Welcome to Founders Confidential by Therese Gedda
This is for you – The High Achiever
The High Achiever. The Dolphin.
The one who follows your North Star and honors your values.
The one who has been brave enough to make the decision not to settle for average.
The one who is mission-driven and committed to everything you do.
The one who believes it’s possible to be the change.
The one who often works by yourself during the early mornings and late nights to move things forward.
The one who strives, works hard, and never settles.
The one who looks to maximize impact and contribution.
The one who goes the extra mile and empowers others.
The one who drives change and leads.
The one who believes it’s possible to change the world for the better.
If you recognize yourself in these words, welcome!
This letter is written for you and so is every other letter that follows.
Why Founders Confidential
I’m Therése Gedda, an award-winning entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Reimaginez. I’ve been building companies my whole life, starting my first at the age of 17. Over the past twenty years, I’ve worked with so many remarkable founders and CEOs who are mission-driven, empathic, and hard working. Today, it’s over 1,000 founders and CEOs across fourteen countries. My official title is Founder and CEO Advisor. They have their own names: Yoda. Founder Therapist. Master Teacher.
What I have seen for years is that the most extraordinary builders are often the ones carrying the most alone.
These are the people who are carrying the world on their shoulders. The ones who are there for everyone else – the team, their customers, their loved ones, their community, their friends, their investors. But often, they don’t have anyone to call at 2 am when they are facing a decision that can make or break their company.
Most often, the pressure stays private, with the sometimes overwhelming challenge building up to this moment. But even the most resilient founders need space to feel fully supported.
I know these moments. Both from my own journey and from being the one founders call. Having been that voice on the other side of the phone when the founder is facing moments of hardship and doubt, I know how important it’s to have someone in your corner during those make-or-break moments.
I want you to know you are not alone. This is an invitation to build your support system of value-aligned champions.
Imagine having someone in your corner to explore all aspects of building your dream company and life with.
Founders Confidential aims to be part of this path. Together, we will explore what it takes to scale with purpose and performance.
Every week starting today, September 1, you will receive one letter. Delivered every Tuesday with strategic insights, proprietary frameworks, stories, and lessons.
A letter from me to you to accompany your morning coffee or tea, with an invitation to explore high performance, how to approach the decisions you need to make, and thrive while building.
What we will explore together
So many incredible founders are surviving, not thriving, so let’s address it together. The letters will cover every dimension of building high performing, thriving companies and cultures, and living a life of significance.
The areas we will explore include:
Company Reimagined: Built to Last vs. Built to Exit. What are you optimizing for and why? Building a thriving high performance company.
Mindset Reimagined: Playing to win. Finding door number three when choices feel binary. Moving from surviving to thriving.
Strategy Reimagined: Which bets deserve your time and attention? How clarity changes how fast you move and how you achieve goals. How to select the right strategy for what you are pursuing.
Culture Reimagined: Building your company on bedrock vs. quicksand and the ripple effects of both. Designing a culture where high achievers thrive and outperform the average. Your ability to scale with purpose and focus while staying on the path of profitability.
Performance Reimagined: Living in line with your inner rhythm. Tapping into your willpower for peak performance. Being in the driver’s seat in your life.
Innovation Reimagined: Building the conditions where customer-centric innovations are created. Leading interdisciplinary teams and bringing innovations with market pull to the world.
Sales Reimagined: Creating alignment and clarity with what your customers desire. Designing customer experiences that build loyalty and sustainable growth, revenue, and profitability over time.
Communication Reimagined: Building on the shared language that enables interdisciplinary teams to create brilliance together. How to align your scientists, engineers, and commercial minds to see the same picture to achieve great things.
Leadership Reimagined: Futuristic Leadership, which is my philosophy on leading High Achievers. Tapping into achievement and mastery. Scaling your C-suite to achieve greatness as a team.
This is for the founder
Founders Confidential is for Built to Last founders.
For Built to Exit founders.
For lifestyle founders designing their company around a passion and life they love.
For founders who have been on the rollercoaster for 25+ years.
For next-gen founders carrying on a legacy while making it their own.
For founders who are in the process of pursuing their dream and building something on their own.
For founders who are bootstrapped, self-funded, venture-backed, PE-backed, or customer-funded.
The path, the game, the pursuit might vary, but the heart behind it doesn’t.
If you are building with purpose, on a mission, and striving for excellence, Founders Confidential is for you.
Can you join us if you are an investor, a journalist, a leader, an expert, a professional, or an academic? Of course, I welcome you too.
This is an invitation
Founders Confidential is more than a letter. It’s the beginning of a community.
Communities are built by people being present, contributing, and engaging. This is you. I’m so thrilled you are here, being part of this journey.
Take a moment and imagine the space we are creating together. The Medtech founder inventing new ways for illnesses to be cured. The climate founder on a mission to expand the blue economy. The third-gen founder reimagining a legacy. The fintech founder creating a new way to save. The journalist stepping into the unknown of building something from scratch. The inventor leaving the lab to bring something new to the market. The self-funded founder building a white-glove service business.
Different companies, different arenas, different games. But we all share one heartbeat – the decision not to settle for average, being brave enough to believe, and to reimagine what’s possible.
Founders Confidential by Therése Gedda. Scaling with Purpose and Performance. Strategic insights from mission-driven founders and CEOs building high performance, thriving companies and cultures.
