CTV’s engagements and testimonials. Helping founders and their teams—from the fuzzy front end to product obsolescence across technologies, industries, and markets.
Testimonials
- “Your team has impressed and delighted us. Clearly one of our best partners in our family.” — Carlos Ghosn, CEO, Nissan Motor Co.
- “Doing more to know the customer and deliver solutions than anyone in our industry.” — CMO, Paccar Inc.
- “Working with Eben has been a total game-changer! As a founder of a tech company, I spent a couple of years going in the wrong direction and spending nearly $200K on things I didn’t yet need. His expertise has completely changed how I approach my business. In just a few months, he helped me create a solid plan that I wish I had from the start. If you’re a founder, before you waste precious time and money, do yourself a favor and work with Eben. He knows exactly what you need to get your idea to market the right way.” — Holly Porter, Tech Founder
- “We engaged Eben (CTV) for a new product market analysis and business plan complete with pro forma. As a nonprofit organization, we did not know what to expect when we started the process. However, after extremely focused, detailed, and professional guidance from CTV, our team not only met our deadlines but we gained a plethora of knowledge in market surveys, customer interviews, Monte Carlo forecasting, system design, pricing, and product scoping. I highly recommend Eben for guidance in starting, building, or expanding a business or product!” — James Downing, UNAVCO, Inc.
- “Eben has an extraordinary ability to help me “show my work.” He helps translate my vision into compelling narratives and frameworks that others can quickly understand and support. He doesn’t just understand my ideas, he helps articulate them, offering precision that bridges the gap between concept and execution. For any entrepreneur or startup looking to bring clarity, structure, and investor-ready polish to their ideas, I highly recommend working with Eben. His insights and expertise have been crucial to my journey.” — Hermine Ngnomire, FemTech and MarTech CEO & Entrepreneur
- “Eben is the most empowering mentor I’ve ever had. I can’t say it enough. I had the pleasure of connecting with him at Watson Institute. He offered me great insights, useful tips, and lots of encouragement along the way. His understanding of early-stage ventures and ability to guide others through is second to none. While showing me the bigger picture, Eben always knows the smallest details about my venture. I highly recommend him.” — Jianjin Li, co-founder Athena Stick, Watson University
- “I had the privilege of having Eben as my mentor during my time at the Watson Institute Accelerator program in Boulder, CO in the year 2020. Through the few months I spent with him working on developing further my startup venture, I came to appreciate the value and impact he had not just on my startup but also my life due to his unique mentoring skills, which tap into my deepest motivation of why I do what I do. Eben’s understanding of the entrepreneurial world, advice, charisma, leadership, and commitment with a constant dedication to hold me accountable for my set goals and objectives led to the very success of my time at Watson and contributed to the way I approach life today. He’s been a very positive influence in my life and I wouldn’t have wished for a better mentor than Eben.” — David Mualen, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Ohio State University
- “I connected with Eben at the Watson Venture Accelerator in July 2022. Since then he has been a great mentor generously sharing his golden nuggets of wisdom in building a company. He has been very helpful in giving advice and feedback on improving our product, team efficiency, marketing strategy, and fundraising. Eben is an experienced entrepreneur, mentor, and instructor with great empathy. I learned a lot about the mental models of being a founder from him. His consistency in holding me accountable throughout the journey has been a huge encouragement.” — Yaqi Chu, Social Entrepreneur
- “Eben, without fail, empowers teams to sharpen their product-market fit, identify strategic opportunities, and strengthen the value they deliver to paying customers. I look forward to opportunities to collaborate with Eben in the future and recommend his technical leadership to any organization that is tackling complex challenges with a novel solution.”
- “Eben was my professor for both Marketing & High Tech Ventures and Product Development & Design. His extensive experience and insight, combined with his enthusiasm for students and the subject, led to some of the most valuable classes I’ll ever take. He has high expectations for the quality and focus of the work, and the depth of thought required to integrate the material into the real world.”
