Entrepreneurial DNA

About You

You have built something that works.

Now a different question is emerging.

Not how to grow faster. How to grow in a way you can actually live with.

Most founders I work with are not failing. They are succeeding in ways that are starting to cost them something. Their time. Their clarity. Their sense of who they are outside the business.

You designed the company. You probably have not designed the relationship between the company and your life.

That is what this work is about.

About Me

I advise founders on the decisions that shape their companies and their lives over time.

My name is Erica Starks.

I began my career in feature animation at The Walt Disney Company and in the Broadway industry in New York.

At 26, I founded NewYork60, a multilingual international ticketing platform for Broadway shows.

The company was profitable within months. Over fifteen years, it generated more than 22M USD in total revenue.

This placed the company in the top 2% of women-owned businesses in the United States by revenue, with American Express spend in the top 1% globally, regardless of gender.

At its largest, the team was ten people, most part-time. For years, it operated with only three people, including me.

It served more than 150,000 customers across ninety countries in eleven languages.

The company grew organically, without outside capital. Lean structure, disciplined cash management, and speed of decision preserved independence.

I started that company at 26, single, and closed it at 40, married with four children. The business evolved as my life did.

What I know is not theoretical. I have sat where you are sitting. I have made the decisions you are facing, under real pressure, with real things at stake.

I learned that resilience is not something you find under stress. It is something you build before it arrives.

Today, in addition to running my own ventures, I advise founders carrying similar levels of responsibility and ambition.

Philosophy

At the center of your business is a person.

That person has a life they are trying to protect while building something they care about.

Structure is how you protect it. The decisions you make about how your business is built determine how much of yourself it costs you, and whether that cost was worth it.

I have watched founders realize, years in, that the business was driving them rather than the other way around. That they had been available to everyone except themselves. That success had arrived but felt like a trap.

This does not happen because they made bad decisions. It happens because they never stopped to design the thing intentionally.

You can build fast. You can build lean. You can build something that funds a life you actually want.

But only if you decide what that looks like before the business decides for you.

Personal DNA

Who you are beneath the roles you play.

Your values. Your risk tolerance. Your ambition. Your non-negotiables. What you are like under pressure, and what that costs the people around you.

Most founders have never written this down. They run on instinct and wonder why the same patterns keep appearing.

Clarity here is not self-indulgent. It is structural. Every decision you make runs through this layer whether you acknowledge it or not.

Brand DNA

What you are building, for whom, and why it matters.

The problem you actually solve. What you stand for. Who your work is truly for, and who it is not for.

When this is unclear, everything downstream gets harder. Marketing, pricing, partnerships, growth. You end up explaining yourself constantly instead of attracting the right people naturally.

When it is clear, decisions get faster and easier.

Leadership DNA

How you decide, how you lead, and what it is like to be on the other side of you.

How you handle pressure. What kind of people thrive around you. How others experience you when the stakes rise.

You are shaping culture whether you intend to or not. The patterns you do not see in yourself get amplified at scale and absorbed by your team.

This is the section most founders want to skip. It is usually where the most important work is.

AI DNA

How you actually use AI, not in theory, but in your daily life and work.

Most founders are in one of two places. They have avoided AI because they assume it is still where it was two or three years ago. Or they are overwhelmed by it, chasing tools without a clear sense of what actually helps.

We walk through your daily frictions. Where is time disappearing? Where are you doing work that could be automated, delegated to a tool, or eliminated entirely?

Sometimes the answer is a new process. Sometimes a simple tool. Sometimes just understanding that you already have access to a thinking partner available at any hour, for your business or your personal life.

The goal is not to make you more productive. It is to free you up to be more human.

Methodology

This is not a coaching program. It is not a course.

It is a small number of focused conversations with someone who has actually built something, over a long time, under real constraints.

I ask direct questions. I name patterns you may not be seeing. I tell you what I actually think.

We clarify four dimensions: Personal, Brand, Leadership, and AI. We look at where you are clear, where there is tension, and where things are starting to cost you more than they should.

What has been swirling in your head for months becomes something you can read, act on, and hand to someone else.

Deliverables

Together we build four documents.

Personal DNA. Brand DNA. Leadership Manifesto. AI Framework.

Each one is written in plain language. Specific to you. Useful immediately.

A reference point for decisions. A guide for growth. Something concrete you can share with your team, your partners, or your family.

Most founders have never had anything like this written down. Once it exists, they wonder how they operated without it.

Engagement

I work with a small number of founders at any given time.

We begin with a conversation to see whether this is the right fit and what the work should focus on.

Some engagements are a focused sprint: a concentrated period to get clear on direction, positioning, and leadership.

Others are ongoing, through periods of growth, change, or recalibration, when having someone who knows your business and asks the right questions is worth more than any single deliverable.

All work is confidential. Pricing is discussed after an initial conversation to confirm fit and scope.

If you are carrying real responsibility and building something that matters to you, I would like to hear from you.

Contact

All inquiries are direct and confidential.