“Leadership and culture support should be part of the startup ecosystem’s default toolkit.”
For Partners & Startups
I partner with incubators, accelerators, investors, and startup ecosystem builders to make leadership and culture foundations accessible early. The goal is simple: help founder-led teams build clearer foundations before recurring operating issues slow execution, drain partner time, or turn into avoidable mistakes.
Partner formats bring the same Alku HR thinking to several founder teams at once: practical language, clear build order, and focused next steps for the human side of building a company. So leadership and culture don’t depend on improvisation as the company grows.
Why this matters for partners
Across portfolios, cohorts, and founder communities, the same patterns tend to repeat.
Across portfolios, cohorts, and founder communities, the same patterns tend to repeat.
Founders are building a product, finding customers, raising funding, hiring, selling, and leading people at the same time. But many are also building their first real team.
The leadership gap rarely shows up as “lack of effort.” It shows up as practical operating issues:
hiring mistakes that could have been avoided with clearer roles and criteria
founder friction that grows when alignment stays informal
decisions that don’t stick because ownership is unclear
reactive ways of working that make execution heavier than it needs to be
feedback and people leadership issues that surface too late
advisors, investors, and program leads spending time on the same basic leadership and culture questions again and again
Alku HR helps partners bring structure to this work earlier.
Not as heavy HR programs.
Not as abstract leadership theory.
But as practical foundations for how founder-led teams work, decide, hire, lead, and grow.
What I offer partners
You can work with me in three ways:
1. Talks
Founder-friendly expert sessions that create shared language and help teams understand what to build, in what order, and why leadership and culture work often fails when it is tackled ad hoc.
Best for:
cohort kickoffs
portfolio education sessions
founder events
ecosystem programs
2. Cohort programs
Structured cohort formats where several founder teams build practical first versions of key leadership and culture foundations during the sessions.
Best for:
incubators and accelerators
investor portfolios
founder communities
programs where several teams need the same foundational support
3. Follow-up paths
Some teams need deeper company-specific support after a talk or cohort.
In those cases, the next step can be Alku JOURNEY, Alku HIRE, Alku RELIEF, or another focused module depending on the bottleneck.
This gives partners a clear escalation path without needing to solve every leadership and culture issue themselves.
How this reduces partner load
Partner time often goes into the same recurring founder operating issues across teams.
This offer stack reduces that load by:
creating shared language early, so leadership and culture conversations become easier and faster
giving teams a clear build order instead of scattered advice
helping founders see leadership and culture as practical business work, not vague “people stuff”
building first foundations across multiple teams at once
giving teams a clear next step when they need deeper support
reducing the need for partners and advisors to solve the same issues one company at a time
The aim is not to replace your existing support.
The aim is to strengthen it with a practical leadership and culture layer that many founder-led teams need earlier than they think.
Start here:
Alku TALK™
Leadership & Culture Foundations for Growth
A founder-friendly expert talk that makes leadership and culture practical early.
The session gives teams a clear mental model for what to build, in what order, and why ad hoc efforts often fail as complexity grows.
Best for:
Cohort kickoffs, portfolio education sessions, founder events, and ecosystem programs.
Outcome:
Shared language, reduced overwhelm, and a clearer sense of what to build next.
Typical format:
45-minute talk plus Q&A.
Investment:
From €1,900 (+ VAT)
Includes the talk, Q&A, a practical handout, and a limited number of reserved Intro Call slots for cohort or portfolio teams.
Practical note:
Final scope and delivery format are confirmed together before delivery. For onsite sessions, the partner covers venue, catering, and travel costs when applicable.
Cohort formats
Cohort programs bring the same leadership and culture foundation thinking to several teams at once.
Teams do not just listen. They create practical first drafts during the sessions, so momentum does not rely on homework.
Practical note:
Final scope and delivery format are confirmed together before delivery. For onsite sessions, the partner covers venue, catering, and travel costs when applicable.
Cohort JOURNEY™
A cohort-based program for building leadership and culture foundations across several founder teams.
Teams build shared language, a clear build order, and first practical drafts for how they work together, decide, communicate, and lead as they grow.
Best for:
Incubators, accelerators, and portfolios that want to give teams repeatable leadership and culture foundations.
Typical format:
5 sessions, 2 hours each.
Investment:
From €5,900 (+ VAT) online.
Onsite formats are priced separately.
Cohort HIRE™
A cohort-based hiring foundations sprint.
Each team works on one upcoming role and builds clearer success criteria, structured interviews, and a stronger decision process.
Best for:
Cohorts where teams expect to hire within the next 1–3 months.
Typical format:
3 sessions, 2 hours each.
Investment:
From €2,900 (+ VAT) online.
Onsite formats are priced separately.
Cohort PERFORM™
A cohort-based sprint for building a practical people leadership baseline.
Teams clarify manager expectations, 1:1s, feedback, and light check-ins that prevent issues from escalating too late.
Best for:
Teams where founders or first managers are already leading people, but expectations and feedback are still informal or inconsistent.
Typical format:
3 sessions, 2 hours each.
Investment:
From €3,900 (+ VAT) online.
Onsite formats are priced separately.
For startup teams
If you are a startup team rather than an ecosystem partner, you do not need to choose alone.
Many teams start with Alku HIRE™ when hiring is the most urgent bottleneck.
If the issue is broader, such as founder alignment, leadership structure, role clarity, or team operating rhythm, Alku JOURNEY™ or Alku RELIEF™ may be the better starting point.
In the Intro Call, we’ll identify which leadership or culture bottleneck is currently slowing execution and decide what to build next.
How to start
Start with a 45-minute Intro Call.
We’ll clarify your audience, goals, timing, and what kind of support would create the most value: a talk, a cohort format, or a follow-up path for selected teams.
After that, we agree on the format, delivery mode, timeline, and logistics.
What partners say
These partner offerings are built from hands-on experience supporting startup teams through talks, mentoring, and practical People & Culture sessions.
The goal is to make leadership and culture topics concrete, useful, and accessible early in a way that serves both founders and the ecosystem partners supporting them.
“Sanni has a systematic approach and gives startup teams open, concrete, and practical guidance on culture building, leadership development, and People topics. The teams found her mentoring session very valuable.”
— Program lead, startup accelerator