You don't need another framework. You need someone who's already been where you're going.

I've spent my career at the intersection of technology, business, and mission. I started as a software engineer, served as CIO for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, then co-founded a software company that I grew to over $10M in annual recurring revenue before selling it to private equity.

Neither the growth nor the exit was as clean as that sentence makes it sound. The lesson I learned slowest was delegation. For years I managed our AWS infrastructure myself — the thing the entire company ran on — because I was convinced nobody would look after it as carefully as I would. What actually happened was the opposite of what I feared: I didn't have the time, so we fell further and further behind on updates, and the risk I was trying to prevent was the one I was creating. When I finally handed it off, it got done faster and better than I'd been doing it.

The harder lesson was learning to turn down revenue. We built products we never should have built because someone was willing to pay for them, and that was time we weren't spending taking our core products into new markets. I believe the business would have been worth more if I'd learned to say no sooner.

But the experience that changed how I define business success wasn't an exit or a revenue milestone. In 2010, I traveled to Uganda — and what I saw there rewired how I think about business and purpose. It led me to found Three Avocados, a non-profit coffee company that funds clean water projects in developing countries. That trip taught me that business, done right, is one of the most powerful forces for good on the planet.

Now I'm taking everything I've learned — the wins, the hard lessons, the faith that held it all together — and investing it in owners who want to build stronger businesses and make a greater impact.