Article · 10 min read

The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy (for Founders)

Amy Buechler · Scale Yourself (Amy Buechler) Free Beginner

Buechler was Y Combinator's in-house founder coach and therapist, so this is the rare piece written by someone who has sat across from hundreds of founders in both roles. She gives you the actual decision rule (are you trying to feel better or do better), maps therapy to the pre-PMF anxiety-tolerance phase and coaching to leadership scaling, and even prints realistic price ranges and timelines so you know what you are buying.

• Ask one question to choose: are you trying to feel better (therapy) or do better (coaching), and if both are true, treat the clinical issue first
• Therapy builds the foundational operating system of your psychology; coaching makes you feature-complete for the company you are scaling
• Know the economics going in: therapy runs roughly 80 to 450 dollars an hour weekly, coaching runs about 1,000 to 10,000-plus a month