20 years an owner · trained as a scientist
Most businesses don't stall on strategy. They stall on the owner.
I've run my own company since 2006 and studied biology before that. I bring an owner's experience and a researcher's rigor to the question most advisors skip: what's going on with the person running the business.
The thesis
The constraint is usually the person at the top.
Most owners already know what their business needs. More systems, better margins, a stronger team. The plans exist. What gets in the way is how the owner thinks, decides, and spends their energy.
That's not a character flaw. It's a pattern, and patterns can be measured and changed. My work starts there.
How it works
01
Diagnose
Identify your owner pattern and measure where your time and energy actually go with ROEI, Return on Energy Investment. We work from evidence, not impressions.
02
Decide
Set a 90-day focus and a Three-Year Vision built around who you are, not who a playbook assumes you are. Fewer priorities, clearly owned.
03
Do
Regular working sessions that keep the plan moving and catch the old patterns when they come back. Progress gets measured, not assumed.
Four owner patterns
Every owner leans toward one. Most of us recognize more than one.
None of these is a verdict. Each one comes with real strengths, and each one shapes how your business grows.
Constrained
Capable and reliable, often stretched thin. The business can't grow past the hours you have.
Scattered Visionary
Full of ideas and energy. Momentum gets spread across too many fronts to finish the ones that matter.
Avoidant
Protective of people and peace. The hard conversations and numbers tend to wait, and problems grow in the gap.
Calibrated
Clear on priorities, honest about limits. Not a personality type. A place any owner can work toward.
Results
What changes when the owner changes.
Therapy clinic · 11 years in business
First truly profitable month in 11 years
Before: Great clinical work and plenty of demand, yet the business hovered at break even or below. More than a quarter of new inquiries were lost because no one got back to the family in time.
What changed: The owner started tracking intake by the numbers and fixed follow-up. In one month, inquiries that became clients rose from 36% to 53%, and lost contacts fell from 27% to 17%. Within a few months, the business was profitable.
“For the first time in 11 years we are truly profitable.” — Owner, therapy clinic
Read the full story →Owner-led company · established team
Afternoons back, and a team that stepped up
Before: The owner personally monitored every customer conversation, all day. Stepping back felt riskier than staying in, so nothing came off their plate.
What changed: One question reframed it: would stepping back remove the anxiety, or just move it somewhere else? The owner stepped back with clear limits on what still came to them. In the first week, the team escalated only five times in seven operating days. Nothing went wrong, and the owner got a three-hour block back every afternoon.
“I feel like I've gotten a month's worth of things done in a week.” — Business owner
“You've changed my life… for the way better.”
Business owner, advisory clientWork with me
Start small. Go further if it's working.
Most clients begin with a diagnostic. If it's useful, the fee counts toward an intensive or advisory engagement.
Start here
Owner Diagnostic
$450 · 90 minutes, remote
We identify your owner pattern, name the one constraint that matters most right now, and set a 90-day focus. You get a written summary afterward.
How booking works: check out, then pick your time from the scheduling link that follows.
Book a diagnosticGo deeper
Strategy Intensive
$1,500 · half day, remote or on site
A focused working session on one big question: your Three-Year Vision, a hire, an expansion, a hard decision. You leave with the decision made and the next steps written.
Next: a 30-day check-in is included.
Book an intensiveOngoing
Advisory
By application · limited openings
A standing advisory relationship: regular working sessions, ROEI tracking, quarterly vision reviews, and direct access between sessions. Limited to a small number of owners at a time.
Apply for advisoryA good fit if you
- Own an established small business with a team
- Suspect you're part of what's holding it back, and want to know how
- Want honest feedback more than encouragement
Probably not a fit if you
- Are pre-launch or still validating an idea
- Need bookkeeping, tax, or a cash-management system first
- Want a playbook installed without looking at how you lead
Tools
Do the first part of the work on your own.
Free · about 5 minutes
Owner Pattern Assessment
Answer 12 questions and see your pattern right away, with what it costs your business and where to start.
Take the assessmentComing soon · digital download
ROEI Toolkit
Return on Energy Investment. Worksheets and a guide for tracking where your time and energy go, and which work actually pays you back.
Get notifiedOwn a coffee business?
Twenty years in specialty coffee comes with the work.
Cafés, roasters, wholesale, multi-unit. Coffee owners get the same owner-first approach, plus someone who knows the industry from the inside.
About Jacob
An owner first. A scientist by training.
I grew up in rural South Dakota, studied biology at Carleton, worked in a research lab at the Mayo Clinic, and farmed organically before buying Cottonwood Coffee in 2006. Twenty years of owning a business taught me most of what I know about owners, starting with my own blind spots.
Today I advise owners across industries, from painting contractors and home inspectors to galleries and coffee companies, and serve as Performance Director at Prosper Group. I still own Cottonwood, still roast in Brookings, and still test every idea on my own business first.
Writing & speaking
Ideas worth taking back to your business.
Latest essays
Speaking
Talks and workshops for owner groups, associations and conferences.
- The owner is the constraint
- Return on Energy Investment
- The first 90 days of a turnaround
Podcast & interviews
Conversations on owning a business, coffee, and what science teaches about running a company.
Listen →Notes on owning a business
Occasional essays on owner psychology, energy, and the decisions that shape small companies. No hype, no daily emails.