STOP BEING THE BOTTLENECKin your own company
You built a €1M+ company but every decision still routes through you. That's founder-led growth, and it has a ceiling. I coach scaleup founders out of founder mode and into the owner role without the burnout that usually comes with it. Data first. No hype. No therapy.
Clients that trusted me
5 FREE MENTORING SEATS FOR STARTUP FOUNDERS
One month. Four 1:1 sessions. No fee, no upsell. Occasionally I open five seats for startup founders who are earlier than my usual clients: pre-€1M, still building toward the wall instead of already standing at it. You get the same system, before the ceiling gets expensive.
THREE PRESSURE POINTSwhere scaleups get stuck
Recognize one of these and you are not failing. You are at the point where the business is still winning and you are wearing down. Here is what it costs, on both sides of the ledger.
Scaling faster thanthe foundation can hold
You are hiring, spending, and committing ahead of the systems that should carry it. In Startup Genome's 2011 study of about 3,200 high growth internet startups, 74% of the failures traced back to scaling too early.
Headcount climbs. Output flattens. The teams you hired to create speed start creating drag.
Every new hire routes more decisions back to you, not fewer. You are working harder to manage the growth than you did to create it.
The business cannotrun without you
You built it by being close to everything. Now that closeness is the ceiling. If you stepped away for three months, it would slow down. You know it.
Decisions queue behind one person. Your best people stop owning outcomes because they are waiting on you. Growth caps at how much one person can carry.
You cannot switch off. The grip stays tight because letting go costs more energy than holding on, and you do not have that energy to spare.
Winning on paper,worn down underneath
The numbers look good. You do not. The isolation does most of the damage. Nobody around you carries what you carry, so you stop saying it out loud.
Your judgment is the company's most valuable asset, and it dulls first. Slower decisions, shorter fuse, worse calls. Months before it shows up in the P&L.
Sleep debt accumulates. HRV drops. The edge that built the company goes first, and you keep signing off on it.
None of these get fixed with more strategy or a motivational nudge. They get fixed by reading you and the business as one system, then rebuilding both.
MY PIVOT FROM RECRUITING TO MENTAL PERFORMANCEWAS MY RESURRECTION, FULL OF ENERGY
I grew up in a fractured home. Two bankruptcies. Legal battles. I moved across Finland, Thailand, the Netherlands, and the United States: looking for the version of myself that could win without breaking.
Even though I was good at my job, I didn't love my last business. I realized: bad revenue is always a lagging indicator of a bad mental state. That state leads to bad leadership, bad decisions, and bad profits. So the numbers don't tell you the whole story.
- 20 years, 1,500+ salespeople hired, built roughly 200 teams, served around 300 clients
- €50M+ in new revenue generated for clients
- Growth strategist for 20 years
- Certified Business Coach (by Mindvalley ICF and EMCC accredited)
- Currently executing Hintsa performance coaching program
- Golfer, snowboarder, kitesurfer, certified rescue diver, freediver
"I'm not a therapist. I'm not a life coach. I work with founders on mental performance so they can focus and lead their business more efficiently."
IF YOU STEPPED AWAY FOR THREE MONTHS,how long would your runway be?
Most founders read that as a delegation problem. It rarely sticks because the reason you can't let go isn't on the organization chart. It's in your physiology.
I read a founder the way you read a Profit & Loss statement. With data. Then we find the leak.
The Read
Where performance is leaking.
The Pattern
Your behavioral profile crossed with your biology.
The Build
A system that fits how you work.
The Hold
Re-test on a schedule so it compounds. Stack new processes and skills!
YOU'VE PROBABLY ALREADYtried one of these
Most founders in this position have already been through something. A Huberman routine. A Tony Robbins weekend. Dan Martell's time-blocking system. Maybe therapy. Maybe a monthly CEO group. Maybe an Oura ring that's been sitting on the nightstand.
None of them worked the way they were supposed to. Not because they're wrong: some of them are excellent. But because they were solving the wrong layer of the problem.
WHAT IT GETS RIGHT. He is right about where to look. VO2 max, blood markers, sleep. These are the right levers.
WHY IT DOESN'T STICK. Built for someone with time, money, and a US medical system. Not for a founder running a €1M+ company at full speed. No implementation path for your actual week.
