Confidential coaching for CEOs

Raw Nerve works with founder CEOs determined to change what's holding their teams back.
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We help you identify and tackle the hard stuff, providing support from someone who's been where you are now.

We listen and observe, provide direct actionable perspective, and support you to be the change maker.

When you need, we work directly with your leadership team and drive the change you looking for.

THE PROBLEM

"When you scale a business, you scale everything"

The wins. The friction. The flaws in the model. All of it.
CULTURE
Behavioural patterns that slow execution rarely show up in the numbers until they're expensive to reverse.
LEADERSHIP
The team that got you to $10M is not automatically the team that gets you to $20M. The gap forms quietly.
EXECUTION
The most valuable cross-functional work stalls because no single leader owns it. By the time you see it, the delay has compounded.
WHO THIS IS FOR

You're in the gap between good and great.

Raw Nerve works with founder CEOs and leadership teams who have been performing, yet know the distance between where they are and where they need to be is growing faster than they can close on their own.
THE BUSINESS
$5M–$50M ARR. Scaling SaaS product-led or service-led. Growth is happening. So is the complexity that comes with it.
THE CEO
Ambitious, self-aware, already good at what you do. Know the model that got you here won't get you where you're going.
THE MOMENT
Demands are outpacing team capability. Not visibly broken. But the gap is forming and compounding quietly.
It's common for founders, who've been the driving force to become a bottle-neck, for a company to outgrow how they operate. To find the team who got you here are struggling to fully deliver what you need now, and not know if you can help them grow.

One discovery call will help you uncover the challenges really getting in your way and we can lay out a plan to help.
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ABOUT
Advisory that starts where most coaching stops.
Most coaching works on the person. Most consulting works on the problem. Raw Nerve works on both, because at this stage of growth, they're rarely separate.

The name reflects the nature of the work.

The conversations that matter most inside a scaling company are often the ones nobody is having. About the leader who isn't working out. The strategy that's quietly losing ground. The dynamic at the executive table that everyone can feel and nobody is naming.

Raw Nerve exists to have those conversations, and to make them useful rather than just uncomfortable.

We don't bring a methodology. We bring judgment, developed across multiple businesses, in roles where the consequences of getting it wrong were real.

The work looks different for every CEO we engage with, because the leverage point is different every time.
What stays constant is the standard we hold the work to: does this make the business meaningfully better, and does it make the CEO more capable of running it?

Mat Lawrence

Founder - Principal
I've been the CEO and the COO, accountable for every function in multiple businesses. I know what the job does for you, and what it does to you. The excitement, the fear, the responsibility.

Everything I do is grounded in what actually happens inside a scaling company. The decisions that compound, the ones that cost you, and how to tell them apart before it matters.

I started Raw Nerve to work with founder CEOs who know the gap between where they are and where they need to be is widening, and who are ready to close it.
The work covers three things that determine whether a business scales or stalls:
  • The strength of the leadership team
  • The clarity of the direction
  • The quality of thinking at the executive table
We're not the right fit for everyone. The CEOs we work with are already performing. They bring us in because they want to move faster, build a stronger team around them, and make better decisions at the moments that matter most.

~ Mat

GROWTH
Scaled businesses with revenue ranging from $10m to $640m annual revenue and teams from 32 to 350 people, accelerating and extending growth curves.
BATTLE SCARS
Navigated founder burnout, market pivots, leadership performance challenges, team hyper-growth, multi-region expansion, investor relationships, potential business ended events, seismic market shifts, competitor disruption, failing partnerships.
VALUES
Developed high performing people centric cultures which deliver results and create an environment of purpose and belonging.
Crucial conversations are met, with radical candour and situational leadership so expectations and performance are never in doubt.

Not theory, real impact, practiced

WHAT CLIENTS SAY

Series B SaaS, 27M ARR

"I knew the team's growth was being limited by my lack of experience at this scale.
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I learnt I wasn't setting expectations clearly enough or giving critical feedback so they were failing.

Together we identified who had the capabilities we needed, who didn't and who could grow with us. The functions that were failing finally had the leadership they needed and turned around."

Confidential

CEO

High growth scale-ups ~5 years

"Mat has been my coach & trusted advisor since my first COO role. He has been a hugely valuable source of wisdom and constructive challenge throughout my journey.
He brings a broad toolkit of techniques and accelerators, and an eye for identifying blind spots before they become problems.
The way I lead and communicate today is noticeably better for it.
Mat is consistently practical, honest and an absolute pleasure to work with.
Thank you Mat and here's to the future!"

Confidential

COO

Bootstrapped SaaS, 12M ARR

"Mat helped me understand and build the capabilities needed in our leadership team.

The team are owning things fully, enabling me to let go of work I shouldnt have been doing.

I've finally been on my first holiday in years"

Confidential

FOUNDER/CEO

Founder-led SaaS, 25M ARR

"I thought we needed to sort out our board reporting but learnt it was much more than that.
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We have built trust with our investors by communicating the bigger picture and the right level of detail, demonstrating we can both plan and execute."

Confidential

FOUNDER/CEO
ENGAGEMENT

What the first steps look like

One discussion. No cost. No obligation. Every conversation delivers value.
1
60-minute discovery call
No pitch. No agenda. An honest conversation about where you are and whether Raw Nerve is the right fit.
You leave with a clearer picture regardless.
2
If there's a fit
We outline what an engagement looks like and what it costs.
You decide if you want our help. No pressure, no obligation on your end.
3
You make change
And lead a company with sharper leadership, better execution, and a team built for the next stage.
That compounds.
Book a call
or use the contact form below to ask for more information

Contact us

info@rawnerve.com.au
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