I’ve spent most of my career helping companies grow, and now I’m looking for founders to invest in and mentor. People ask what I’m looking for. The honest answer is that I look at the founder first and the idea second.
Ideas change. Markets shift, the product gets rebuilt, and the first customer is rarely the best one. The person running the company is the part that stays, so that’s where I spend most of my attention.
They’ve already decided
At Blue Raven Solar I watched people build something big up close. What set them apart was that they had committed to building it. I look for the same thing. A founder who is still keeping their options open will treat the company as optional the first time it gets hard.
You can usually tell from what someone has done before the pitch. They’ve talked to customers, shipped something, sold something, or given something up to make room for the company.
They know exactly who buys
The strongest founders can describe their buyer in detail. They know the job title, the problem that person is trying to solve, who else has to sign off, and how long the decision takes. If the answer to “who’s the customer” is “everyone,” the company doesn’t have a market yet.
This matters to me because most of my work is with technically complex B2B companies, where sales cycles run for months and a group of people makes the call. A founder who understands how their customer actually buys can build marketing that fits it.
They can tell the story
Founders sell before anyone else does. They sell to their first customers, their first hires and their investors. I want to hear a founder explain what they do in plain language and why it matters to the person paying for it. If I walk away able to repeat the pitch to someone else, that’s a good sign.
If you can’t explain it simply to me, a buying committee is going to have a hard time with it too.
They’re honest about the numbers
I’d rather see a small number that’s real than a big one that’s dressed up. Tell me where revenue actually comes from, what it costs to win a customer, and what isn’t working yet. The founders I trust most bring up the problems before I find them.
They take advice and still argue
I want founders who take input seriously and push back when they think I’m wrong. A founder who agrees with everything I say isn’t getting much out of me. One who ignores everything isn’t either. The useful conversations happen somewhere in between.
Where I can help
I’m most useful to a specific kind of company. You sell something complex, you have early traction, and growth now depends on finding and winning the right customers. That’s the problem I’ve worked on for my whole career, at Monumetric, at Blue Raven and at RELLO.
For a company like that, I can bring capital and a growth engine. That means help with the demand that pays for this quarter, the proof that shortens sales cycles over the next year, and the brand that makes everything easier over the next decade.
Pitch me
If this sounds like you, send me a short note on what you’re building and who buys it. Include the part you’re stuck on. That’s usually where the conversation gets interesting.
