Positioning
Who the company is for, which messages are confusing buyers, and how to make the offer easier to say yes to.
Founder mentorship
A second brain
for founder decisions.
I help bootstrapped SaaS, civic tech, govtech, and small-business founders pressure-test the decision in front of them.
- Former ReCollect CTO
- SaaS used by hundreds of municipalities
- Founder-side sale to private equity
Where I can help
I work best with founders who are building real businesses: customers, revenue, staff, obligations, rules, and decisions that cannot be solved by another generic startup thread.
- Bootstrapped SaaS and service businesses
Pricing, packaging, retention, support load, margins, and making the company work without the VC playbook. - Civic tech and govtech
Selling into municipalities, navigating procurement, budget cycles, bureaucratic rules, and the trust public-sector buyers need before they move. - Technical founders becoming executives
Moving from building the system to leading engineering, hiring, culture, customer commitments, and tradeoffs. - Founder sales and positioning
Finding the words buyers understand, improving demos and tradeshows, and seeing which stories are getting in the way. - Remote teams and company culture
Cadence, communication, accountability, and keeping a distributed team aligned without adding bureaucracy for its own sake. - Preparing for a sale
Understanding buyer conversations, diligence, deal dynamics, and when to bring in lawyers, accountants, or bankers.
Why me
I was ReCollect's CTO and one of the people shaping the culture. I helped turn a civic hackathon project into a durable SaaS company used by hundreds of municipalities in Canada, the United States, and the UK.
In the early years I architected and operated the application, sold early customers, worked tradeshows, led engineering, and helped build the company into a midsized remote team.
When ReCollect sold to private equity, I went through the process from the founder/operator side: preparation, diligence, buyer questions, deal dynamics, and the emotional reality of having the company you built on the table.
- Former CTO
Used to making tradeoffs across product, people, architecture, customers, and cash. - Production software since 2001
Built and maintained systems in wireless, enterprise security, collaboration, and civic tech that had to work for real customers. - Bootstrapped company builder
Experienced with customer value, renewals, margins, support load, cash discipline, and durable revenue, not just startup theatre. - Founder-side sale experience
Personally been through a private-equity transaction and seen other purchases play out up close.
Things we can talk through
Business model
Pricing, packaging, margins, sales motion, and what kind of company the model is creating.
Founder judgment
Whether your instincts are right, what is fear versus evidence, and which decision matters now.
Technology leadership
CTO decisions, engineering priorities, technical debt, hiring, remote teams, and product delivery.
Government sales
Why a city would trust you, why it may take longer than expected, and how public-sector buying actually works.
Sales motion
What belongs in the demo, where founder-led sales is working, and when the process needs more structure.
Remote teams
How to set cadence, expectations, and communication patterns without turning the company into meetings.
Transaction readiness
How to think before a sale, what buyers may care about, and when to bring in lawyers, accountants, or bankers.
Public offer
Founder Sounding Board
A focused 90-minute session for a founder or owner with a specific decision, stuck point, or big question.
$275
CAD
- Short intake before the session.
- We schedule it manually if it looks like a fit.
- Optional short written recap.
Ongoing advisory is by fit
Some founders benefit from talking to the same outside person more than once. If the first session shows that would help, we can define a small advisory cadence around the decisions that matter most.
I take ongoing advisory on selectively so each relationship has enough context and attention to be useful.
Mentorship and advisory services are not legal, tax, accounting, investment, valuation, or brokerage advice. I do not guarantee introductions or outcomes.
Request a session
Send a short note through the form: who you are, what your company does, and what you want to talk through. I will follow up manually.
- Company context
What do you sell, to whom, and how far along is the business? - The hard question
What are you stuck on or deciding? - Useful outcome
What would make a 90-minute conversation worth it?