From Bankruptcy to AI Breakthrough

How a Gen X operator went from financial rock bottom to helping founders start, build, grow, and exit on their terms.

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The FIPO Story

F*** It, Press On: The Philosophy That Changed Everything

In 1992, my last college class taught me four letters that would define my life: F-I-P-O. Thirty plus years later, facing bankruptcy in my mid-50s with three kids to support, those letters saved me. F*** It, Press On stopped being a motto. It became the survival strategy.

I’ve spent 30+ years operating: Wall Street, Big Pharma, healthcare, media, and Main Street growth-stage companies. I’ve launched ventures from zero. I’ve scaled businesses past $20M. I’ve navigated mergers, acquisitions, and exits. I’ve also watched founders burn out, get taken advantage of at the closing table, and sell for a fraction of what they built. I’ve been close enough to that fire to feel the heat.

Today I work with Gen X founders and $2M to $20M operators who are at a decision point. Start something new. Build what finally scales. Grow without burning out. Or exit on their terms, for the number that actually reflects what they built.

No agencies. No gurus. Just an operator who has done it, and who has taken the hits.

FIPO is not toxic positivity. It’s the opposite. It’s permission to be pissed off, scared, stretched, or flat broke, and to keep moving anyway.

Here’s what it means in practice when I work with operators:

Value before vanity. I don’t care about your revenue headline. I care about your margin, your customer concentration, your team’s capacity, and whether the business runs without you. That’s what a buyer will care about. That’s what your bank account will care about. Vanity metrics don’t survive due diligence.

Systems over heroics. Most operators at the $2M to $20M stage are holding the business together with their own hours. That’s not a business. That’s a job with a tax ID. We build the systems that make you replaceable in the best possible way.

Exit-ready from day one. The best time to start thinking about your exit is before you need to. Even if you never sell, running a business like you might is the fastest path to freedom, optionality, and the kind of life you actually want.

No fluff. I’m Gen X. I grew up before LinkedIn was a lifestyle. I will tell you what I think, back it up with what I’ve lived, and expect you to do the same.

Thirty plus years. Four industries. Hundreds of operators. Here’s what the work looks like:

Wall Street foundation. Deep finance and capital markets experience that translates directly to how I read your P&L, your cap table, and your deal terms.

Big Pharma scale. Learned how the biggest, most regulated businesses on the planet actually run, and what breaks when they don’t.

Healthcare ecosystem leadership. Current Chief Strategy Officer of HarmoniX Group, overseeing strategy across a multi-entity regenerative medicine ecosystem.

M&A advisory. 10+ mergers and acquisitions completed, advised, or structured. I’ve seen the term sheets that protect the founder and the ones that quietly don’t.

Portfolio operator. Running Weeks Consulting Group and building Railo, the compliance and AI infrastructure platform for regulated industries.

Media and thought leadership. Host of The Weeks Weekly. Publisher of Weeks Weekly newsletter. Author of FIPO, coming soon.

The common thread across all of it: I’ve been the operator in the seat, not the consultant explaining it from the sidelines.

The Team

Experienced Operators. No 25-Year-Old Tech Bros.

The people I work with share one thing in common: they've actually run businesses. Sold deals. Built teams. Fixed what was broken. Scaled what was working. When you work with me, you get access to a network of operators who have lived the same arc you're living. No interns. No theory. No guru speak.

Ed Weeks Jr. MBA

Founder & Strategic Advisor

Leanne Smith

Marketing & Growth Strategist

Jennifer Chien

Operations & Systems Specialist

Kristel Beilby

B2B SaaS Consultant

Samuel Duffy

Strategic Sales & Growth Consultant

Scott Sylvan Bell MBA

Scale & Strategy Consultant

Roland Frasier

M&A Advisor | Serial Acquirer

Grant Teeple

Legal Advisor

DeAnna Rogers

Mastermind Advisor

Ryan Deiss

Growth Strategy Advisor | Founder, DigitalMarketer

Richard Lindner

Growth & Digital Marketing Advisor