Meet Tobias

CFO | Startup Strategist | Founder of Vector Partners

Like most naturally entrepreneurial people, Tobias didn’t fit a typical corporate mold. Creative, innovative, rebellious in the best way (a 3/6 Manifestor in Human Design for anyone interested)– he was brilliant at a very specific, high-value area of finance. The problem? Every company looking for a CFO wanted something different.

While his unique skillset made him the perfect fit for one company, it wasn’t what another necessarily wanted. Each application felt disheartening, highlighting what he perceived as “weaknesses” while undervaluing his actual superpowers—asking him to handle the 90% of generalist tasks that bored him and drained his energy.

Deep down, Tobias knew he’d love to work for himself. It would allow him to live his ideal lifestyle with his young family, plus give him the freedom to apply his creativity to his work—something most CFO roles would never allow.

But entrepreneurship felt risky. He had resistance to the idea of creating content and marketing himself. And with a young child and family to support, the stakes felt high.

In his words: “My inner self would also like to start my own company but with my child and family I rather avoid additional risk… I want to find a more balanced life where I feel happy.”

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The Approach: Removing Pressure, Following Excitement

Ingredient #1: The Parallel Path Experiment

I didn’t want to force Tobias into something he wasn’t ready for. I also knew that finding the right employment role could take time. So instead of making it a binary choice—Job OR Business—we created space for both.

We called it the “Entrepreneurial Experiment” to keep the pressure off. No pass or fail. Just exploration. We trusted that whichever path was most aligned would eventually reveal itself naturally.

On the employment front, we focused on identifying internal blocks: lack of belief in his own value, self-doubt about his competence, and the tendency to apologize for not fitting the traditional CFO mold. We created clarity around his non-negotiables for any new working arrangement, the type of companies he was best suited for, and helped him define his scope of work so he could fully own what he brought to the table.

With these blocks addressed, he could continue interviewing for roles in his own time while we shifted our coaching focus to the potential business.

In his words: “I think Kat has a great ability to pull one out of the rabbit hole, giving new and fresh perspective with a very individual touch to it. Never felt like this was a one-fits-all solution I received.”

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Ingredient #2: Identifying the Unique Edge

The biggest question standing in his way: “What do I actually sell?”

Using his past experience and success as a guide, we identified his unique strengths and selling position. We looked at where he’d already proven himself—acquiring funding for startups—and combined that with his new passion: the intersection of AI and Finance.

This created a “Unique Edge” that was impossible to ignore. He wasn’t just another CFO who could balance the books—he was a strategic partner who could secure a company’s runway while modernizing its operations for the future. A pioneer in a specialized, emerging field.

By positioning him at this specific intersection, we validated his expertise and dissolved the self-doubt. He wasn’t lacking—he’d just been trying to fit into the wrong container.

We mapped out potential service offerings that could be packaged in various ways, keeping him in his zone of genius while identifying what a business partner could contribute to round out the service offering.

In his words: “My self doubt was reduced to a level where I decided to start my own business. To go out there and show what I am made of.”

The validation moment: While still in these early stages, an ex-colleague reached out with an opportunity to provide exactly these services. Tobias brought in his potential business partner to help execute. It went well, giving him the confidence he needed about the viability of his business idea.

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Ingredient #3: A Lifestyle-First Business Model

Tobias has a young family and a deep desire for location freedom—specifically, the ability to escape the Berlin winter and spend months in Brazil with his wife’s family. A traditional corporate role would never allow for this.

So we designed the business model lifestyle first. We built a consultancy structure that prioritized flexibility and high-value project work over volume. By deciding that the “Brazil Dream” was a non-negotiable feature of the business rather than a “someday” reward, we ensured the vehicle he built was actually capable of driving him where he wanted to go.

In his words: “It has become clear to me what I want and what is important for me… I just booked three months in Brazil to flee the winter in Berlin which wouldn’t have been possible in a permanent job engagement.”

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Ingredient #4: Building Foundations, Simply

With clarity on his positioning and business model, we moved into practical execution—but kept everything minimum viable to avoid overwhelm:

Brand Identity: Tobias hired someone to create the logo while I helped refine the color palette. He chose a website template and started writing copy for iteration 1, knowing it would likely need updating in 6-12 months as he refined his offerings. I provided feedback on the English translation (the original was in German!), and he built much of the site himself, hiring help only to finalize it. He and his business partner also did a professional branding shoot to make the website feel more personal and polished.

Soft Launch: To ease him into visibility, we started with a minimum viable approach—simply reaching out to his immediate network to let them know about this next phase of his journey. Not to pitch, but so people could easily refer others if the opportunity arose. This struck up helpful conversations, planted seeds, and most importantly, made what he was doing feel real.

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Ingredient #5: Minimum Viable Magnetism

Now came the part Tobias had been dreading: marketing himself.

Turns out what he dreaded was the idea of being self-promotional in that sleazy, bro-marketing kind of way we see flooding our feeds. But that was the last thing I wanted him doing.

Instead, I gave him a framework to help “knock over the dominoes” standing between someone hearing about him and being ready to work with him. This framework allowed him to create content he was passionate about, that positioned him as an expert with a unique point of view, and naturally made him stand out because it drew on his real-life experience and the intersection of his interests, passions, and skills.

We stripped away complex marketing tactics and focused strictly on the ideas he was already passionate about—specifically his AI x Finance angle. We established a simple cadence based on “5 Core Pillars” of content that lead to clients, none of which required him to be “salesy.”

From being someone who’d never created content before, within a couple of weeks, he and his business partner had filled their Notion content hub with countless blog articles and LinkedIn posts. Before I knew it, they’d become prolific on LinkedIn, attracting significant attention and engagement, which led to new conversations, inquiries, and proposal requests.

And just like that, they were off and running.

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The Transformation

By removing the pressure to “decide” and focusing on excitement and lifestyle alignment, the right path chose him.

Identity Shift: He moved from “Applicant” trying to squeeze into someone else’s mold to “Founder” building something designed around his strengths and values.

From Self-Doubt to Self-Belief: The work we did together helped him gain a more distant and neutral view on past experiences, transforming them from sources of doubt into fuel for his new business.

Rapid Authority: His AI x Finance content strategy led to immediate visibility, creating a pipeline of conversations and opportunities through pure value.

The Brazil Dream: He achieved his primary lifestyle goal—booking three months in Brazil with his family, a freedom he could never have accessed in a traditional role. This clarity around what mattered most now helps him focus and prioritize for the future.

What’s Next: The business is freshly launched, and Tobias already has multiple ideas for how to scale and what to launch next.

In his words: “I unlocked a lot of self-belief and am now solely betting on myself.”

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Sick of trying to fit someone else’s mold and ready create one that allows you to get paid for your unique brilliance?

Here’s what I recommend:

1. Have a listen to Mythic Magnetism, my podcast. It’s all about how to navigate the call to your next level life/career/business and as well as being (hopefully!) supportive for where you’re at, will give you an idea of whether you resonate with my approach and therefore if you want to explore working together at a deeper level.
2. Check out Mythic Journey. It’s where I’ll create a personalised map of your own magnetism — your strengths, core gifts, purpose, and the way you can best express it in the world — while also helping you see where your fears, limiting beliefs & unhealthy patterns might be keeping you stuck and small, convinced that someone else’s mold is as good as it’s going to get for you.
3. If you’re a business owner ready to expand your business to fit the new and evolved you, take a peek at Becoming 2.0 – my signature 1:1 coaching offering. If you don’t have a business (or aren’t sure what you want to do next), then UNBRIDLED (coming soon!) might be a better fit.