For your business For you About David Speaking Client login Book a call → Take the 10-minute assessment →

Someone to work it through with.

Most founders have no one to think out loud with. The team reports to you, the board has a stake, and the people at home only hear half of it.

I’m David Wible. I’ve built and sold five companies, and I’m the person a few founders call when something is stuck.

Book a call or take the 10-minute assessment

Things founders tell me in the first ten minutes

  • “Every decision still comes back to me.”
  • “I make the hard calls alone, and nobody tells me when I’m wrong.”
  • “I can’t say this at work. And I can’t really say it at home.”
  • “My health gets whatever is left.”

You shouldn’t have to carry it alone. Running a company is hard enough without doing all of your thinking by yourself.

We talk it through. I draw it out.

You don’t call me for a framework. You call because something is stuck. We talk until we find the real problem, and I usually end up drawing it, because a problem you can see is a problem you can move.

I have frameworks for teams and for leaders, and they work. But I bring one in only when it helps you get unstuck or feel sure of your plan.

Fitness Focus Fraternity Finance
The four areas I draw for almost every founder at some point. I call it F4.
“It’s like smashing an easy button.”Ashok Aggarwal, co-founder and managing partner, M&S Consulting, on bringing me a complicated problem

Ashok Aggarwal

“I can come with a really complicated problem or challenge or issue and Dave gets it within minutes.”

Co-founder and managing partner, M&S Consulting

Jeannette Sermak-Proulx

“My business has grown as a result of David Wible and Brave Cave.”

Owner and director, Plaza Production One

Ben Berry

Mountain Craft

Read their stories

Three steps. The first one is a call.

  1. 1

    Book a call.

    Tell me what’s stuck, in your business, in your life, or both.

  2. 2

    Work it through.

    We get to the real problem, and you leave with a clear next move.

  3. 3

    Keep going if it helps.

    With your leadership team, with you, or both, on a rhythm that keeps the work moving.

Two ways we keep working together.

For your business. Leadership team development. When everything still runs through you. Clear ownership, who decides what, and one place for the work, reviewed every quarter against your own numbers so it holds. How it works with your team For you. Executive coaching for business owners. When the business works, but your life doesn’t. Your health, your focus, your people and your money. Goals in each, and a rhythm you can keep, with me in your corner between sessions. How it works with you

Not sure yet? Start with a free leadership team review, or see every way to work with me. Companies whose practices hold up at the quarterly review can earn Brave Cave certification.

The systems behind it

When a framework helps, this is what it leaves behind.

You don’t come to me for a framework. But when your team needs one, each session leaves something written down, agreed and kept. These samples come from Larkspur Freight Co., a fictional company we use for demonstrations. A real company's documents stay private to that company.

01 · The team book

Larkspur Freight Co. · Operations

Amelia Hart Head of Operations

What do you need from the team?
Bad news early. I would rather hear about a late load at 7 than find out at 4.
How do you accept criticism?
Better in private and with a day to think. I get defensive in the moment and I know it.
How do you give feedback when something is not right?
Straight, usually too fast. I am working on asking first.

One page per person, so everyone knows how their colleagues work, including how they take hard feedback.

02 · The communication policy

Larkspur Freight Co. · Operations

Where work lives

Work lives in
The TMS
Not in
Slack DMs · Text · The whiteboard in bay 3
Text
Slack, #dispatch only
Voice
Radio on the floor, phone off it
Video
Google Meet

Several people may work on something. Exactly one owns it.

Signed Amelia Hart, Head of Operations

One place for work and one channel each for text, voice and video, signed by the leader and reviewed every quarter.

03 · Levels of delegation

Larkspur Freight Co. · Operations

Marcus Oyelaran Warehouse manager

Warehouse staffing rotaEmpower
Receiving dock scheduleLead
Safety walk-throughsLead
Damaged-freight claimsManage

What would earn the next level Sign off claims under $2,000 without Amelia reviewing each one.

Who decides what, process by process, and what earns more room. Reviewed every quarter, so you can see who has grown.

04 · Battle cards

Larkspur Freight Co. · Operations

Carrier onboarding Held by Hannah Lindqvist

Purpose
A new carrier is set up once, properly, so the first load does not stall on paperwork.
Done means
Insurance, W-9 and rate agreement on file before the first pickup is booked.
  1. Request insurance certificate and W-9.
  2. Check the carrier’s safety rating. Anything below satisfactory goes to Amelia first.
  3. Send the rate agreement for signature.

The processes that live in one person’s head, written down by the person who does them, with a review date.

Parts five and six, the team’s one number and each person’s monthly plan, are built on these. See all six parts →

Where this goes.

  • Decisions keep waiting on you.
  • You keep making the big calls alone.
  • The company stays one you can’t step away from.
  • Your team decides without checking with you first.
  • You have someone to think out loud with before the big calls.
  • You take a week off, and the business doesn’t notice.
David Wible speaking, with the F4 sketch he drew on the screen behind him

I’ve sat where you’re sitting.

For thirty years I built and ran companies in manufacturing, retail, trucking and technology, and sold five of them. I know what it is like when everything waits on you, and what it takes to build a team that does not need you in every decision.

One client calls me a sparring partner. I’ll be positive, practical, and honest with you about the hard thing, and I’ll stay with you while you act on it.

David

More about me and speaking.

What’s stuck right now?

Tell me on a short call. If I can help, I’ll say how. If I can’t, I’ll tell you that too.

Book a call or write it down and send it to me

The newsletter · Not ready to talk yet?

Out of the Middle.

Short notes for owners on getting out of the middle of every decision, and keeping a life outside work while you do it. Only when there is something worth saying.

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