“We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.”
—Alain de Botton

Founded in 2021 by Andy Sparks, Blue Dot is a company at the intersection of executive coaching and addressing climate change. You can read a detailed post with our backstory here.

The short story is that Andy spent a decade in San Francisco building two companies, Mattermark and Holloway, as the COO and CEO respectively, and eventually transitioned to a new career as a coach to startup founders.

Then, in September of 2020, Andy woke up a view of San Francisco (shown here) that looked more like Blade Runner than a blue dot. That day prompted Andy to research more about climate change and left him concluding that we're likey to see >3°C warming in our lifetime.

After considering going back to school or starting a climate-focused company, Andy decided to shift his coaching practice toward entrepreneurs addressing climate change. While we love working primarily with climate founders, we're also open to working with leaders who share our values and belief that together we can build a better future.

Right now, Blue Dot is just Andy.

Before coaching, Andy was the co-founder & COO at Mattermark, a business analytics and data company, and co-founder & CEO at Holloway, a digital book publishing company. In 2019, he published The Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital, a 310-page manual on the ins and outs of raising VC money.

After Holloway, Andy studied coaching at The Hudson Institute of Coaching and has worked with more than 30 clients across more than 300 hours of session time. After nearly 10 years in San Francisco, Andy moved to Denver, Colorado in 2021.

Andy likes to balance inquiry-driven coaching with tactical advice sprinkled in (but only when asked for). Put another way, he loves working with clients to explore their values, increase their self-awareness, and uncover the roots behind confidence issues, but also loves working with leaders to develop into stronger managers, take their seats as CEOs, and help leaders drive results.