The People Behind the Next Step: How TechGrowth Ohio’s EIRs Help Founders Build

A founder can spend months improving a product and still face the same unanswered question: Will someone buy it?

Karen Davis sees that tension in her work with TechGrowth Ohio. Refining a product can feel more comfortable than taking it to customers. But continued development, without testing demand, can consume the time and money a young company needs to move forward.

Recognizing that pattern-and helping a founder work through it-is part of the role of an Executive in Residence, or EIR.

In her conversation with Kasielle Carrol, Davis offers a close look at how that support works. The discussion moves from financial modeling to customer perspectives, from setting priorities to knowing when to reconsider them. Together, those details reveal the value of having experienced people alongside a founder as an idea becomes a business.

What does an Executive in Residence do?

Within TechGrowth Ohio's ecosystem, EIRs bring business experience to the decisions founders are facing now. Their contribution can include financial planning, market strategy, team development, and guidance on the steps involved in commercialization.

Davis brings a financial perspective shaped by more than 35 years of experience. A CPA and fractional CFO, she began her career at Deloitte before moving into controller and CFO roles. At TGO, she helps founders develop business and financial models that connect their ideas to the practical requirements of building a company.

That work begins with understanding the business.

"And when you first sit down with a founder, what are you trying to understand about the business?"

- Kasielle Carrol, interviewing Karen Davis

Davis's answer starts with the need the founder intends to fill. What gap does the product address? Who would buy it? What makes it valuable to that person?

Those questions give financial planning a foundation. Pricing, sales, and growth projections become more useful when they reflect a clear understanding of the customer and the problem being solved.

Experience that helps founders set priorities

Founders carry responsibility for decisions across the business, including areas where they may have little prior experience. An EIR can help them recognize which questions need attention and which capabilities their team is missing.

Davis describes mentors who understand those pressures because they have faced them themselves. Their experience gives founders somewhere to test their thinking, discuss competing demands, and consider what deserves attention next.

"And so we try to help be a sounding board for them with helping them set their priorities because we've done it ourselves."

- Karen Davis, CPA, TechGrowth Ohio EIR

Sometimes that means helping a founder step back from daily details. At other times, it means helping someone with a very broad ambition identify a manageable place to begin.

Davis describes regular conversations about what a founder wants to accomplish over the next few months, where research could help, and what support TGO can contribute. The relationship provides continuity as those priorities evolve.

TGO Executive Director Lynn Gellermann has emphasized the importance of that experienced team

"They are the real strength of our model."

- Lynn Gellermann, describing TGO's Executives in Residence in "Powering an Innovation Ecosystem in Appalachian Ohio"

Helping founders test what they believe

One of Davis's recurring themes is perspective.

Founders know their products closely. Customers approach them with different questions: What will this do for me? Why should I choose it? What am I willing to pay?

Investors bring another set of questions. Davis encourages founders to consider those perspectives early, including whether their pitch materials answer the questions they would ask if they were making the investment.

The implication is practical: enthusiasm becomes more useful when it is accompanied by evidence.

That connects with how TGO Associate Director Jessica Kopelwitz describes the organization's work with founders:

"We're working together with founders, to buy down risk and accelerate go-to-market efforts at the point of attack."

- Jessica Kopelwitz, in "Inside TechGrowth Ohio's Playbook," Innovation & Tech Today, page 70

In that article, Kopelwitz connects testing assumptions with becoming better prepared to raise capital. Davis's interview brings that work down to individual decisions: finding out whether customers will buy, examining pricing, and asking what the business actually needs next.

A team built around the founder's needs

Davis also describes EIR support as a team effort.

Across TGO's 19-county Southeast Ohio region, founders bring different businesses, backgrounds, and challenges. Advisors contribute different specializations. Davis values the ability to bring those strengths together around the needs and gaps of a particular company.

That approach matters because business questions overlap. A hiring decision affects cash. A pricing decision affects the financial model. A plan to grow requires thinking about customers, capacity, and the people needed to execute it.

Davis cautions against using another company's fundraising announcement or sales figures as a measure of what a founder should do next. The circumstances behind those numbers may be very different.

An EIR helps return the conversation to the company in front of them: where it is, what it needs, and what would make its next step realistic.

What that support feels like to a founder

Elizabeth Poston's experience offers a founder's perspective on the value of mentorship.

Poston, founder of EcoWave Essentials, maker of Reeds®, began with a household goal: reducing her family's plastic use. Developing a laundry detergent tablet brought her into entrepreneurship from a background in teaching.

In her video testimonial about working with TechGrowth Ohio, she describes the importance of having experienced mentors available as questions arise. She also recalls how hearing those mentors recognize her work helped her begin to see herself as an entrepreneur.

Her ambitions expanded with that support. She began envisioning a company that could grow, establish warehouse operations in Athens, and create local jobs. Those are aspirations she describes for the business's future.

Read Elizabeth's full Featured Founder story for more about the mentorship, relationships, and introductions that helped shape that larger vision.

Her account complements Davis's description of the EIR role: practical guidance can help a founder make the next decision while also developing the confidence to consider a bigger future.

Bringing ambition and a willingness to learn

For Davis, some of the most rewarding relationships begin with founders who can articulate their passion and are willing to listen.

That willingness makes mentoring a working relationship. The founder brings an idea, commitment, and knowledge of the problem. The advisor brings experience, questions, and another perspective. Progress comes through the work they do together.

For technology founders in Southeast Ohio, TGO's EIRs offer a way to engage that experience while navigating the decisions ahead.

Building a technology company and working through your next step?

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