(You can read more of our original ideas in our archive. You can order a business plan of this idea here.)
Problem: Being a c-suite executive is lonely: you often only get the most difficult problems presented to you and you don’t have peers to talk to about how to solve it. In this same vein, Kevin Yien recently tweeted this: “One of my mentors ran a CEO Alliance where CEOs from non-competing companies would meet to simply have a group of peers who were going through similar challenges. Always thought it would be nice to have something similar for product leaders. Good / bad idea? Interested?”
Solution: A business that connects c-suite executives to each other for weekly / bi-weekly confidential conversations where they can receive advice from one another in a safe space. Obviously the role of an executive is to solve the most difficult problems that a business will present; however, when you’re the only one doing that at your company you may (1) be in a bubble or (2) want to just bounce ideas off of someone else. Since there is only one CEO per company, this business would connect different CEOs from different contexts to each other to learn and grow together. In theory, it would be like a “board of directors” where rather than having a financial stake in the business, this “board” (or roundtable) would have a personal and friend-based stake in ensuring the success of the group.
One company which has attempted this in the past is Chief: it was branded as a “leadership network for women” and in May 2020 raised $15 million in funding. As they describe on their website,
Chief is a private network focused on connecting and supporting women leaders.
To be accepted, applicants must be C-level or a rising VP. Chief is the only organization designed for women seated at or around the table. Our members are rising leaders making decisions today and influencing change tomorrow.
Democratizing this opportunity more broadly (or better yet, finding other niches such as “low-income c-suite executives”, “first-to-go-to-college c-suite executives,” “hispanic c-suite executives”, “black c-suite executives”, and more) would help to create an opportunity even larger than Chief. The business would blend in-person and out-of-person experiences to create something even more useful for members of the social network.
Monetization: Paying to be part of the network.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)