READ THE FULL COMPARISONWHAT IT GETS RIGHT. The science is solid. Morning sunlight, Zone 2 cardio, HRV awareness. All of it lands.
WHY IT DOESN'T STICK. Huberman tells you what to do. He can't tell you why you're not doing it. The implementation gap is a biology problem, not a discipline problem.
WHAT IT GETS RIGHT. Identity-first founder coaching. The radical self-inquiry work is real and matters when the wound is psychological.
WHY IT DOESN'T STICK. Stops at insight. Doesn't read HRV, cortisol, or sleep stages. If your decisions are degrading because your body has nothing left, more self-inquiry won't fix it.
READ THE FULL COMPARISONWHAT IT GETS RIGHT. Who Not How and Unique Ability are clean tools for delegating and protecting founder time.
WHY IT DOESN'T STICK. Assumes you have the capacity to run those tools. If you can't sleep through the night, no tool saves you. Strategy without the body behind it doesn't lead anywhere.
READ THE FULL COMPARISONWHAT IT GETS RIGHT. The delegation and systems thinking is right for the business layer.
WHY IT DOESN'T STICK. Starts with the calendar and the org chart. Assumes the founder's energy is fine and the problem is operational. The energy problem comes before the calendar problem.
READ THE FULL COMPARISONWHAT IT GETS RIGHT. The room energy is real. The insights land. You feel different walking out.
WHY IT DOESN'T STICK. Two weeks later, nothing in the body changed. Motivation needs a body that can hold it up. When the body has nothing left, motivation goes. This isn't a criticism of Robbins. It's physiology.
WHAT IT GETS RIGHT. You meet other founders who understand the pressure. The loneliness drops immediately.
WHY IT DOESN'T STICK. In my experience most peer groups meet monthly and stop at conversation. They don't track your HRV, sleep, or decision load between meetings. Good for perspective, not for the daily operating system.
WHAT IT GETS RIGHT. Good at teaching you how to run meetings, set goals, and delegate across the company.
WHY IT DOESN'T STICK. Right answer for the business, but they assume the founder's capacity is fine. If you're the bottleneck because your body has nothing left, the system can't save you.
What's missing from all of them is the combination: someone who knows enough about the body to read your data, enough business context to understand what you're dealing with, and enough honesty to tell you what's wrong without selling you a supplement stack or putting you in an auditorium.
THAT'S THE GAP. THAT'S WHAT THIS IS.
WHO BELONGS HERE
✓ YOU'RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE IF…
- You believe "I am the problem, which means I am also the solution"
- You're tired of being busy. You want to be effective.
- You track revenue metrics but have never tracked yourself
- You want to grow as a leader
- You want to perform without destroying your health, your team, or your family
✗ THIS IS NOT FOR YOU IF…
- You wear sleep deprivation as a badge of honor
- You blame the economy, your team, or the government for your stagnation
- You just want a one-off pep talk and aren't interested in the work
- You're not willing to look in the mirror first
- You want results without the lifestyle commitment
THE EVIDENCE
Receipts before claims. Here's the track record, who's hired the work, and the research the program is built on.
Leaders at Foodora, Quandoo, Talenom, Blue Lagoon Beauty, Minda, LumiDB and Lakihelppi have hired me to build their growth engines. Logos are at the top of this page.
What the data says about cortisol, HRV and ApoB in founders under load.
READ →
The pattern across 300+ CEO conversations in 2024. And why most miss it.
READ →
Reboot, Hintsa, Attia, Huberman. Where each fits, and where they don't.
READ →
"The program is new. The methods aren't. First cohort is 10 founders. I'm publishing what works and what doesn't as we go."
Mika Tikkala
THE 8-WEEKSPRINT
FOUNDING MEMBERS 2026. APPLICATION ONLY.
Many founders hit a ceiling past €1M. The company stops growing because every decision still routes through one person. You. You've known it for a while now. Waiting doesn't fix it. It compounds.
The Sprint is eight weeks that rebuild the way you run: your decision speed is measured for the first time, one real ownership handoff completed, one physical factor found and corrected. It ends with a written before and after. The Sprint covers the first three stages of the Runway Method: The Read, The Pattern, The Build. The Runway Method completes it with the fourth, The Hold.
This is the founder track. If your bottleneck is the sales team, see Sales Team instead.
