Our Story – Built by Operators Who’ve Had to Make Payroll
How We Discovered a Better Blueprint for Growing Technical Companies
I didn’t start my career in marketing.
I started as an electrical engineer in a Folgers coffee plant.
The lessons came quickly:
- Technical truth is often ignored inside organizations.
- Bureaucracy kills potential.
- Most people cling to the familiar, even when the familiar is failing.
I left because I couldn’t stand watching solvable problems go unsolved.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that these early experiences were quietly shaping a new blueprint for how technical companies grow — one grounded not in traditional marketing methods, but in software technology, creativity, and truth.
A Startup, Explosive Growth, and a Pattern Emerging
I moved to Boulder and joined a tiny company called Spectra Logic — 12 people, $2M in revenue.
We grew to 360 people and $63M.
As Chief Operating Officer, I was put into the parts of the business that were struggling.
My job wasn’t to be “the expert.”
It was to listen, observe, experiment — and fix what others couldn’t.
One assignment changed everything:
Investigate why we were not getting sales from our major investments in trade shows, outbound lead lists, and PR campaigns.
How could we be growing so fast when our lead generation from our traditional marketing investments was so low?
We eventually discovered the real revenue growth engine:
High-intent buyers were finding us online at the exact moment there was real urgency and they were ready to champion getting a PO.
And they were converting at rates traditional marketing couldn’t match – at a small fraction of marketing investment.
This wasn’t brilliance.
It was observation, curiosity, and pattern recognition — the core skills that engineering teaches.
I didn’t realize it then, but I had stumbled onto the first component of the growth system we use today.
A Basement Startup, Creative Experimentation, and a Hard Lesson
I left Spectra Logic to start my own small business, Dragonfly Innovation – a creativity-focused company selling fun art kit toys that taught kids innovation skills.
We also volunteered extensively with Destination Imagination, a global creative problem-solving organization.
This work changed how we think.
It taught us to:
- see patterns others miss
- invent new approaches when old ones fail
- combine engineering with creativity
- solve problems sideways when straightforward paths are blocked
- recognize that product compliments and awards don’t generate POs
These were innovation lessons in marketing.
When our early sales efforts failed, we refused to fall back on traditional marketing methods.
Instead, we experimented.
We turned to early Google Ads.
We built landing pages before landing pages were common.
We tested messaging nobody else was trying.
Traffic poured in.
Sales followed.
We proved the web could sell anything — even niche toy products — when you apply engineering discipline + creative thinking.
But we learned an equally important business lesson:
Even if you are only spending $30 in marketing costs per sale – you can’t keep the doors open when your profit is $15 per kit.
We closed the business, but the creative and technical foundation we built became indispensable – and very applicable to higher-priced products.
Innovation expertise was the second component of the blueprint we still use today.
Fixing a Company on the Brink
I then joined Phase IV Engineering, a contract engineering RFID and wireless sensor business.
The company was failing:
• Projects over budget
• Unhappy customers
• Almost no leads
• A stagnant website
• Leadership clinging to outdated marketing methods
I fixed the engineering execution first.
Then I asked to fix the website. They said yes, mostly because they didn’t think the website mattered.
I overhauled it.
I deployed Google Ads.
I ran our web marketing like as a data-based engineering project.
While web marketing didn’t work for $20 art kits, it had spectacular results for a very small investment when selling products and services priced above $1000.
Within a week, the phone started ringing again with new customers that were thrilled to find us.
We rebuilt the company from near failure into a thriving contract engineering business. I became CEO, then purchased the company.
Converting a Services Company Into a Product Company
Conventional wisdom was that a contract engineering company could never be converted to a products company. We weren’t conventional. We were creative and welcomed deploying new marketing methods as the post-covid, internet-focused business environment and customers changed with the times.
With Susan running the web marketing as a contractor, we used profits from contract engineering to bootstrap an industrial IoT sensor platform: Leap Sensors®.
We launched the product and the web marketing.
The market responded immediately.
We grew fast — faster than our cash reserves.
Then the acquisition offers came.
This was never a story about being “great.”
It was a story about:
- leveraging excellent engineering to deliver new products that people needed
- listening to the market and figuring out the pain points what would motivate internal champions to get a PO
- making the product easy to find on the web – where 90% of post-covid commercial and industrial buyers shop
That combination is rare.
It’s also very effective. Our tiny company quickly became a market leader in a hot market.
Our Acquisition and Your Industrious Growth
We sold the company to WIKA, a global industrial giant. They had the resources to leverage our excellent product and leading edge marketing to fuel continued growth.
It was time for the next challenge.
Why We Started Industrious Growth…
I’ve been a CEO. I’ve been a COO. I’ve run engineering teams, manufacturing teams, and marketing teams.
And after all of it, the work I love most is the work that improves companies fastest:
Web marketing that generates high-intent, high-value, PO-ready sales leads.
That’s why Susan and Scott created Industrious Growth.
We aren’t trying to serve everyone.
We work with the 2% of technical companies who:
- Have something important and truly valuable to offer the world
- Value truth over politics
- Value results over protecting feelings
- Value technical data-based rigor over marketing fluff
- Are willing to face and address hard facts
- Are willing to change the one thing holding them back: how buyers find them
If that’s you and you are looking for Industrious Growth,
you might be in the right place.
Contact Us
Send us a message by clicking here.
Give us a call: 303-879-8791
Send us an email: sales@IndustriousGrowth.com
Book a web meeting with us by clicking on this link.
Want to partner with a true digital marketing specialist focusing on technical products? Let’s talk about your website, SEO, and growth strategy. Whether you’re searching for the best digital marketing company, a hands-on marketing strategist, or a specialized SEO agency for manufacturing.
Our ultimate goal is not just to market your products, but to be a key part of your Industrious Growth.
