About Dar
The way you show up is the way you run your company.
I'm Dar Patel. I coach founders and executives to scale themselves as fast as they scale the company, and to do it without grinding themselves down in the process.
The reality
You're carrying more than anyone sees.
From the outside it looks like momentum. Inside, it's a hundred open loops: the decision you've turned over for three weeks, the conversation you keep not having, the quiet math on how long you can hold this pace.
Founders rarely struggle because they're short on ideas or effort. They struggle because the whole weight rests on how they think, decide, and hold up under pressure, and almost no one is coaching that part.
That part is the inner game. It's the work I do.
The path
How I got here.
I spent fifteen years inside companies, not studying them from the outside. Across consulting, tech, and financial services, my work was to transform how teams operated: their processes, their workflows, the systems they ran on. I did that with Deloitte and inside Fortune 500 companies like Wells Fargo and HP.
My last role before coaching was at a Series C startup, as an engagement manager. So I've seen how a global enterprise runs and how a high-growth startup holds together under pressure. And I saw what most frameworks miss: how a company runs is mostly a reflection of how its leaders think and show up.
The part I loved most was never the systems. It was the people. Helping someone on my team realize what they were capable of, and then helping them carve the path to get there, was the thing I would have done for free.
I've always been pulled toward psychology and neuroscience, toward how people actually change. At some point the two halves of my life stopped making sense apart: the operator who understood how companies scale, and the person who cared most about how leaders grow. Little Pursuits is where I put them back together.
Who it's for
Who I work with.
The people who find their way to me are usually mid-climb, building something that has grown bigger, and heavier, than they expected.
- The founder a year or two past the leap, watching the company outgrow the person who started it.
- The co-founders learning to lead side by side without quietly pulling apart.
- The first-time CEO still wearing a title that feels like it belongs to someone else.
- The senior executive handed more than they've ever held, quietly wondering whether they're the one to hold it.
What brings them is rarely a missing skill. It's the loneliness of a room that reports to you, the quiet fear of being found out, the way the company's last number starts to feel like a verdict on who they are.
The work is quieter than the problems feel. Over time that loosens. The grip eases, the fear settles, and they stop carrying it alone.
“Talking it through helped me get unstuck, and made me far more willing to call on the people who'd offered to help.”
If you read this and felt a flicker of recognition, that is usually where the work begins. When you're ready, I'd welcome a conversation.
The method
The inner game.
You are the operating system of your company.
So the highest-leverage work is rarely another tactic. It's the quieter work on how you lead: your clarity, your decisions, your relationships, your energy.
None of that shifts in a weekend. It changes the way real things change: through small, repeatable pursuits, done consistently, until they compound. That's the idea Little Pursuits is named for.
The work tends to live on four fronts.
Clarity
Cut through the noise and the urgent, so you can see the few things that actually move the company and trust where your time goes.
Conviction
Step into the leader the stage now asks for. Make the call, and lead without second-guessing every move.
Connection
Navigate the relationships that carry the most weight: your co-founder, your board, your team. Have the conversations you've been avoiding.
Capacity
Protect your energy and set a pace you can hold, so you show up as the best version of yourself instead of the most depleted.
Every founder starts in a different place. The work meets you where the pressure is the highest.
ICF-PCC certified coach · MBA · BA in Psychology · 15 years from Deloitte, Wells Fargo, and HP to a Series C startup
Years of professional experience
Founders and leaders served
Hours of coaching
Client satisfaction rating
In their words
“If you've ever felt adrift in the big questions of founding a startup, Dar's coaching is not to be missed.”
Dar is both compassionate and extremely experienced in business, a combination that makes for a truly impactful session. Every session results in actionable items and accountability for us.
Mona Jawad
Co-founder & CEO, ASL Aspire
Let's see if it's a fit.
The best way to know is a conversation.