Steve Gardner / Entrepreneur · Founder Advisor · Growth Strategist
Start with questions.
Not a playbook.
When a founder says sales are the problem, Steve wants to understand where sales break down. Who is buying? Who is not? What happens between the first conversation and a decision?
The first explanation is a place to start. It is not the conclusion. Steve looks for the constraint underneath it, the opportunity being overlooked, and a practical way to move forward.
Founder Advisor · Growth StrategistPROFESSIONAL PORTRAIT
FORTHCOMING
Experience that informs the questions
Different businesses.
Familiar constraints.
Steve Gardner has launched and operated businesses, invested, advised founders and worked in accelerators. That breadth gives him more than one frame of reference when a business gets stuck.
His experience includes professional-athlete brands and business ventures, Insurtech accelerator leadership, social-venture accelerator mentoring, consumer-brand growth and founder programs.
He has worked across technology, consumer products, sports and entertainment, health and wellness, cannabis, and social impact. His experience also includes nonprofits and affordable-housing initiatives, alongside startups, emerging brands and growth-stage companies.
The industries differ. Questions about customer fit, revenue models, partnerships and the founder’s role often recur. Steve uses those patterns to ask better questions, not to assume the same answer will work twice.
Who Steve wants to work with
Not every business
is a fit.
Steve looks for good people building businesses with the potential to scale, who care about serving the communities around them.
That means taking both the business and its consequences seriously: what customers receive, how the team works, and what growth makes possible beyond the founder.
Signals & Scale is rooted in the Kansas City region. The fit depends on the people and the problem, not their ZIP code.
Start with what feels stuck
What is your business
trying to tell you?
Let’s figure out what is actually happening.
Then decide what deserves attention.