Not sure where you stand? Take the 2-minute Founder Mode Score. Eight questions, immediate read on how dependent your company is on you.
WHAT GETS INSTALLEDIN 8 WEEKS
YOUR DECISION SPEED, ON PAPER FOR THE FIRST TIME.
Decision map built in week one. You see where your time leaks, which approvals queue behind you, and your decision latency: how long a decision waits between raised and made. Almost nobody tracks this number. You will.
YOUR TEAM STOPS WAITING ON YOU FOR EVERYTHING.
One real ownership handoff completed by week four. Not delegation on paper. An actual decision domain that no longer requires you, held in place by a decision rights matrix: one page defining what never reaches your desk again.
YOU FIND THE ONE FACTOR QUIETLY SLOWING YOU.
Something specific. A sleep consistency issue, an HRV pattern, a blood marker. The reason you've been capable on paper and empty in practice. Read from data you already have. No clinic day.
YOU LEAVE WITH A SYSTEM AND A NUMBER, NOT A FEELING.
Week eight re-measures everything from week one. You get the written before and after, the weekly operating rhythm, and the two or three warning indicators that move before you crash. The record is yours to keep.
WHAT YOU'REPROBABLY THINKING
ON TIME
About 90 minutes a week. Four deep sessions across the eight weeks, async between, and the measurement runs in the background while you work. If your first thought was "I don't have time," look at the decision map in week one. The week isn't full of work. It's full of leaks.
ON SKEPTICISM
Most coaching starts with your goals. This starts with the facts: your calendar, your decisions, your team's dependence on you, your biology. We find where the bottleneck lives before touching anything. In a Balderton Capital survey of 230 venture-backed founders, 88% agreed excessive stress can result in bad decision making. It's built on what's happening, not what you promised yourself on Sunday night. That's why it sticks.
ON THE PRICE
€1,950 for founding members, €3,900 after the first ten. You run a real company, so you already know what one quarter of slow decisions costs. This is the cheapest line item in your operating budget, and it comes with a fire-me clause, so the risk sits on my side of the table.
ON DOING IT ALONE
You've handled it alone for a long time already. That's the script, and it's the script that's capping you. Every high performer you respect has someone sparring them. Athletes figured this out decades ago. Founders are just late.
THE FOUNDINGMEMBERS
In return I'm asking for honest feedback along the way and permission to document the before and after, anonymized if you prefer. LinkedIn testimonials are fine, but a real record of what changed, what the data showed, and what didn't work means more to me.
Fire me in the first 14 days. Full refund, no questions, and you keep the baseline read. After week two you'll know if this works. So will I.
Application takes 3 minutes. If it's the right fit, we book a 30-minute intro call. No pitch. Your own data on the table.
APPLY FOR A FOUNDING MEMBER SPOT20 years, 1,500+ salespeople hired, built roughly 200 teams, served around 300 clients. €50M+ in client revenue. The Sprint is that same system, built for the founder instead of the org chart. See the full method.
UPCOMING EVENTS
ICE COUNCIL
June 2026 · Finland
An extreme nature experience designed to strip the ego and surface the decisions you've been avoiding.
LEARN MORE →MIND OVER MATTER DAY
September 2026 · Helsinki
A full-day performance workshop for founders ready to make the shift from Operator to Owner.
LEARN MORE →TIKI OPEN
July 2026 · Finland
Annual golf + performance day. Sport, strategy, and clarity.
LEARN MORE →LET'S SEE IF WE AREA FIT
Send me a question about growth, leadership, team performance or culture. Inquiries about podcasts, keynotes or partnerships are welcome too. Or just tell me where you're stuck and we'll see if the program can move it.
DIRECT ANSWERS
36 direct answers on pricing, who this is for, how fast results come, how this differs from therapy, and how I work with your biology without being a doctor. Written to be useful even if we never speak.
Pricing & the Founding Member cohort
The Founding Member rate is a discounted entry price for the first cohort working with me directly. It covers the full 1:1 program. weekly sessions, the operating system buildout, biometric and lab interpretation between sessions, and direct access between calls. The full rate goes up after the founding cohort closes.
Who this is for
How fast results come
How this differs from therapy
Working with your biology
Founder burnout & decision fatigue
Highest search volume. Strongest ICP match. Where most founders start when they realize something structural is off.