presence, bringing focus to our systems, procedures and management approach, dealing with securities law issues, handling operations, doing ‘whatever it took’ to get the job done, and meeting every commitment — on time — that you ever made, it has been a real pleasure working with you.
As I have also mentioned to you several times during the past four months, you have been a stabilizing force that has kept the company together as we have moved forward toward our ultimate goals for success.
My only two regrets are that we didn’t hire you a year earlier — and that I have not been able to convince you, yet, to become the company’s full time CEO!”
— Internet Community Concepts
THERE IS ANOTHER PART OF MY EXPERIENCE THAT DOES NOT FIT NEATLY ON A RÉSUMÉ
Years of experience matter, but simply counting years does not explain what I believe is the greater value.
Neither does simply counting clients.
The more important question is what happens when what you learned from one company can inform what you see in the next company — and when a new experience can even change how an old experience is understood.
COMPOUND KNOWLEDGE™ BEGINS WITH DOTS OF KNOWLEDGE™
I think of individual pieces of real-world experience as Dots Of Knowledge™.
A Dot Of Knowledge™ might be an investor objection, a hiring mistake, a pricing decision, a customer reaction, a negotiation, a financing problem, a management conflict, a failed strategy, a successful tactic, a warning sign, a pivot, an assumption that proved wrong or the eventual outcome of a difficult decision.
One client is therefore not one dot.
A single company can produce hundreds or thousands of Dots Of Knowledge™ involving different people, decisions, markets, assumptions, problems, opportunities and outcomes.
EXPERIENCE → DOTS OF KNOWLEDGE™ → CONNECTIONS → COMPOUND KNOWLEDGE™
EXPERIENCE
Real companies, people, investors, decisions, problems, successes and failures create experience worth remembering.
DOTS OF KNOWLEDGE™
Individual lessons, observations, decisions, reactions, results and warning signs accumulate.
CONNECTIONS
A new situation can be compared with dozens, hundreds or thousands of previous experiences, including experiences from unrelated industries.
COMPOUND KNOWLEDGE™
Those connections can reveal recurring patterns, meaningful differences, hidden assumptions, warning signs, second-order consequences and possible pivots.
WHY I CALL IT “COMPOUND” KNOWLEDGE
Suppose one consultant has worked deeply with 10 companies and another has worked deeply with 100.
The second consultant does not merely possess ten times as many isolated client stories. The larger experience base creates many more opportunities to compare situations, recognize recurring patterns, identify meaningful exceptions, distinguish nuances and connect something happening today with something encountered years earlier.
Client number 101 can be compared with the accumulated experience of the first 100 — not merely with client number 100.
And knowledge can work in both directions. Something learned from client 101 may suddenly explain why something happened with client 17.
Across thousands of companies and approximately 33,000 mentoring relationships, that creates an enormous reservoir of Dots Of Knowledge™ and potentially useful connections. That continually expanding ability to connect and reinterpret experience is what I mean by Compound Knowledge™.
SOMETIMES THE MOST USEFUL DOT COMES FROM A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT INDUSTRY
A real-estate negotiation may illuminate a software-company problem.
A pricing lesson learned in professional services may suggest an alternative in healthcare.
An investor reaction in one capital raise may reveal why an apparently unrelated company is not yet ready to approach investors.
A management problem encountered 15 years ago may suddenly explain why a founder’s current team is stuck.
That cross-pollination is one reason working across more than 200 industries can produce a very different perspective from spending an entire career inside one vertical.
WHAT CAN COMPOUND KNOWLEDGE™ ACTUALLY DO IN A CONSULTING ENGAGEMENT?
It can suggest that the apparent fundraising problem may actually be a business-model problem.
It can reveal that the sales problem may really be pricing, positioning or customer selection.
It can expose the assumption everybody inside the company has stopped questioning.
It can help identify a second-order consequence before today’s solution becomes tomorrow’s larger problem.
