Former COO and Venture Capital Consultant with a focus on early-stage startup strategy and operational scaling. She has spent 12 years guiding founders from MVP development to successful exits via acquisition or IPO.
Elena Vance is a strategic operations expert and startup advisor who has facilitated over $50 million in seed and Series A funding for technology companies. Holding an MBA from INSEAD, she spent the first decade of her career in Silicon Valley, moving from product management to executive leadership roles in high-growth SaaS firms. Elena specializes in business model validation, lean methodology, and unit economics, helping founders distinguish between vanity metrics and actual growth. She actively mentors entrepreneurs on navigating the "valley of death" and optimizing cash burn rates during critical pivots. Her writing cuts through the hype of entrepreneurship to address hard truths about hiring cultural fits and managing co-founder conflict. She provides actionable frameworks for structuring executive summaries that actually get read by investors. Elena's approach is data-driven yet human-centric, focusing on how emotional intelligence drives leadership success. She frequently discusses topics like calculating customer acquisition costs without inflating the numbers.