SignalForge came out of work I have done as a founder and revenue operator: selling solar, commercializing advanced materials, advising early-stage technical companies, and learning where our own plans were wrong.
At Voltaic Coatings, we licensed university technology, won non-dilutive funding, and generated interest from large companies. We also spent too long focused on the technical milestone and not enough time answering the commercial questions: what would it cost to manufacture, where would it fit in the supply chain, and who had enough reason to change? The material worked at the benchtop. The business economics did not, and we stopped.
At SolarCity, I saw the other side of the problem. East Coast homeowners did not respond to an escalating power-purchase agreement the way the original sales model expected. A fixed monthly lease was easier to understand and easier to defend. Changing the offer helped me reach 257% of quota and more than $13 million in sales.
Energy Fox brought the lessons together. We built commercial solar projects around the full purchase decision—financing, USDA grants, utility interconnection, engineering, installation, and payback—not just the panels. That produced more than $7 million in contracted work without a sales staff. SignalForge is the work I wish we had done earlier at every technical company: understand the buying decision before adding people and activity.
Energy Fox (Founder + CEO, 2022 to 2025). We built a Mid-Atlantic commercial solar contractor that handled engineering, procurement, construction, utility coordination, and funding. With three founders, five contractors, and no sales staff, we developed more than $7 million in contracted work and installed 4 MW in 2024. We secured USDA Rural Energy for America Program funding for every eligible project we submitted. Before adding the staff required for the next stage, we transferred the contract portfolio to a national developer in 2025.
Voltaic Coatings (Founder, 2010 to 2015). We raised roughly $250,000 in non-dilutive funding, including a $150,000 NSF Small Business Innovation Research Phase I award, became a top-three finalist in the Italy Polymer Challenge, and participated in Startup Chile. We also learned that benchtop performance did not solve the manufacturing economics. I include that result because knowing when the commercial case does not work is part of the job.
KIZ Coordinator, East Stroudsburg University (Monroe County). I advised 30+ early-stage companies across homeland security, life sciences, biotechnology, healthcare, information technology, and advanced manufacturing. The companies were different, but the work repeated: identify the customer, test the assumption, find the funding path, and decide what evidence was still missing.
Revenue operator. At SolarCity I reached 257% of quota, maintained a 75%+ close rate, and sold $13 million. At Clean Energy USA I helped move inbound from roughly eight mostly unqualified leads a month to 15 qualified leads a week, with a 70% close rate. At Energize Delaware I helped deploy more than $34 million in clean-energy capital.
Robotics and advisory work. I served as a formal mentor and advisor to Tric Robotics during the NSF National I-Corps program, helped conduct nationwide interviews, and supported the pivot from a low-Earth-orbit drone concept to UV-C agricultural robotics. I later served as fractional Chief Revenue Officer; the company subsequently raised a Series A. Other work spans defense-adjacent hardware, consumer hardware, natural products, advanced manufacturing, and India–US energy partnerships.
A technical champion can love the product and still be unable to get it bought.
A rep can run a defined motion and improve it. They should not have to discover the buyer, write the message, set the qualification standard, and close the first repeatable deals at the same time.
The technical advantage matters, but someone still has to explain the cost, payback, implementation risk, and reason to act. The deal stalls when the champion cannot answer those questions without the founder.
Define what success means, who will judge it, what budget pays for the next step, and when that decision will be made. Without those answers, the pilot is technical activity rather than commercial progress.
A real opportunity has the right buyer, a problem worth funding, a defined approval path, and a dated next step. Counting every conversation makes the board slide look better and the forecast less useful.
Before the work starts, we agree on the problem, the scope, the price, and what your team will receive. I do not use junior consultants or subcontract the interviews and analysis.
I work directly with the founder, the people running deals, and the customers who can tell us why they bought, stalled, or walked away. Then I build the buyer map, message, qualification rules, sales stages, and operating documents against live opportunities.
At the end, your team owns the files and knows how to use them. I am not trying to become a permanent layer inside the company. I am there to make the sales process clear enough that an internal team can run it.
I am not the right fit if you only need a list of prospects or a batch of cold emails. I am useful when the product is real, early sales have happened, and the company needs to turn founder-led wins into a process another person can follow.
Bring one stuck deal to a 30-minute working session, use the Diagnostic for a full review, or read the methodology before you call.