My name is Alex Gershenson, I’m the former CEO and Co-founder of SupplyShift, exited to Sphera in 2024. Before that, I co-founded an environmental consultancy-turned-tech enabled services company, EcoShift Consulting, exited to BlueStrike Environmental. Even before that I was a climate scientist and professor of Environmental Policy and Science at San Jose State University.

There are a million things I learned while building SupplyShift that I wish I knew in the beginning. Across several rounds of VC funding, international growth, and eventual exit, I’ve found that the best advice I’ve ever gotten was from other founders that know what it’s like to wake up at 3am worried about… all the things. Having a peer is critical, and I try to pay things forward.

I’m always game to talk startups, climate, and bicycles.

I’ve worked with founders on everything from project-specific focused advisory work (getting started, fundraising, ext) to long-term strategic advisory encompassing everything from GTM, people, product, and corp dev issues. I’m a peer advisor to founders, and the support differs from founder to founder.

FIrst, download the toolkit. Each folder has a text file with thoughts and instructions, you can organize your company without my help. If you want more specific collaboration, happy to jump on a call!

Many startup coaches have a method, and experience in coaching, but have never run a startup themselves. WHen I was a startup CEO, I often wished to have a sounding board of someone who’s done it before, but who wasn’t an investor or board member. So that’s the role I’m finding myself in now. I’ve been where you are, woken up at 3am trying to solve some problem, and know exactly how it feels to have everything depend on you.

Best way is to email alex@letsbuilditbetter.com!

Typically after that first call (always gratis), founders want to make it a habit, and we put together a monthly retainer that works for the needs of the founder (typically 1 hourly call a week plus some doc review).

Sometimes you’re in the middle of a raise, big hire, large rebrand- who knows what is on your plate! We can always set up a project-based agreement, up to fractional roles, that works for you.

I describe myself as a peer advisor. A weekly call can be focused on one topic, or touch several burning issues. I am keenly aware that founder time is valuable, so most of the time we jump straight in, although sometimes founders just need to vent. I’m here for that too.