Rook
  • Clara Hofer, the founder, in a beige blazer against a rust-red wall
  • Jonas Brandt against an ochre wall
  • Mira Kovač against an olive green wall
  • Peter Lindner against a wine-red wall

Fewer, better moves.

We help companies of 20 to 200 people decide what to do next, set it up, and keep at it once we have gone.

Book a free 30-minute call See the four ways in

Four partners, and no junior staff. You work with the partner who knows your problem best; the other three read every note and join when they are useful.

Since
2017
Companies
60+
Based in
Vienna

Four ways in

Each with a fixed scope and a fixed price. Most clients start with a session; about half go on to one of the longer three.

  1. A red and white lighthouse on an empty beach 1.€450 Strategy session Ninety minutes on one hard question, and a written plan the next morning.
  2. A red rock mountain over a grey plain 2.€9,000 Operations setup Six weeks to put roles, meetings and reporting in order.
  3. White clouds low over a dark blue sea 3.€6,500 a month Growth partnership A partner at your leadership table for three months while you grow.
  4. A red sun low over a calm grey sea 4.€1,800 a month Advice on retainer A partner on call for hires, deals and second opinions.

Short documents. Decisions that stick.

We stay small on purpose. Every client works with a partner from the first call to the last invoice, never with a junior team behind a deck.

That means fewer meetings, shorter documents, and decisions you can act on the next Monday. A one-page note follows every session, so nothing depends on memory.

Book the free call with Clara

Work

All six cases

Also Ostwerk and Tallis

“Jonas sat in our Monday meeting for twelve weeks. By the end we no longer needed him there, which he told us was the point.”
Tobias Wirth · Founder, Brightloom
Three sticky notes left on a wall after a first session: Hire a COO, Cut churn, New pricing

The first session

“We came in with eleven priorities and left the first session with three. Six months later all three were done, and nobody missed the other eight.”
Lena Moser · COO, Halden Foods
60+
companies of 20 to 200 people advised
9
years in practice, all of them founder-led
4
partners, and no junior staff
8
clients at a time, so each gets a partner

Why Rook

I started Rook in 2017, after ten years running operations at two Vienna scale-ups and watching good teams lose months to decisions nobody would make.

We are four partners now. Each of us ran part of a growing company before advising one.

Clara Hofer, founder

Three steps, then the work

  1. 1.

    A free 30-minute call

    Tell us what is stuck. We say whether we can help, and if we can’t, who could.

  2. 2.

    A written proposal

    Within three working days: the problem as we understand it, what we would do, how long it takes and a fixed price.

  3. 3.

    One partner, start to finish

    In your office or on a call, with a one-page note after every session so nothing depends on memory.

Questions

What founders ask us before the first call.

How long does an engagement take?

From one session to three months. Most clients start with a strategy session and decide afterwards whether they need more.

Do you work with startups before revenue?

Rarely. We are most useful to companies that already sell something and have outgrown the way they were run at ten people.

Can we book a single session?

Yes. The 90-minute strategy session is €450 and stands on its own; there is nothing to sign after it.

Do you work outside Austria?

Yes, in German and English. About half our clients are elsewhere in Europe. We meet on video and visit once a quarter.

What do you need from us to start?

An hour with whoever owns the problem, and the numbers they already look at each week. We don’t ask for a data room.

A hard decision ahead? Tell us about it.

Write a few lines on what is stuck. A partner reads it the same day and replies with times for a call.

Start today +43 1 236 41 80