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EDDIE SOEHNEL PORTABLE IDENTITY DOCUMENT

Table of Contents

ADMIN

This document conforms to the PID-template for networking in the AI era, found here: https://projects.eddiesoehnel.com/adminprojects/portable-identity-document-template-OPEN

BIO

SHORT

Eddie Soehnel is a futurist, where he predicts, publishes & speaks, and an entrepreneur/CXO, with priors in tech, food, and education and currently in pets, telecom, food and SaaS for outdoor.

STANDARD

Eddie Soehnel builds future-proof companies designed to thrive in the decades ahead, leveraging his skills as a leading-edge technologist, business model innovator and exponential growth strategist in the DTC, B2C, B2B2C and consumer product industry. As a full stack entrepreneur/CXO, priors include building an online social network, which he sold, two food companies and an education company. Current companies span pet, telecom, food and SAAS for outdoor and active lifestyle. Along his entrepreneurship journey, he perfected the art of face-planting as an entrepreneur by officially crashing two tech companies and seeing false starts in dozens of other ideas and investments. He has leveraged his background and skillset to become a thought leader and futurist for consumer brands, where he publishes predictions and action plans, speaks at industry events, conducts webinars for C-suite leaders and groups and helps the DTC, B2C, B2B2C and consumer product industry future-proof.

100 WORDS OR LESS

Eddie Soehnel builds future-proof companies positioned to thrive for decades, leveraging expertise as a technologist, business model innovator, and growth strategist in DTC, B2C, B2B2C, and consumer products. As a full stack entrepreneur/CXO, he launched and sold a social network, built food and education companies, and now operates ventures in pet, telecom, food and outdoor SAAS. He’s also crashed two tech startups and navigated dozens of false starts. Drawing on this experience, Eddie has become a thought leader and futurist, publishing predictions, speaking at events, and guiding leaders to help brands remain resilient and future-ready.

MASSIVELY TRANSFORMATIVE PURPOSE

We are entering the AI era in which entrepreneurship will expand dramatically. This will happen partly because it can: AI, automation, decentralization, deplatformization and democratization are lowering the cost of building, operating, publishing, selling, and coordinating. But it will also happen because it must. As employment shifts away from task execution, more people will need to become operators who solve problems, create revenue, and build ownership around assets, knowledge, relationships, and capabilities.

For this transition to work, people and their capabilities must become far more findable. The AI era will not reward only what someone knows, owns, or can do; it will reward what can be discovered, understood, matched, and mobilized by intelligent systems. That means we need to massively increase both the width and depth of findability so each person’s unique skills, experiences, assets, needs, and opportunities can be surfaced and put to use.

This findability also must extend to the enormous latent value embedded in the information we already possess and continuously generate through everyday activity: work artifacts, conversations, decisions, relationships, observations, experiments, lessons, and lived experience. Today, much of this value remains inaccessible, fragmented, or effectively invisible because it is poorly structured, disconnected, and often not collected at all.

THe AI era changes this equation. For the first time, we can systematically activate this dormant informational capacity by transforming raw personal, professional, and organizational data into intelligence. Once structured and contextualized, that intelligence can become coordination, opportunity, trust, collaboration, and leverage.

My work is focused on architecting information so it is AI-native by design: structured, contextualized, interoperable, and discoverable by humans and AI systems. The goal is to make people, projects, assets, needs, and knowledge easier to find, evaluate, match, and mobilize at scale. This is a common thread across many of the projects I undertake and a foundational principle in how I approach digital system design.

In this model, information becomes a multiplier. It amplifies human capability, expands access to opportunity, accelerates collaboration, and helps unlock outcomes that were previously impossible because the right people, assets, and insights could not find each other.

SUMMARY

FOCUS:

  • I build future-proof companies designed to thrive in the decades ahead, leveraging my skills as a leading-edge technologist, business model innovator and exponential growth strategist in the DTC, B2C, B2B2C and consumer product industry. Current activities include:
  • Designing dog behavior training and interaction models through my pet business at https://thelightofdog.com;
  • Creating AI-native discovery infrastructure for the outdoor economy, combining industry indexing (SEO/GEO/AI findability), decentralized professional networking, ecological intelligence, and citizen science data systems, through my company, iNDX at https://indx/earth;
  • Engineering a Personal AI Operating System — a memory-backed digital version of myself that integrates 30 years of structured knowledge into an AI-native architecture. It serves as my long-term memory, strategic co-pilot, and the foundation for AI agents that act with my voice, priorities, and policy constraints. More about this project here: https://eddiesoehnel.com/alexandria-project/
  • Adding to and improving my own technology infrastructure where I live, which includes on-site solar generation, redundant terrestrial and satellite internet, generator-backed power, and telecom tower leasing, all of which has enabled my own sovereign edge data center hosting in a secure, resilient location outside major metro areas. See my infrastructure here: https://projects.eddiesoehnel.com/adminprojects/edge-data-center-main-OPEN
  • Hardware projects include a wildfire early warning system via solar-powered LoRa sensor nodes for my property, which could transition into a business selling sensors and subscription momitoring through a cloud-based telemetry app.

