(ATC Member “guest blog” from Growth Acceleration Partners)
How joining a small technology company became an 18-year journey of growth, leadership and
building something bigger together.
In late 2008, Paul Brownell was running his own consulting business after spending much of his
career working for midsize and large companies. He knew what it was like to operate within
established organizations, where decisions often moved through multiple layers of approval
before becoming reality. And he always liked a challenge.
He reconnected with Joyce Durst, a former colleague who was building a technology company
called Growth Acceleration Partners (GAP). At the time, GAP had fewer than 20 employees. It
was still finding its footing, developing its services and building the foundations for what it could
become.
Paul initially joined GAP as a subcontractor, helping clients improve their engineering
processes. But an invitation to one of the company’s first strategic planning meetings changed
how he saw the opportunity. As he spent time with the team, he noticed something different.
People weren’t simply focused on growing a business. They shared an enthusiasm for creating
something together.
“There was a passion about creating something together,” Paul recalls, describing a collective
ambition to build something bigger than any one individual.
That experience stayed with him. Shortly afterward, he approached GAP’s two co-founders,
Joyce and Brett Bachman, and expressed his interest in joining the company.
By February 2009, he had officially joined. And 17 years later, Paul still considers it the best
career decision he ever made. His story reflects something that often receives less attention in
conversations about entrepreneurship: the people who choose to join a young company,
contribute their experience, and help turn an early vision into something lasting.
Choosing the Opportunity to Build Together
Paul’s decision to join GAP wasn’t primarily about the technology or the consulting industry. He
had already built a career in technology and understood the opportunities available at larger
organizations. What attracted him was the possibility of working differently. At a large
corporation, a promising idea might require months of discussions, approvals and planning
before anyone could act on it. But at GAP, the team could discuss a new service offering one
afternoon and begin presenting it to potential clients the following day.
That freedom to move from an idea to action was refreshing. But flexibility alone wasn’t enough
to convince him. During that early strategic planning meeting, Paul recognized the people
around him shared a commitment to building a company grounded in principled, ethical
treatment for employees and customers alike.
Those values hadn’t yet been formally documented as the values that would eventually become
central to its culture. Still, Paul could see those principles reflected in how the team talked about
its ambitions. The goal wasn’t simply to create another technology consulting business. It was to
build a company people would genuinely want to work for and a partner customers would trust.
After years of experiencing the complexities of larger corporate environments, Paul saw an
opportunity to put his energy behind something he believed in. It was a different kind of career
risk. He wasn’t starting a company from scratch, but he was choosing to invest his time,
experience and professional future in a young organization whose success was far from
guaranteed.
When Building a Company Means Doing a Little of Everything
Paul’s original work with GAP focused on engineering process consulting, particularly helping
customers adopt Agile practices. That responsibility quickly expanded.
He became an early advocate for Agile within GAP, helping teams develop healthier engineering
practices and supporting clients as they adopted new ways of working. But in a company with
fewer than 20 employees, responsibilities rarely stayed within the boundaries of a single job
description.
Paul attended networking events and sales meetings, supported client delivery, conducted
training and helped with operational processes. For years, he was also deeply involved in
something far removed from technology strategy: transforming employee timesheet data into
information the company could use to invoice customers. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it was
work the company needed.
As GAP grew, many of Paul’s responsibilities moved into specialized teams. The company
developed more formal structures, expanded its operations and brought in people with expertise
in areas that early employees had previously managed themselves.
For Paul, that meant continuously reconsidering where he could contribute. He often tells
people that one of the most interesting aspects of his experience at GAP is that he hasn’t had
the same job two years in a row.
Sometimes, his responsibilities changed dramatically within six months. But instead of viewing
those changes as disruptions, he approached them as opportunities to help the company reach
its next stage. That willingness to adapt became an important part of his contribution. And as
the organization evolved, so did the ways he could support it.
A Difficult Client Conversation That Defined What GAP Stood For
One of his most memorable experiences from those early years came when a customer project
began heading in the wrong direction.
The project was running late and over budget. Paul was preparing for a difficult conversation
with the customer and wasn’t sure how the situation would unfold. Before the meeting, he sat
down with Joyce to discuss his options. Would he need to offer a discount? Make financial
concessions? How much flexibility would he have to resolve the problem?