It can reveal a potential pivot by connecting your current situation with something that worked — or failed — somewhere else.
And sometimes the highest-value contribution is simply identifying the question nobody else thought to ask.
HERE’S WHAT YOU WON’T BE GETTING
You won’t get “get rich quick” startup hype. Starting and growing a company is hard work. There are dragons galore. It can also be one of the most fulfilling and profitable endeavors of your life.
You won’t get empty rhetorical rah-rah and worthless woo-woo “feel good” platitudes. Those are the scientific MBA terms.
Positive optimism matters, but optimism without action does not implement anything. My bias is toward specific decisions, specific actions, measurable milestones and realistic accountability.
You won’t get advice from somebody learning CEO-level business realities for the first time on your dime. My Presidential / Key Executive MBA has been seasoned by more than 4½ decades of actually founding, funding, operating and advising companies.
And your engagement will not be quietly handed to a junior consultant or outsourced offshore. When you hire me, you work directly with me.
ANOTHER CLIENT’S EXPERIENCE
“We hired Robert Goodman on two separate occasions as a business consultant. Each time he has provided superior service and outstanding results.
Robert’s keen insight into the unforeseen complexities of corporate business; as well as, his ability to communicate these obstacles in a strategic plan is second to none.
Because of Robert’s extremely diverse background he is able to road map very detailed and easy to follow guidelines that greatly improve upon the mission trajectory. Robert is a very intelligent and gifted individual that any company would benefit from his involvement.
Through Robert’s involvement our company was selected by Silicon Valley Bank as one of the top ten emerging technology companies in the United States. Robert provided the business and financial plans that were presented to the venture capital panel which eventually lead to People Soft giving us a verbal commitment of involvement.
I would recommend Robert to any company that believes they could benefit from an honest, extremely intelligent, effective leader.”
— DesignWorks Software
SOMETIMES ONE OR TWO INSIGHTS CAN CHANGE THE WHOLE PROBLEM
One of the parts of consulting I have always enjoyed most is rapid-fire brainstorming and problem solving with founders and CEOs.
Not every dragon requires a six-month consulting project. Sometimes the issue that has blocked progress for weeks or months begins moving after somebody asks one different question, identifies one faulty assumption or makes one connection the management team had not previously considered.
That does not mean every complicated problem can be solved quickly. Many cannot.
It does mean I value focused thinking that turns useful insight into an implementable next action rather than producing another attractive report that sits on a shelf.
SENIOR-LEVEL HELP WITHOUT AUTOMATICALLY ADDING ANOTHER FULL-TIME EXECUTIVE
Telephone, Zoom, email, shared documents and modern collaboration tools allow me to work with companies almost anywhere while minimizing unnecessary travel cost and time.
The point of Virtual Executive Service is not to pretend I physically occupy an office in your building.
The point is to put experienced senior-level thinking where it can improve decisions and implementation without automatically imposing the economics of another permanent executive position.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE FIRST SEGMENT OF ONE CLIENT’S PROJECT
“The services that Robert Lee Goodman provides have been incredible. Robert has added wisdom and experience that my company needs to truly be successful. Best of all, his work demonstrates his dedication to the success of his clients. Now that the first segment of our project is complete, I have retained Robert to assist me with the complete implementation of our business plan. When something works this well, I stay with it!”
— Ozmoziz Corporation
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR ANY OF THIS
The Profile page contains the fuller corporate, fundraising, technology, securities, real-estate and education history.
The Recent Clients page shows the extraordinary range of industries, countries and company situations that contributed to my experience base.
The Testimonials / Performance Evaluations page preserves the full body of historical client feedback rather than asking you to rely on three selected testimonials.
And the Compound Knowledge™ page explains the Dots Of Knowledge™ and connection concept in much greater depth.
MY CONSULTING PRACTICE TODAY IS INTENTIONALLY SMALL
After more than 4½ decades of building companies, raising capital, mentoring founders and advising startup and emerging-company CEOs, I am semi-retired.
