For heads of engineering, L&D and people teams

Coaching for the three moments you already budget for.

New starters, people heading into a review, and first-time managers each get a programme of three guided sessions, 35 to 60 minutes each. Every session ends with a document they use at work. Try one free with 20 of your people for a quarter.

Start a free pilotSee a sample report

Fixed scope, nothing to pay, nothing to roll out.

I spent 16 years at JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse watching good people stall for reasons nobody named.

The pattern was always the same: someone clever, working hard, missing one specific skill nobody had ever said out loud to them. One skill, and a different one each time. The First Ten turns what I’d have told them into three guided sessions for the moment they’re in.

I learned my own three years too late. It is the first session of Be seen, and the one the diagnostic finds most often.

James Gray, founder

16 years / JP Morgan / Deutsche Bank / Credit Suisse / 3 programmes / 10 sessions

What your people actually do

Nothing to roll out. No LMS, no admin project, no kickoff deck.

  1. Week 1You choose the programmeArrive, Be seen or Lead, for the moment the group is in. Everyone takes the same short diagnostic, which records where they start.
  2. Weeks 2–103 sessions eachA guided coaching session takes 35 to 60 minutes, depending on the skill. Self-scheduled, and each one ends with a written document about their real work.
  3. Week 11You get the reportWho started and finished, how people rated themselves before and after, and which skills came up. Individual results stay private unless the person chooses to share.

The three programmes

People joining, people heading into a review or promotion round, and people managing others for the first time. Each programme is three sessions, taken in order, and a check-in at day 60.

  • Onboarding budget

    Arrive

    For people in their first ninety days in a role, including internal moves.

    1. What this role is forThe Audit
    2. How this place worksThe Translation
    3. One goal for the quarterThe Score

    About 2 to 3 hours, over three to six weeks

  • Performance and talent budget

    Be seen

    For people with a review, calibration or promotion case in the next six months.

    1. What you deliveredDue Process
    2. Where you add valueThe Positioning Brief
    3. Who will confirm itThe Evidence File

    About 1¾ to 3 hours, over three to six weeks

  • Leadership development budget

    Lead

    For people managing others for the first time, or about to.

    1. Hand the work overThe Leadership Translation
    2. The conversation you've put offThe Conversation Debrief
    3. Who decides whatThe Ownership Audit

    About 2 to 3¼ hours, over three to six weeks

Every programme ends with Signal Map, a check-in sixty days after the first session.

Not sure which to start with? Send your team the free check and see, anonymously, how many of them fit each one.

Coaching for everyone in their first ten years, at £119 a person.

Coaching usually costs a few hundred pounds an hour, so only a handful of people get it. This gives everyone a programme of three sessions for the moment they’re in, and a document from each. The same price for every team up to 100 people.

How pricing works

What comes back to you

A count of which skills are blocking the group, and nothing that can be traced to a person. It doesn’t appear at all until 5 people have finished. Below that, a report naming which skills came up would let you work out individuals by elimination.

Nobody sees an individual's work unless they share it
Not the diagnostic, not the session, not the documents. That is enforced in the database, not in a setting, and it is the reason people answer honestly rather than the way they would answer a performance review. If someone wants you to read part of a document, for a promotion case or a one-to-one, they pick the sections and share them with you. They can take them back whenever they like.
Look at a sample report

What procurement will ask

Does a manager see an individual's results?
Not unless that person decides to show them. Diagnostics and documents belong to the person who made them. You see counts across the group, above a minimum group size. At the end of any session, an employee can choose sections of their document to share with the people running the programme, and withdraw them later. Nobody else can share on their behalf. People answer honestly because their manager isn’t reading over their shoulder.
Where does employee data live, and for how long?
Accounts, sessions and documents are stored with Supabase, on AWS in the EU. The coaching runs on Anthropic’s Claude in the US, which gets what someone writes in a session in order to reply, and doesn’t train on it. Transfers outside the UK and EEA rely on Standard Contractual Clauses. Account and session data is kept for the life of the account. Diagnostic answers are deleted automatically after 12 months. Anyone can ask us to delete their account and data at hello@thefirstten.io, and we respond within 30 days. The privacy policy lists every sub-processor and retention period.
Do you support SSO and invoicing?
SSO isn’t available yet. People sign in with their work email, using a password or a one-time code we email to them. If you need SSO or a data processing agreement, we scope it with you before the rollout. The First Ten Ltd is registered in England and Wales and works under UK GDPR. Invoice and purchase order terms are agreed on the call, before anything is billed.
What does it cost after the pilot?
£119 per person, per programme. As many people as you want. Each takes a programme: three sessions and a check-in sixty days after they start. Anyone can take a second programme at the same price. Three sessions and a check-in, for less than an hour of coaching usually costs. The same price for every team up to 100 people.
What happens to the documents people write?
They belong to the employee, who can export them and keep them after they leave. It’s also why people engage with this rather than clicking through it.
What does success look like at the end?
Completion rate, the skills report, and whether managers report better one-to-ones. Agree the measure before you start. We’d rather you stopped it on evidence than renewed it on inertia.

Run a free pilot with 20 of your people this quarter.

Pick one programme: Arrive for new starters, Be seen for people heading into a review, Lead for first-time managers. Three guided sessions each, a check-in at day 60, and a report on what changed. It ends by itself. The first step is a 20-minute call, where we show you a real diagnostic, a real document, and the report you would get back.

Start a free pilot

Or send the numbers to whoever signs: build the business case.