Yoeri Dassen — Coaching for Founders & Top Performers
Coach · Founder · Psychologist

The only founder coach who’s been every person in the room.

Strategic coaching for founders and top performers navigating the gap between ambition and the capital, team, and psychology needed to cross it.

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I know what this costs. I’ve paid it. I’m still here. That shapes how I work with founders — not from a distance, but from inside the same experience.


Clinical Foundation

5 years as counsellor and therapist. Psychodrama for embodied identity work. Improv and Toastmasters for presence under pressure. PBL for holding groups through genuine uncertainty.

Operator Lens

I distinguish strategy from psychology problems — most coaches can’t do both. Founder, BD lead, investor. I pattern-match from direct experience across all three seats.

Facilitation at Scale

1,000+ hours in PBL — activating intrinsic motivation in groups facing open-ended problems. Directly applicable to founding teams moving without a clear roadmap.

Long-Horizon Holding

I work best with founders whose mission has a long tail and a high personal cost. I won’t shrink a vision to make it comfortable.


Clinical psychologist & therapist. Private practice, group therapy, psychodrama training. Built foundational skills in holding space under pressure.
University lecturer. Psychology & neuroscience at Maastricht University and others. 6 years of PBL facilitation — 1,000+ hours guiding groups through ambiguity.
Y Combinator W18. Built Psylaris — VR-based EMDR therapy platform. Scaled to 7,500+ therapists across 8 countries. Led fundraising, departed after co-founder split over values alignment.
Venture partner & angel investor. 15+ investments. Led a $7.5M Series A. Sat on both sides of every founder-investor dynamic.
Founder & coach. Building the foundations for a space project on a 300-year timeline. Coaching the founders I recognize — the ones carrying something bigger than themselves.

Deep-tech founders

Hardware, biotech, space, energy, climate. Long development cycles, capital-intensive, high technical risk. The fundraising playbook is different — I know it from both sides.

Frontier founders

AI, neurotech, longevity, quantum. You’re building something the market doesn’t fully understand yet. The psychology of leading without external validation is where I come in.

Top performers

Athletes, executives, creatives operating at the edge of their capacity. You need someone who understands pressure, identity, and what it costs to sustain elite performance over time.


Y Combinator W18 Clinical Psychologist 15+ Angel Investments $7.5M Series A Lead 1,000+ hrs Group Facilitation 6yr University Lecturer Psychodrama Trained 7,500+ Therapists Scaled Startup Advisor

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Limited availability. By application only.

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