I am not attempting to rebuild a large consulting organization.
My primary professional focus is now Good-Man LLC and the Five Year Life™ publishing program. Consulting remains available because I still enjoy working directly with bright, energetic entrepreneurs and because some companies can benefit materially from the experience I have accumulated.
Former CEO RESOURCE LLC clients receive first consideration. I selectively accept new startup and emerging-company clients where I believe the fit is strong and I can make a meaningful difference.
HOW WE WORK TOGETHER TODAY
The consulting service publicly offered through this website is funded in prepaid 10-hour blocks. You choose the scheduling level that fits the importance and timing of your work.
STANDARD
$2,500
10 Hours
$250 / Hour
PRIORITY
$3,750
10 Hours
$375 / Hour
TOP PRIORITY
$5,000
10 Hours
$500 / Hour
PLEASE UNDERSTAND THE QUEUE BEFORE CHOOSING A SERVICE LEVEL
Standard work is handled on a First In / First Out basis, but Standard work already underway can be temporarily interrupted when ready Priority or Top Priority work arrives.
Priority has its own FIFO queue ahead of Standard. Priority work can itself be interrupted by ready Top Priority work.
There is only one Top Priority client at a time.
The full mechanics — including exactly how interruption and resumption work — are explained on the Queue / Priority Service page. Please read it before deciding which service level fits your situation.
Substantive analysis, brainstorming and project work begin after the applicable engagement has been funded.
When the funded block is consumed, you decide whether to replenish another block or stop. There is no long-term obligation to continue.
The premium service levels buy scheduling priority — not a different quality of thinking. All three service levels work directly with me.
WHY I AM NOW PUTTING MORE OF THIS EXPERIENCE INTO BOOKS
My limited consulting availability is one reason publishing has become my primary professional focus.
A consulting engagement lets me help one company at a time. A book can preserve, organize and share more of the Compound Knowledge™ and Dots Of Knowledge™ accumulated across decades with people I may never have the opportunity to advise individually.
My three completed books approaching publication are Your Last Paycheck™, Reset Protocol™, and the Reset Protocol™ Workbook.
Each currently has an Advance Reader Team. ART members can receive the complete prepublication manuscript free and give candid reader feedback while there is still time to make the book stronger. You do not have to read the entire manuscript, and a public review is not required.
WHAT IS IT COSTING YOU TO LEAVE THE DRAGON ALIVE?
What is your company’s most expensive unresolved constraint right now?
Is it costing you revenue? Cash? Time? Momentum? Investor credibility? Management attention? Market opportunity?
And what happens if the same dragon is still sitting there six months from now?
I cannot promise that every problem has a quick solution. But if nearly five decades of operating, fundraising, consulting and mentoring experience can help you see the problem differently, identify an overlooked option or move more intelligently toward a solution, that is exactly the kind of work I still enjoy doing.
WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH — AND WHAT IS STANDING IN THE WAY?
Tell me what you are trying to build, fix, fund, implement or get past. If I believe my experience and Compound Knowledge™ can make a meaningful difference, I will tell you. If I do not believe I am the right resource, I would rather tell you that too.
Best wishes for stellar success,
Robert Lee Goodman, MBA
CEO & Chief ImpleMentor™
CEO RESOURCE LLC
Elevator Pitch: “I Help Startups Start & Stay Started.” ™ | MBA | 49X Founder | Raised Capital 44 Times For 44 Of My Own Companies And Limited Partnerships = $120.1 million TD From 1,342 Investors | “I HELP STARTUPS PLAN, FUND & IMPLEMENT” | FUNDING NETWORK: 6K Angel Investors / 4.5K VC / 1.5K Family OFFICES – ALL 12K OF WHOM PERSONALLY KNOW ME. | ARE YOU REALLY “READY FOR FUNDRAISING PRIME TIME?”