Sounding Board

Weekly advisory for founders and CEOs, on the decisions that don’t have a clean answer yet.

What a Sounding Board Really Means

TRCH offers a recurring, 1:1 weekly advisory hour for founders, CEOs, and operating partners on the calls that don’t have a clean answer yet. Positioning bets. Hiring decisions. GTM sequencing. Growth targets that need to align with real 30, 60, and 90-day plans. We show up with the homework done. You leave with a defensible move you can act on that week.

A strategic seat at your table. Recurring, accountable, and dedicated to your hardest calls.

If you need someone to run the marketing function for you instead of sharpening your thinking on it, that’s a different seat. Consider the Embedded Marketing Team.

If the next call is unclear and the calendar’s already full, this is the right move.

The bigger the call, the lonelier the room. We’ve been in that room. The weekly hour is for the decisions that don’t have a clean answer yet, with someone who’ll ask the questions your team won’t.
What you bring:

  • Positioning and go-to-market bets. Where to plant the flag, where to walk away.
  • Executive hiring, coaching, and org design calls.
  • Pricing, packaging, and business model shifts.
  • Capital and runway calls when the numbers don’t line up.
  • The marketing and revenue plumbing that decides whether any of the above compounds.
  • Strategic reads on whatever’s biggest that week.

A weekly hour with someone who’s run the play from the operator seat.

Your week is a string of decisions made with incomplete information. The Sounding Board gives you a standing hour to pressure-test the biggest call before it gets made.
What you get:

  • A recurring weekly hour, calendar-locked.
  • Pre-read on what’s biggest that week, so the hour earns its money.
  • A defensible recommendation by the end of the call.
  • Optional async access for quick gut-checks between sessions.
  • Optional monthly deep-dive on the harder swings.

Built for CEOs who already have the right team. We sharpen the thinking at the top, across brand, growth, hiring, and capital.

“Many decisions are made in an echo chamber, lacking genuine feedback, diverse perspectives, or space for strategic questioning… A growing number of leaders are building personal advisory boards. Informal councils made up of trusted advisors, mentors, or strategic peers.”

Not every portfolio company needs a Fractional CMO. Some need a sharp weekly seat for the founder, on-call, focused on the strategic layer above day-to-day execution.
We work with operating partners to:

  • Drop in a weekly advisor for portfolio CEOs.
  • Standardize the cadence across the portfolio without making the work generic.
  • Surface flags early, before they become board-meeting problems.

Keep your CEOs sharp without burning operating partner time on every call.

Who’s In The Seat

Every session is with Rus Ackner, TRCH founder. Multiple global CMO seats. CEO of his own portfolio businesses. Senior operator across brand, go-to-market, org design, and capital, through acquisitions and exits. He’s been on the buying side of the calls you’re making. That’s what makes the read on the hour different. As needed, other experts from Rus’ network are brought in with no additional obligation or cost to share their expertise objectively.

More about Rus

The math on one hour a week.

Typical cost of one wrong call, against the annual cost of the seat.

One senior hire mistake $150K – $300K
One botched product launch $500K+
One quarter of drift in positioning $100K+
The Sounding Board, annual ~$30K

For less than the cost of one bad call.

“Rus’s insights are spot-on, and they consistently provide meaningful, proper advice. He’s a highly valued part of my executive sounding board.”

Sameer Bhatia
CEO, ProProfs

Ways to Engage

Weekly Seat

$2,500 a month

  • One hour a week, calendar-locked and recurring.
  • Async questions between calls welcome within reason.
  • Every engagement starts with a 2-hour kickoff in Week 1 to map your business and the calls you’re wrestling with. Included, not extra.

Best for CEOs and founders who want a standing seat for the biggest strategic call each week.

Embedded Advisor

$5,500 a month

  • Everything in Weekly Seat plus:
  • Monthly 90-minute working session dedicated to the quarter’s biggest bet
  • Async work, including outbound collateral review and other feedback
  • Txt and Slack availability for the calls that can’t wait a week

Best for CEOs who need the seat there when the decision comes up, not seven days from now.

Embedded Marketing Team

From $25,000 a month

  • Senior strategy plus a delivery bench
  • Full marketing function on retainer, not just the advisor
  • See a description of the Embedded Team

Best for leaders who need the team itself, not just the seat.

All are month-to-month. Cancel with 30 days’ notice. One decision made faster, or one hire avoided, pays for the year.

“Rus and team have a way of telling you what you need to hear when you need to hear it. He challenges your thinking without steering you wrong, stays objective, and helps you see situations from a different angle. More than once, that perspective changed the way I approached a decision.”

A.D.
CEO & Founder, Veridion Finance

See if the seat fits

30 minutes with Rus, no commitment. First weekly session follows if it lands.

Book an Introduction Call With Rus