Gregory Shepard + Startup Science / June–October 2026
From expertise
to a clear offer.
I clarified Gregory’s speaking offers and carried the copy, design and website work through. For Startup Science, I produced founder campaigns and coordinated qualified enquiries.
Discuss one talk, kit or website ↗- Chief of Staff
- Gregory Shepard / The Startup Architect
- Head of Marketing
- Startup Science
01 / Gregory · Speaking offers & speaker kit
Turn one existing talk into a brief organisers can forward.
I’ll shape the promise, takeaways and audience fit, then write and design the brief. You keep control of the talk and final approval.
I shaped the copy and produced Gregory’s four-keynote kit. He owned the framework and talk content.
Keynote 02 · Original speaker kit
Entrepreneurship Is Not Chaos
Systems that protect speed, judgment, and innovation
A practical look at how founders replace improvisation with decision architecture without turning the company into a bureaucracy.
Audience leaves with
- Turn founder intuition into a repeatable operating cadence.
- Clarify ownership, handoffs, decisions, and standards.
- Scale without drowning the team in process.
Best for: Leadership teams, corporate innovation groups, founder communities, and operators scaling through change.
My writing decisions
- Define the operating trade-off.
- The promise names speed, judgment and innovation. The description then explains the balance: replace improvisation without turning the company into a bureaucracy.
- Make “systems” concrete.
- The takeaways name operating cadence, ownership, handoffs and standards. Those are specific subjects an organiser can evaluate against a team’s needs.
The Startup Lifecycle
Best for: Founder summits, accelerators, investors, universities, and entrepreneurship programs.
Entrepreneurship Is Not Chaos
Best for: Leadership teams, corporate innovation groups, founder communities, and operators scaling through change.
The Hidden Engine of Innovation
Best for: Founder resilience, neurodiversity, innovation, leadership, and purpose-driven audiences.
Architecting a Company Worth Acquiring
Best for: Founders, boards, private capital, corporate development, and M&A audiences.
Keynote 01 · Original speaker kit
The Startup Lifecycle
Do the right work at the right phase
A seven-phase operating map that helps founders stop applying growth tactics to product problems and exit tactics to systems problems.
Audience leaves with
- Diagnose the company's real phase and constraint.
- Align priorities, capital, metrics, and team behavior with that phase.
- Prevent avoidable failure caused by sequencing errors.
Best for: Founder summits, accelerators, investors, universities, and entrepreneurship programs.
My writing decisions
- Make phase the organising idea.
- The promise is to do the right work at the right phase. The description makes that concrete by distinguishing product, growth, exit and systems problems.
- Turn the framework into a task.
- The takeaways ask people to diagnose a phase, align priorities and avoid sequencing errors. That makes the use of the seven-phase method explicit.
Keynote 03 · Original speaker kit
The Hidden Engine of Innovation
Building from neurodivergence, adversity, and pattern recognition
A candid founder story about converting difference into design advantage, while building environments where varied thinkers can perform at their best.
Audience leaves with
- Recognize pattern sensitivity and unconventional thinking as operating assets.
- Design teams and systems that reduce preventable friction.
- Pair optimism with evidence, structure, and self-awareness.
Best for: Founder resilience, neurodiversity, innovation, leadership, and purpose-driven audiences.
My writing decisions
- Connect the personal story to work.
- The description moves from neurodivergence, adversity and pattern recognition to building environments where varied thinkers can perform.
- Show the practical application.
- The takeaways cover team and system design, preventable friction, evidence and self-awareness. The brief gives the story a practical purpose.
Keynote 04 · Original speaker kit
Architecting a Company Worth Acquiring
Build enterprise value before the buyer arrives
A founder and operator's view of what creates a transferable, defensible company and what diligence exposes when systems are weak.
Audience leaves with
- Design for repeatability, margins, transferability, and strategic fit.
- Separate founder heroics from durable company capability.
- Make capital and exit decisions from the end state backward.
Best for: Founders, boards, private capital, corporate development, and M&A audiences.
My writing decisions
- Frame the offer before the transaction.
- The promise is to build enterprise value before a buyer arrives. The description connects that to a transferable, defensible company.
- Name the business tests.
- The takeaways specify margins, repeatability, transferability and strategic fit, then distinguish founder heroics from durable company capability.