- “He went out of his way to help me align my product development project to my full-time job, and I was promoted into a product development role before the semester ended. I am very grateful for Eben’s instruction and encouragement and would highly recommend his classes to anyone up for a challenge.”
- “Through his invaluable mentorship, Eben guided us through the initial stages of business plan development to an award in the Cleantech track of the University of Colorado New Venture Challenge. Eben is great to work with and he eagerly shares his deep knowledge and experience in start-ups, raising venture capital, networking, presenting, and cleantech industries. We are immensely grateful and humbled to have him as a mentor.”
A Partial List of Projects and Engagements
- Business planning and formation: SaaS business
- Investor relations and funding: clothing company
- Solutions analysis and product design: cleantech company
- Voice of the customer and funding: energy company
- Product positioning: food-services company
- Product costing and manufacturing strategy: electromechanical company
- Supply-chain management: cleantech company
- International distribution and logistics: materials company
- Business development & sales: cleantech company
- Manufacturing and order delivery: medical devices
Global Reach
CTV’s reach is global. Here is a list of some of CTV’s clients’ home countries.
Canada
Egypt
England
Ghana
India
Kenya
Mauritius
Nepal
Portugal
U.S.
A Typical Engagement and IT’S Pricing Plan
Introductory Statements
- CTV’s mission is to help founders and their teams succeed.
- All communication between CTV and its clients is confidential.
- Eben always welcomes calls, emails, texts, etc.
- CTV does not claim any of a startup’s intellectual property.
- CTV takes no equity.
A Typical Engagement:
- A typical CTV engagement starts with a free consultation. Eben and a potential client (sometimes with teammates) will meet to discuss the venture’s business, including its markets, products, status, goals, strategies, and objectives, as well as what help they want. Eben might offer suggestions and forward one or more slide decks adapted from his years teaching at the University of Colorado–Boulder. It often happens that this initial consultation lasts more than an hour.
- Assuming we want to move forward, and maybe during a follow-on meeting, we will agree on and sign a simple agreement, the founder will make the payment, and we’ll get started.
- Historically, student projects aside, most CTV engagements last more than a year; however, some engagements are brief, such as when CTV just helps to write a grant application or prepare a presentation. Even then, such engagements often last three months as we address strengths and weaknesses, revise drafts, and rehearse presentations.
- Eben hopes founders will meet with him no less than once per week, at least until we establish a cadence. Eben often takes multiple calls per client per week.
- Meetings are often deep and thorough as we’ll tackle broad topics and dive into the details. For example, we might address a founder’s personal goals and strategies; compare beachhead markets; prioritize product features; set price and cost targets; revise grants applications, and much more.
- When relevant, Eben will sometimes forward one or more of his slide decks from his years teaching marketing, product development and design, and the new venture curriculum in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado–Boulder.
- Finally, all ventures experience good and bad days. In this spirit, we’ll celebrate successes, correct mistakes, and dust off bad luck. Eben’s role is not just to be a coach and mentor—sometimes he’ll give a shoulder to cry on and rally encouragement to persevere.
- A typical startup engagement ends when the startup begins earning steady revenue, when it secures A-level funding, or when the startup shuts down (usually a change in life circumstances or problems with the company’s technology).
CTV’s Pricing Plan
- CTV’s goal is to help its clients launch profitably, sustainably, at healthy speeds, with the right products, in the right markets, and to help them avoid mistakes and unnecessary costs.
- CTV’s pricing model is of high value to clients, easily managed, flexible, and designed to encourage clients to use CTV’s services fully.
- CTV offers one, three, six, and twelve months retainerships. Most clients work directly with Eben for about four hours per week.
- Tailored, one-off consulting engagements are negotiated and managed separately; these engagements are common with larger, established companies.
- One and three month engagements are fully paid in advance. Payments for six and twelve month engagements are broken into two or more payments. Payments made are not reimbursed. Engagements may be renewed. Clients may end an engagement with a written, thirty calendar-day advance notice. To date, no client has terminated an agreement ahead of schedule.
- Additional expenses, such as travel, are preapproved and reimbursed by the client. Such expenses are rare.