Guest Contributor: Scott Garell of Garell Coaching and Camelback Ventures Fellowship Coach
The Four Most Important Coaching Themes to Meet the Moment
After a 20-year career as a tech executive and three years as a national nonprofit board chair, I became an executive coach to more than 100 mission-driven leaders. This includes more than 20 Fellows as part of the Camelback Ventures (CBV) Fellowship.
In 2026, underinvested founders are navigating one of the toughest environments in recent memory: federal education cuts, DEI funding rollbacks, cautious buyers, and rapid AI disruption.
We are in a moment where funding is tighter, customers are more cautious, and technology is changing faster than most organizations can adapt. The founders who succeed will be the ones who stay lean, move fast, are ruthlessly focused, and build with the current reality in mind, without losing belief in their mission. Here are four coaching themes I believe matter most right now.
1) Think critically about how AI can amplify your success
I’ve seen one founder in the CBV Fellowship who built a school translation business before AI get displaced as districts moved to automated tools. Not even a swift pivot could have addressed the fast-track AI disruptions in language services across various industry sectors. At the same time, I have coached a founder building infrastructure to reduce bias in LLM systems, a business that only exists because of AI.
AI isn’t a future trend. It’s already reshaping what customers expect, what they will pay for, and what they think should be free. If AI can already do part of what you are planning to build and you are not accounting for that, you may be solving yesterday’s problem.
My advice:
- Bring AI into customer discovery. Add a simple question to discovery calls: “How are you using or exploring AI to address this problem?” You need to know whether AI is already part of their solution thinking. This tells you whether you risk being replaced, whether AI could improve your outcomes, or whether you should position yourself as the partner who helps them use AI effectively.
- Focus on the human value AI can’t easily replace. AI replaces tasks, not trust, judgment, relationships, lived experience, or accountability. Many mission-driven founders win not because of pure technology, but because they have a clear vision, understand context, culture, implementation, and change management. If AI does more of the “doing,” you double down on the parts that require human insight, your domain expertise, and credibility.
- Make sure your value isn’t just a workflow AI can copy or speed to market. If your product mainly moves information from A to B, you’re exposed. Durable advantage now comes from what’s harder to replicate: trust, real domain expertise, understanding customer needs, strong relationships, and solutions that combine technology with human support.
With products such as Claude Code, AI is also accelerating how quickly and inexpensively products can be built. With AI-assisted tools, founders can prototype and iterate faster than ever. Speed alone isn’t an advantage anymore, what matters is building something meaningfully harder to substitute. - Use AI to make your company more efficient. The strongest founders I see are using AI internally to move faster and reduce costs. Using AI for coding your app, research, first drafts of content, proposal writing, data analysis, fundraising, and personalization lowers burn and increases output, which matters more than ever in a slower funding environment.
AI can eliminate businesses that were working fine, I have seen it happen. It also creates new opportunities where great products can be created faster and cheaper than ever. You can’t predict every shift, but if you’re still in the building or refining phase, you need to actively ask whether AI changes what you should be building next. Better to adjust your product now than launch something the market has already moved past.
2) Improving your selling skills and prospect targeting strategy is critical given budget cuts
In 2025, one founder in the CBV Fellowship who I coached had revenue-generating contracts with other nonprofits that ultimately could not be honored due to those organizations’ budget cuts and uncertainty in the longer-term funding climate. I am also seeing schools extend their decision-making cycles on EdTech investments because of budget pressure. Buyers are increasingly risk-averse and cautious. When budgets tighten, the default response is often “do nothing” unless you make the decision feel safe and demonstrate a clear, compelling ROI.
My advice:
- Brush up on selling best practices and your customer’s needs. I teach the selling and pricing module in CBV’s Fellowship curriculum, and the most important thing is to understand the customer’s needs and match the benefits of your product to those specific needs. Need assessment means mandatory question-asking at the start of every sales or partnership call. If you don’t deeply understand their current problems and dreams, you will not be able to close.
- Cast a wide net. Be creative to maximize your sales leads versus cold calling. Leverage your network for warm introductions, attend conferences with the clear intent to set up meetings with 10+ potential leads, partner with relevant associations to be exposed to their members, test AI lead generation tools, and use your college alumni networks for targeted introductions. In a risk-averse market, casting a wide net and leveraging warm leads will help you sell.
- Get your first customer on board for free (if necessary). Having usage data on your MVP and testimonials on your product’s effectiveness is more important than early revenue. Offer it free for the first three months to a few customers in exchange for feedback and a testimonial, with a clear price after that. This lowers the buyer’s risk and gives you proof points you will need for future sales.
3) Generating revenue takes longer than you think, so plan for it
Generating revenue takes longer than most early-stage entrepreneurs expect, and in this environment, the timeline has stretched even further. Acquiring customers, refining your product, and raising money all require patience, persistence, and an unshakeable belief in your mission.
My advice:
- Accept that you may need an additional source of income. While it may slow your pace slightly, I am seeing many early-stage founders take a part-time job in their area of domain expertise to provide necessary cash and extend their runway to reach product-market fit. Don’t fight this reality. Plan for it and embrace it if needed.
- Never lose your passion and conviction for your mission. Being an entrepreneur may be the hardest thing you ever do. Remember why you started. Let the people you are serving drive you during tough times. Conviction is what carries you through long cycles and setbacks.
4) Staying focused reduces your stress
My experience as a startup executive taught me that the most important thing you can do as a founder and leader is to stay focused. Right now, with so much uncertainty, I’m seeing founders struggle with this more than ever.
My advice:
- Set 3–4 clear priorities maximum each week. Ninety-nine percent of your time is execution, but take 1% for planning and focus because that is critical to making the other 99% successful. Block time each week to set priorities and synthesize learning from the past week. Pick 3–4 priorities max weekly and make sure your calendar reflects them only. Review your calendar weekly to see how well you stayed focused in the prior week.
In one startup, we literally drew a box with thick walls around our top 3–4 weekly priorities. When new things came in, we drew arrows trying to penetrate the box, but we mostly didn’t let them in. When you master this weekly process, you can extend it to monthly focus as well.
To conclude, this is one of the hardest environments I’ve seen for early-stage founders. For underrepresented founders in particular, the path has rarely been easy or well-resourced. What matters now is being smarter about how you approach customers, leverage AI, stretch your cash, and protect your focus, all without losing conviction about why this work matters and who it serves.
To connnect with Scott Garell visit Garell Coaching.
About Camelback Ventures
Since 2015, Camelback Ventures has championed underestimated entrepreneurs, investing over $10 million in ventures designed to create lasting societal shifts. Backed by leading philanthropic partners, including Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Walton Family Foundation, the organization continues to prioritize fairness and representation in innovation.
You can learn more about the Camelback Ventures’ Fellowship and meet past fellows. Camelback Ventures’ next fellowship application window will open in Summer 2026. Interested in joining our next fellowship cohort? Fill out our interest form!
