I’ve sat in the chair.
I’m Kevin Kelly. I do executive coaching and advisory work with founders, executives, and leadership teams.
From the intersection to the founder’s chair.
I spent the first decade of my career at five or six different companies, big and small, as a sales engineer or technical consultant. That put me at the intersection of technologists and business people. I learned that getting clear on the desired business outcome was crucial to any successful implementation, and that I was good at asking the questions that produced that clarity.
I hit an inflection point when I was laid off from my dream job. In 2006 I quit my job and started what eventually became Altvia. We provided software to private equity and venture capital firms to raise and deploy capital and communicate with their investors.
We focused on building a great culture from day one and learned that culture is something you maintain constantly. Embracing people’s strengths energizes them and sets them up to do their best work. Building that culture alongside strong operating systems made M&A easier and let the company grow quickly once new capital and talent came in.
We bootstrapped Altvia to more than 40 employees and $5.5 million in recurring revenue before selling it to a private equity firm in 2020. I stayed for a year, then joined Ridgepost Capital, one of our customers, as Chief Information Officer in late 2021. Ridgepost was a holding company made up of nine distinct private equity firms.
I left Ridgepost in 2024. Stepping back from the day to day helped me get clear on where I can be most fulfilled and have the greatest impact: coaching executives and teams.
Why Snofort.
The winter of 1979 into 1980 I was eight years old in Bloomington, Minnesota, building snow forts with a friend from the neighborhood. He lived at the end of a long cul-de-sac, so there was a huge pile in his front yard every time it stormed. Another kid’s older brother built a better fort than ours, so we kept building until we had two levels.
I was supposed to be home by five and I almost never was, because the work was that good. We worked with the snow we got. We did not plan too far ahead because we did not know what we would find once we started digging. The first time we climbed inside, we knew it was nowhere near done, and we knew we were building something real.
That spring the plow took the fort out. That seemed like the natural order of things. We got a few more storms and rebuilt. Forty-plus years later I named my company Snofort.
Get it out where we can look at it.
My job is to help you get what is in your head out where we can look at it, and to get clear on what you are trying to build. To do this I mostly ask questions. Saying something out loud to someone who has sat in the same chair creates an opportunity to look at it differently.
What you focus on shapes what you experience.
You always have a choice about how you respond, even when choices seem lousy.
Progress comes from small steps taken consistently.
This works best when you are open to the possibility that you are contributing to the situation you say you do not want. Most of us are, in some way. Possibilities are far more energizing than problems. That is what I am listening for.
I live between Denver and Boulder in Broomfield, Colorado with my wife, Kristen. We have three adult kids who all ski better than we do and consistently out-fish me. I also play ice hockey and ride gravel bikes.
Tell me what you’re building.
I’d love to chat. We can figure out the rest from there.
