I’ve made the climb — in business, and as a person.
I hold a doctorate in industrial-organizational psychology and spent two decades building companies — including Capstone Nutrition, through its growth and its sale to private equity, and the integration of six manufacturers that followed. Since 2023 I have been on the other side of the table as a venture investor, reading founders’ decks, cap tables and diligence files, which is how I know exactly what an investor or a buyer sees when they look at your company, and how early they see it.
What I understood only after the exit is that I had been spending my own capital the whole time to build somebody else’s balance sheet. Founder Capital is where I bring all of it home to the person.
- Control what can be controlled. Almost everything that hurts in business and in life comes from outcomes we can’t govern. The response is not optimism — it is structure. Build the parts you own well enough that the parts you don’t can’t take everything with them.
- Evidence beats belief. A deck is testimony; a file is evidence. The same is true of a person. “I’m fine” is testimony. A score, a trend, and a week that ran without you is evidence.
- Start from strength, not damage. Strengths-based, solution-focused practice is not a nicety — it is the fastest route. Your best capital is the lever you use to raise your weakest one, because you already know how to build that way.
- The summit has to be yours. Plenty of people climb somebody else’s mountain very efficiently and only notice at the top. Naming your own summit is the first real work, and it is harder than any operating problem.
- Small, assigned, and dated beats inspired. Insight without an assignment is entertainment. The move is always smaller than you expect, and that is deliberate.
- Independence. I own what I have, and I want the same for the people I work with. It is why I take flat fees and never a percentage of your raise, your revenue, or your sale.
- Telling the truth. Including when it costs me the engagement. If the honest answer is “not yet,” or “you need a clinician, not a coach,” or “I’m not the right person,” that is what you will hear.
- Family, and the arithmetic of a life. I have watched what the work costs when nobody is measuring that side of the ledger. It is the reason the five capitals include the ones that don’t appear on a P&L.
- Being the same person either way. Identity is living by your values whether or not anyone is watching. I hold myself to it and I will ask you about it.
- Direct, and prepared. I read what you send before the call. I keep a running read on your company and your capitals across months, so you are never re-explaining context.
- One thing at a time. We go all the way down on the thing that matters most rather than skimming five. You will do most of the talking for the first ten minutes and considerably less after that.
- Plain language. No jargon, no models for their own sake, no homework that exists to look like progress.
- Flexible when your world is. If something is on fire on a Tuesday, that becomes the session. A program that makes you wait two weeks to talk about the thing that is burning is a subscription, not coaching.
- I don’t carry your pack. I show you the route, mark the hazards, and stay roped in until you are standing on your summit. You lead the climb.
Why a trusted advisor, and not just a coach
Because I have sat in all three chairs. I have run the payroll and made the wrong hire. I have read the file from the investor’s side and priced the risk. And I have done the personal work the hard way, out of order, after the fact. Very few people advising founders have done more than one of those.
Because the incentives are clean. Flat monthly fee. No equity, no success fee, no percentage of anything, no paid introductions. I have no interest in your company other than your outcome, which means you can take my advice at face value.
Because it stays in the room. Mutual NDA, both directions — including from your board, your investors, and your team. The value of a person you can think out loud with disappears the moment you have to manage what you say.