Original speaker kit · Sent August 13, 2026
The delivered keynote pages
02 / Startup Science · Founder programme & campaigns
Make the programme
concrete for a founder.
I wrote and produced the Discover & Validate campaign for the first three months of Founders Pathway. I turned Vision, Product and Go-to-Market into questions founders could apply to their own companies.
Original campaign · Published October 23, 2026
From founder questions to practical work
Start with the founder’s decisions.
I put four decisions first: opportunity, customer, evidence and business model. That gave founders a way to see whether the programme addressed their work.
Show how founders apply the learning.
Then I showed the Founderswork loop around the founder’s company: learn, personalise, prove, refine and repeat. The programme team owned the method.
BizCon brochure · October production draft
Explain the platform in three panels
I worked on the copy, panel sequence, spacing and resource links. The inside spread moves from the platform to practical actions, then to Founders Pathway.
Platform and unified startup profile
Practical actions and support
Founders Pathway and resource links
Anonymised demo handoff
Commercial follow-through / Startup Science
Give the enquiry an owner.
A prospect requested a Startup Science demo in Gregory’s LinkedIn conversation. I clarified the demo owner and contact route, then sent the introduction. I owned campaign direction, exceptions and qualified replies; routine outreach had a separate team owner.
September 26 / Anonymised source excerpt“I’m curious about Startup Science and interested in a demo.”
The decision
Confirm the demo owner, obtain the contact route and introduce the two people directly.
The completed step
Introduction sent October 12, with the confirmed demo owner copied.
Subject: “Startup Science demo introduction”
Source: September 26 request and October 12 sent introduction. Names and contact details omitted.
LinkedIn / Dated native exports
Recorded account results.
Visibility and audience activity during the work.
Gregory Shepard
June 13–September 10, 2026
Startup Science
June 13–September 8, 2026
Account totals across all activity. They do not isolate my contribution or measure bookings, leads or revenue. New followers are reported additions, not net growth.
Source and calculation
I checked the original LinkedIn exports and recalculated the daily totals. Reporting dates follow the native exports (UTC). Gregory’s daily impression sum also matches the export’s overall-performance total.
- Gregory Shepard: LinkedIn personal-profile native export. DISCOVERY B2; ENGAGEMENT B2:B91 cross-check; FOLLOWERS B4:B93 summed.
- Startup Science: LinkedIn company-page native exports. 'Metrics'!D3:D90 summed; 'New followers'!E2:E89 summed.
03 / Gregory · Website implementation
Show what people get.
Then ask what they need.
I revised the speaking promise, workshop outcomes and enquiry guidance together.
Speaking / The promise
Stage-ready insight for founders, investors, and innovation teams.
A practical system your audience can use after the session.
My decision: Lead with what the audience can use, rather than a broad description of the speaker.
Workshops / The work in the room
Interactive sessions that build operating systems, align teams, and solve real challenges in the room.
Interactive sessions where participants map their company to the lifecycle, expose the next constraint, and leave with usable business artifacts.
My decision: Name the participant’s task and the work they leave with. “Interactive” alone does not explain the format.
Contact / The next step
A direct conversation to place your company in the right phase of the lifecycle and understand what you actually need.
The team separates advisory, board, speaking, media, workshop, partnership, and newsletter requests so the right next step is clear.
My decision: Make routing explicit. Speaking, advisory, media and partnership enquiries need different responses.
Original July front-end implementation: copy, layout and enquiry links for the existing keynote, workshop and panel formats.
Enquiry form and routing
The enquiry decision
Get useful context
before routing the request.
I changed the contact opening from “Open door. Open inbox.” to “Tell us what you are building.” I added different guidance for advisory and speaking enquiries, so the first message could include the details needed to choose a next step.
“For speaking or workshops, include audience, format, date, location, and budget range if known.”
Exact guidance added in the July 27 implementation.
04 / Gregory · UCW masterclass · September 10
Prepare for the audience.
Carry the details through.
I reconciled registration information, prepared Gregory’s audience brief and repaired the public registration route. Gregory owned the curriculum and teaching; UCW owned the venue, AV and onsite logistics.
48 email groups
Self-reported registration answers. These are not attendance figures.
Student status did not establish occupations or founder experience. I recommended a short audience check before Gregory chose examples.
