Hands-on growth advisory support to early stage mission-led founders and leaders
I help early-stage founders read their business through the numbers — not as a finance exercise, but as a decision-making tool for disciplined growth.
Together, we identify where money, time, and effort are creating real customer impact, test and validate your value proposition, and build the revenue channels and repeatable sales processes needed to grow.
The result: clearer numbers, sharper decisions, stronger business models, and a growth story that is more compelling to investors and customers alike.
Advisory support for independent media and public-interest journalism organizations working with Independent Media Support.
Practical tools for teams shifting from grant funding or early experiments toward sustainable revenue, runway management, and investor readiness.
Four areas of practical advisory support
Understand what can realistically generate income, what should be tested, and what should be stopped.
Move from activity-based budgets to cost awareness, runway thinking, and basic P&L discipline.
Prepare for grants, blended finance, venture philanthropy, or VC fundraising depending on your stage.
Turn strategy into a 90-day action plan with practical follow-up.
Two programs, one advisory approach
For independent media organizations, public-interest journalism organizations, and cultural media partners supported through IMS.
- Grant-dependency risk assessment
- Hybrid funding strategy
- Cost structure review
- Revenue experiments
- Leadership coaching
- 90-day sustainability plan
For US-based MSMEs, founders, and pre-seed startups looking to move from fragile funding, grants, or informal revenue toward a more sustainable commercial model.
- Revenue model design
- Runway and cash discipline
- Customer discovery
- Pricing and packaging
- VC/funder readiness
- 1:1 advisory sessions
I did not come from business. I was a social scientist — taught politics at university, advised governments on policy. In 2014 I walked away from that life to start my own company, with no pedigree, no network to lean on, and no idea what I was doing.
What followed was 20 years of learning everything the hard way — how to sell, how to lead, how to read a balance sheet, how to make decisions when the numbers are bad and the pressure is worse. I built a creative studio to $800K in revenue, raised $40M for a seed fund, helped 80+ startups navigate their early years, and ran a developer ecosystem for Bayer's radiology AI portfolio. I made every mistake in the book. Some of them twice.
The thing nobody tells you about running your own business is how distressing it actually is. Not just stressful — distressing. The kind that warps your problem analysis, clouds your judgment, and stirs up whatever life baggage you were already carrying. The entrepreneurial journey can become a vicious loop, and the last thing most founders want to do is let someone into that loop. Who wants to show the seams, especially when everyone expects the poster-perfect leader?
I get it. I have been in that loop.
I do this work because it makes the journey less lonely — for the people I work with and honestly for me too. I work best with people I find genuine mutual fit with, as entrepreneurs and as human beings. If you found me here, it is probably because an organisation I work with pointed you in my direction. That matters to me — it means there is already some degree of trust in the room before we start.
I am not going to tell you I have all the answers. I am going to sit with you in the hard decisions, help you see your numbers clearly, and make sure you are not making them alone.