Joyce’s response was straightforward. “Do what’s fair.” She also assured him that whatever
reasonable decision he made, GAP would support him. For Paul, that conversation became an
important test of the values that had originally attracted him to the company.
He went into the customer meeting with a different mindset. Rather than approaching the
discussion as a negotiation over who was responsible for what had gone wrong, he focused on
finding an outcome that both sides considered fair.
The conversation changed. Instead of becoming a confrontation, it became an opportunity to
work together to protect the business relationship. That experience helped shape how Paul
approached difficult customer situations in the years that followed. It also gave him something
important to pass on to other leaders: the confidence to make difficult decisions without
abandoning the principles that defined the company.
As new delivery managers and leaders joined GAP, Paul shared that lesson with them. He
wanted them to understand that acting fairly wasn’t simply encouraged. It was something the
organization would stand behind, even when the decision was difficult or didn’t work out exactly
as expected.
Growing the Business Without Losing the Culture
Over the years, Paul witnessed milestones that demonstrated just how far GAP had come. He
remembers the first month GAP generated more than $1 million in revenue, followed later by its
first month exceeding $2 million. He also recalls the company’s first multimillion-dollar
agreement with a Fortune 500 organization.
Each milestone reinforced the sense that the company was continuing to build momentum. Yet
when Paul reflects on the contribution he’s most proud of, he doesn’t point to a major contract, a
financial achievement or a particular technology initiative. He talks about culture.
As GAP expanded into new locations, he helped establish its presence in Colombia and worked
with new leaders and employees to carry the company’s original values into different teams and
environments. That required more than explaining company policies or introducing operational
processes. It meant demonstrating how those values should influence everyday decisions,
especially when circumstances became complicated.
Preserving that culture as the company grew also required keeping people aligned around
shared objectives. As GAP became larger and more complex, the organization adopted more
structured approaches to planning and execution, including the Entrepreneurial Operating
System (EOS).
But structure couldn’t replace the creativity and adaptability that had characterized the company
from the beginning. Paul believes that even as organizations develop more formal processes,
they need to preserve the willingness to experiment, welcome different perspectives and rethink
established ways of working. The challenge is to grow without losing the qualities that made
growth possible in the first place.
What Joiners Bring to Building a Company
When asked what early employees contribute that differs from founders’ roles, Paul is careful
not to minimize the risks entrepreneurs take.
Founders make the initial leap. They invest in an idea before knowing whether it will succeed.
But people who join those companies bring something equally necessary to their development:
different perspectives, specialized expertise and ideas that can expand what the organization is
capable of achieving.
That contribution isn’t limited to the first employees. Even someone joining the company today
brings a new perspective that can challenge established thinking and create opportunities for
improvement. For him, being a joiner has meant finding ways to contribute his own ideas to a
much larger effort.
“I’m painting a little corner of the whole big painting,” Paul explains.
It’s a simple way of describing what it means to help build a company without being its founder.
No single person creates the entire result, but each contribution helps shape what the
organization becomes. That sense of shared ownership was precisely what attracted him to
GAP in the first place.
After working independently, Paul realized how much he valued being part of a team with
common ambitions. Running his own business had offered freedom and the satisfaction of
creating something himself. But it could also be isolating. Joining GAP gave him the opportunity
to continue building, experimenting and making an impact while sharing the experience with
others.
The Career Decision That Still Matters 17 Years Later
When asked what has kept him committed through nearly 18 years of change, his answer is
simple: the people. The colleagues he’s worked alongside, the customers he’s helped, and the
opportunity to contribute to their success continue to motivate him.
Technology has changed. GAP has expanded. His responsibilities have evolved repeatedly. But
the original reasons he decided to join have remained remarkably consistent.
“I think I made the best decision of my career to join here,” Paul reflects.
His experience offers a perspective worth remembering in a technology community that
celebrates entrepreneurs and the companies they create.
A company’s story doesn’t end when its founders take the first step. It continues through the
people who decide to join, take on unfamiliar challenges, help others succeed and remain
committed as the organization evolves. For Paul Brownell, the opportunity was to help build
something worth believing in
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Growth Acceleration Partners (GAP) is an AI transformation company that combines strategic consulting with hands-on engineering to help companies transform their products, processes and people. Our autonomous engineers modernize software, automate business operations and build intelligent products that deliver valuable, measurable outcomes and lasting business capability.
ATC encourages member companies to write guest blog posts that share their stories and help educate the community.