Gregory teaching the September 10 masterclass / Original UCW photograph.
Registration repairs, audience preparation & team ownership
Proposed opening / My preparation brief · September 9“Open with a quick show of hands for people building a company, exploring an idea, or supporting founders. Use those answers to choose examples.”Preparation guidance for Gregory, who owned the final session.
The registration route / September 5 repair
Check the destination behind the label.
“University Canada West” resolved to H & H Sheet Metal at 1429 Granville Street.
University Canada West at 1461 Granville Street. The map destination matched the venue.
Text excerpts from the exact repair preview and execution record. I also replaced the UCW card in Luma’s Personal calendar with one in Gregory’s public calendar, then checked for duplicates.
Registration & promotion
Carry the campaign
through the attendee journey.
My work included campaign copy, listings, the location and calendar repairs, and checks of the Eventbrite and Odoo registration paths. I rechecked the saved event and public calendar after the repairs.
Founder & partner preparation
Keep the dependencies
and owners explicit.
I reconciled the roster and prepared the audience brief, keeping final deck, books, AV and remote-access confirmations visible. UCW owned the venue, AV and onsite logistics. Gregory owned the curriculum and teaching; Jesamie created the existing campaign graphic.
Across the partnership
The ownership
behind the work.
I connected the founder’s message, marketing production and operational follow-through. The responsibilities below sit alongside the featured work; the original records remain available to inspect.
- Positioning & offersFounder profile, keynote kit, advisory descriptions and programme messaging.
- Marketing deliveryWebsite build, campaigns and newsletter adaptations for four channels.
- Chief of StaffTeam direction, speaking proposals, event repairs and founder preparation.
- Commercial follow-throughProposal scope, qualified enquiry handoff and reporting.
Commercial decision: the original D&B proposal revision
Commercial preparation / D&B
Define the result before the inventory.
The earlier internal recommendation used a fixed three-month term. Following Gregory’s direction, I revised it to agree the outcome and validation first, then settle the inventory and quote. I also separated Startup Science’s owned channels from Gregory’s teaching and personal audience.
Earlier internal proposal / Revision 5
Revised recommendation / Revision 6
Original proposal excerpts. The revised recommendation remained internal; the outcome, terms and inventory still required agreement.
Profile before and after, newsletter examples, speaking proposals & project records
Founder positioning / Original profile before and after
Give a broad track record one clear lead.
The March 24 audit showed a headline led by “General Partner | Author.” I centred the revised profile on The Startup Architect, with Gregory’s founder role, book and experience supporting that lead.
Before / March 24, 2026
Revised / August 26, 2026
My decision: Lead with The Startup Architect, then connect the supporting proof in the banner and headline. These original captures show the messaging change; no increase in enquiries or revenue is attributed to it.
Editorial direction / Gregory
One subject.
Different conversations.
I adapted the same subject for LinkedIn, Substack, Startup Grind and Odoo. The opening and invitation changed with the channel.
What are we learning about the founder behind the pitch?
A polished pitch gets your attention. What happens after that?
What’s one question you wish startup programs would ask founders? Put it in the comments.
What would this program actually help you do?
A program can look great on paper. Mentors. Connections. Access.
What would help your company move forward right now? Email me the thing you’re working through.
Team direction
Own the exceptions.
“Rheanne owns changes to the campaign direction, material exceptions, and qualified replies.”
Approved outreach playbook. Routine research, personalisation and follow-up had a separate team owner.
Reporting
Measure the next action.
I recommended tagged enquiry and registration links, with reach, follower additions and enquiries tracked separately.
Speaking proposals, learning offers and event coordination
A proposal specific to the room.
The TENWEST application adapted Gregory’s seven-phase method into a live diagnostic aligned with the event’s theme. The application was submitted September 26; selection was not established.
A learning offer with a concrete task.
I prepared Maven offer copy and outcomes in the existing education drafts. The Vision lesson revision remained unpublished and exactly 90 minutes. Gregory owned the framework and teaching.
Coordinate a change without repeating every message.
For the Startup Grind Oceanside venue change, I coordinated six event listings and differentiated the attendee updates by conversation state. The July 22 record accounts for 43 LinkedIn attendee accounts; those are communication records, not attendance figures.