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PRAXIS EST. 2017
ICF CERTIFIED COACH
CONTACT@
MONICAZENG.COM
Monica Zeng
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Founder Coach
Founder Coach
years
A pragmatic approach to coaching for technical founders and engineering leads. I help you lead with clarity, navigate crises, and build the capacity your vision demands. My practice is rooted in my experience as a founder, operator, and coach.
- ABOUT ME
I’m the founder & executive coach at Inner Foundation, a coaching firm that partners with founders and tech leads in crypto to expand their psychology, leadership, and strategy.
Prior to that, I co-founded Firm and held leadership and consulting roles at some of Ethereum’s foundational projects: Status, Aragon, and OpenZeppelin.
I’ve coached 30+ founders over eight years, helping them find clarity, identify blockers, develop mental frameworks, build leadership skills, and stay accountable to their goals.
What founders value most of my practice is depth: understanding your psychological patterns, the mechanics of why you’re stuck, the architecture of how you work, why it breaks down, and how to rebuild it. I combine knowledge across psychology, philosophy, leadership, and operations.
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Years Coaching
Testimonials
Co-founder and CTO @ mimicfi / The Graph TAB member / former Balancer, Aragon, OpenZeppelin
Mon helped me stay grounded through one of the toughest periods of my career. While living in a stressful and constantly changing environment, full of noise, tight deadlines, and significant responsibilities, she continuously guided me to learn more about myself, keep my emotions in balance, understand my past, and clarify my mind so I could make thoughtful and confident decisions. The practices I learned with her are tools I still use today. This work isn’t a one-time experience, but something you can carry with you for the rest of your life.
Founder / Head of Product @ Crypto Company
I can't imagine getting this far, this fast without Monica's support. She not only helped me push things forward but also helped me notice my biases and think clearly. Incredibly helpful.
VC Partner / former CTO @ Aragon Project
Monica played an instrumental role in my professional growth and success, forming a foundational pillar of support through my time as an individual contributor and later transition into technical management. She became an indispensable companion with whom I could trust, challenge, be challenged and reflect upon from another perspective. Most importantly, in my constantly evolving role at a fast-moving start-up, she strove to continually re-understand my personal situation to stay effective in widening my awareness and bringing clarity to new situations.
Partner @ BUZHI / Co-founder OpenZepplin, Decentraland, Proof of Existence
Moni is surprisingly wise for her young age. She helps you focus on what matters and work through the many challenges of the hectic startup life. She's also super fun to talk to!
Serial Founder / Growth Hacker / Co-founder Lolamarket
Monica is badass! I’ll always be grateful for the support she gave me when launching my project. She helped me stay consistent without feeling pressured, made me reflect in a super friendly way, and helped me bring out the best version of the leader I am. I realize that many of the things we learned together have become a permanent part of who I am. I also loved that her approach is a mix of emotion, business, and science. She shares her presence and her intellect in equal measure, plus tons of reference links to books and videos to keep expanding on the concepts from the sessions. They were incredibly useful. She’s like a walking library of resources for becoming the best version of yourself. A mini-Yoda for founders! Thanks, Monica, for your help!
Founder / former CTO @ POKT Network
Before coaching, I was unproductive and feeling stuck, and after coaching I was able to pinpoint what was holding me back and unlock it. Coaching is a mental health tool, like any other, with a purpose and objectives that have to serve you as an individual, in both your personal and professional lives. Monica helped me unlock my full potential and effectiveness by serving as a medium of the coaching process and guiding me through the steps necessary to complete my coaching with satisfying results.
Angel Investor / Serial Founder
Coaching helps you build a complete picture of your personal and professional life. It's like a personal audit, where you discover the real causes of the problems and potential solutions. Coaching is probably the action with most mid-term ROI for the organizations and yourself being an executive. With Monica, I discovered lost of hidden patterns that kept me from my optimal professional balance. When we solved them, I felt liberated from a persona point of view, and the career growth I've experienced has been spectacular.
Head of UX / Founder @ Chispa
I’ve always prided myself on being independent and solving challenges on my own until I discovered Moni’s Magic. She has been more than just a coach; she’s become a trusted person and an invaluable business advisor. She quickly grasped my personal and professional context and tailored her coaching methods to suit my preferences, incorporating tools like Miro, building my Notion dashboard, communicating through WhatsApp and constantly adapting to my needs through role-play exercises. Something I’m extremely grateful for is how Moni is always available, and we’ve found that asynchronous feedback is a highly effective tool for tackling on-the-go challenges. Her support has been instrumental in my journey as an entrepreneur. If you are looking for someone to be accountable of your process and get high quality insights, try some Moni Magic!
International PM / Data Scientist @ Pharma Corp
Sessions with Monica are like seeds; as you plant them, dedicate time, and water them, they allow you to grow alongside them. Through questions and reflections, Monica has helped me identify the mindsets that do not bring me closer to where I want to be, and define my identity. Thanks to Monica's guidance, I have learned to identify what I need at each moment, how I can achieve it, and what I can take on. With her help, I am developing my own method of decision-making and setting realistic future scenarios. Moreover, we are working on breaking down my goals into phases and executable tasks, understanding that it is a process and that the most important result might not be the final goal. Thanks to her, I now ask for help when I need it and effectively delegate what I consider necessary to focus on what truly deserves my attention.
Coaching is highly personal. We start with biweekly one-on-one sessions, then adapt cadence and methodology as your goals and challenges evolve. You’ll be confronted with questions and invited to sit with uncomfort. You’ll then find answers from my observations, curated resources, and most importantly, within yourself.
I work with no more than 10-15 founders at a time. This isn’t arbitrary, transformation at this depth requires sustained attention that doesn’t scale. My practice operates near capacity by design, with new clients typically coming through direct referral or as engagements naturally complete.
Space is limited. Express interest below.
Philosophy
Leadership is about bearing the weight of your role when there are no good choices, when you have to make decisions when you can't see the full picture, about staying human when you're expected more. You might be looking for a consigliere, someone to argue, to challenge your thoughts. I know there's no universal playbook or prescription to skip the ugly of what's to come. So I can't offer that. The crown is heavy and the job is hard. I don't coach people to get success or power. I help you carry it.
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