Field Report
The 2026 Founders Report
One year after the 2025 series. Capital got harder, AI productivity got real, smaller teams are winning. The diagnosis and the playbook for the back half of 2026.
Leads that sales won't call.
I fix the reason your company isn't hitting its number.
Growth stalled, or the target was never realistic. Either way you're missing the number, and I parachute in to fix that.
Fractional CRO for founder-led, family-owned, or PE-backed B2B companies, roughly $2M to $15M in revenue.
The symptoms
Six ways the number goes missing.
It looks like a sales problem. Sometimes it is. Often the cause sits upstream, in how you win customers, keep them, and grow them.
A pipeline that only fills when the founder posts, speaks, or calls a friend.
Deals that die after the proposal.
A forecast nobody trusts.
Accounts that quit growing after year one.
Renewals that slip because nobody owned them.
Self-check
6 signs the number won't fix itself.
Check the ones that sound like your company.
Three or more? That's a pattern. Let's find the reason.
Want the deeper read? Take the 8-question Revenue Engine Scorecard →
Three ways to work together
Where is the revenue engine today?
Different stages of revenue maturity need different work. I operate across the full lifecycle, meeting the business where it actually is, not where a productized package wants it to be.
Fix
For stalled $5M–$15M firms where marketing, sales, and customer success are misaligned and growth has flattened. I get inside the system, find where the engine is leaking revenue, and repair the structural gaps, so the curve bends back upward without another round of hiring and firing.
Rebuild
For firms whose revenue engine has outgrown the design that got them here. I redesign how marketing, sales, and customer success produce growth together, turning inconsistent performance into predictable, measurable, repeatable revenue that the founder can finally step back from.
Build
For earlier-stage firms that need structure, not experimentation chaos. I install the revenue engine from zero, messaging, motion, measurement, so the team has something real to execute against instead of inventing it on the fly.
Built for the Stalled Scale Founder
Your revenue problem isn't a tactic. It could be system fragmentation.
At $2M–$15M, the business has grown past instinct but hasn't reached the structure that makes growth predictable. Marketing, sales, and customer success run in parallel lanes that never quite hand off. The business runs the founder, not the other way around, and there is never a quiet week to actually fix the system.
Hiring and firing sales staff hasn't fixed it. Agencies haven't fixed it. Tactical changes deliver temporary lifts and then revert. The problem isn't effort. The problem is that nobody is rebuilding the engine while the business is still flying.
Start the conversation- Founder-led or family-owned B2B, $2M–$15M (sweet spot $5M–$10M)
- B2B, SaaS, professional services, FinTech, HRTech, and beyond
- Stalled or inconsistent growth with no clear diagnosis
- Founder, CEO, or managing partner sitting at the top
- Already tried hiring sales reps, agencies, and tactical fixes
- Wants stability and control, not another playbook
Track record
Where the engine has been rebuilt.
205%of revenue targets · FinTech SaaS
41–75%higher conversion · $5M–$12M B2B
33–67%margin growth · Founder-led + PE-influenced
44–57%efficiency lift · Cross-function alignment
"Finally having a business that runs without me carrying it on my back." Founder, B2B services
Why this is different
Not another playbook. An operator.
Operator, not advisor.
Strategy that never lands inside the business is just commentary. I work inside the engine.
System, not function.
Marketing, sales, and customer success treated as one engine, not three separate hires.
Ownership, not influence.
Decks and dashboards don't fix revenue. I take responsibility for how growth gets produced.
Ready to rebuild the engine?
30-minute working call. No pitch deck, no metrics required.
Start the rebuild