Founders of service businesses doing $2M–$20M with 5–50+ employees. Usually the person who built the thing, is still running the thing, and is starting to wonder if the thing still fits. They're past startup mode but not at the stage where they have a full executive team or a board telling them what to do. They're making big decisions — about people, partnerships, positioning, identity — mostly alone. That's where I come in.

Most coaches help you understand why you're stuck. Most masterminds give you perspective from a room of 8-15 other founders. I do something different by design: I sit 1:1 with founders behind closed doors and help them make the next call. I don't diagnose, I mobilize. And nothing said in our work together leaves the room.

Success problems are the ones nobody warned you about — the ones that only show up after the business is working. You hit your number, you built the team, you've got the thing people told you to go build. And now you're dealing with a whole new set of questions that feel ungrateful to say out loud: Why do I feel stuck inside something I created? Why does this success feel heavier than the struggle did? Why am I ashamed of the Audi in the driveway?

These aren't startup problems. They're not cash-flow-crisis problems. They're the problems that come with having built something real — and realizing you might have outgrown it, or it might have outgrown you. Partnership tension at $3M looks nothing like partnership tension at $300K. Making a leadership hire when you already have a team is a completely different animal than hiring your first employee. Deciding whether to stay, restructure, or walk away from something profitable is a decision most advisors have never actually made themselves.

I have. That's what I mean by success problems — and if reading this list made your chest tighten a little, you're probably sitting on a few of them right now.

Partnership tension. Leadership shifts. The pivot you've been circling internally and doing nothing about. The conversation you're avoiding. The pricing or positioning reset feels overdue. Exit decisions, reinvention questions, the identity transition from founder to CEO, building a team, and feeling irrelevant in your own company. Most of what founders bring me is a decision they've already made eleven times in their head — and never once on paper.

Not at the same time. If you're in my room, I'm in your corner, fully. I don't take on two clients in the same market simultaneously, and I don't carry what I learn in one engagement into another. That's not a policy I had to write down. It's just how I'm wired. The whole model falls apart if you're wondering whether the advice I'm giving you is also being given to someone else. It won't be.

No. This is not operational consulting or fractional leadership. My role is to help you think clearly, offer ideas, advice, and input, and help you move forward with confidence—and then I help hold you accountable and advise as it unfolds

I work with the founder first, and always. That's the relationship I built this for, and it's where the real decisions live. But sometimes the work naturally extends to the people around them. I've facilitated tough conversations between co-founders, helped get alignment and clarity around roles for incoming second and commands and founders, sat in with leadership teams during pivotal transitions, and coached newer people managers who needed to step up. The common thread is that the founder invites me in. I don't go around them, I don't take side engagements with their team behind their back, and I don't become everyone's advisor. But once I'm in the room with your team, they get the same honesty, the same energy, and the same investment. The people closest to the founder matter — they're usually carrying more than anyone realizes.

If your leadership team needs development, I'll tell you, and I might be the right person to help you with that (or help you find the person who is).

I'm based in Columbus, Ohio, and in-person is my preference for most things in life because there's something about being in the same room that makes the big conversations land differently. Clients regularly travel to me for intensives, and I've had founders travel in for a single day because they needed that room to think out loud.

That said, not everything requires a plane ticket. Ongoing coaching works well virtually. Sometimes we walk and talk. Sometimes we meet at my office and end the session with charcuterie and a glass of bubbly. And sometimes, when things are really in the weeds, I make house calls. The format fits the moment. We figure it out together.

Yes, and most of my clients end up there. The four models on this site are starting points, not a menu. Once I understand what you're navigating, we'll build something that fits how you actually work. Some founders need a single intensive to get unstuck. Others want me in their corner for a full year. I've designed engagements around board prep, co-founder dynamics, exit planning, and everything in between. If it doesn't fit neatly into a box, that's usually a sign we should talk.

I'm honest about this: my sweet spot is founders who've already built something that's working and are now navigating what comes next. If you're pre-revenue or still figuring out product-market fit, I'm probably not your best investment right now. That said, if you're a service business founder who's past the scrappy early stage and hitting your first real growing pains (team friction, pricing confusion, identity crisis at $500K) reach out. We might be a fit earlier than you think.

Maybe. My experience, my pattern recognition, and the questions I ask are all shaped by 15+ years inside service businesses — agencies, consultancies, professional services. That's where I see around corners other advisors miss. If you're running a product or e-commerce company, I can probably help with the founder-level stuff (partnership dynamics, leadership identity, decision-making under pressure), but I won't pretend to have the operational instincts for your model the way I do for service businesses. I'd rather be honest about that upfront than waste your time.