FUTURIST:

  • I research society, culture, economics, politics/geopolitics, the environment/sustainability and technology and and publish predictions, action plans and forward guidance for the DTC, B2C, B2B2C and consumer product industry.
  • See my predictions, action plans and forward guidance, which I open source here: https://EddieSoehnel.com/FutureMap
  • I speak at industry events, conduct webinars for C-suite leaders and groups and help the DTC, B2C, B2B2C and consumer product industry future-proof. Subject areas for my talks as well as past talks are posted here: https://EddieSoehnel.com/Talks

STRUCTURING DATA FOR THE AI ERA

  • AI performance is fundamentally constrained by data quality and structure. I’ve designed and implemented frameworks, processes, and systems in my own businesses that transform raw digital information into AI-ready, decision-grade assets.

GEO AND AI AGENTIC COMMERCE FOR DTC, B2C, B2B2C AND THE CONSUMER PRODUCT INDUSTRY:

  • Generative engine optimization is the successor to SEO for the AI era. I’ve developed expertise in this era from my work building https://iNDX.earth

TOKEN TECH/WEB3 FOR THE DTC, B2C, B2B2C AND THE CONSUMER PRODUCT INDUSTRY:

  • Token tech is an exponential technology I cover in my futurist work and I am an authority on this emerging technology paradigm for the consumer product industry.
  • See my token tech/web3 content for consumer brands, which I open source here: https://EddieSoehnel.com/TokenTech

WEB2 FOR DTC, B2C, B2B2C AND CONSUMER PRODUCT COMPANIES:

  • Deep expertise developing, launching and growing web2 for DTC, B2C, B2B2C and consumer product companies, with a focus on creating exponential growth strategies at ridiculously high ROAS/ROIMI.
  • Notable achievements. As CXO, took one company to $100 million DTC within 18-months, another to $50 million and 32,000 retail outlets within 18-months, a third to $25 million DTC within 2.5 years, a fourth that is niche focused in 6-figures DTC, and sold an early-stage startup for 7X ROI inside 2-years.
  • See my DTC growths secrets that I used in past companies, which I open source here: https://EddieSoehnel.com/DTCForConsumerBrands

INVESTOR:

  • Investing across all sectors, industries and asset classes, with a focus on my ideas in the DTC, B2C, B2B2C and consumer product industry.

ONLINE FOOTPRINT AND UPDATES:

CONSOLIDATED MISSION STATEMENT FOR MY WORK ACTIVITIES

  • I will own proprietary, continuously refreshed, high-trust data ecosystems built on deep ontologies and reinforced by owned benchmarks and scorecards. These systems will serve as the context-aware memory layer through which industries and natural ecosystems operate in the AI era. My moat is not compute alone, but the structured, longitudinal, ontology-enriched data and performance metrics that others must reference to train, evaluate, and optimize their systems. My own sovereign energy and compute infrastructure exist to secure and extend this memory layer—not to compete at the foundation-model frontier, but to preserve autonomy, continuity, and compounding advantage.

PERSONALITY TYPE

  • Top archetypes is as a leader and architect who is linear, analytical and process driven.
  • I thrive in environments that require speed, agility, innovation and cost-effective use of resources.
  • Personality assessment and test results further in this document, here.

ENDORSEMENTS AND TESTIMONIALS

METADATA, ONTOLOGY AND CONTEXT

WHAT I HAVE:

Strategic Assets

  • Published tools with predictions and action plans to help people position for massive change as we transition into the next economic supercycle. See https://EddieSoehnel.com/FutureMap
  • Published tools for brands to understand and adopt token technology/web3. See https://EddieSoehnel.com/TokenTech
  • Published tools on starting and scaling B2C and B2B2C businesses using an exponential growth strategy that I’ve successfully applied three times.https://EddieSoehnel.com/DTCForConsumerBrands
  • An extensive knowledgebase with text, video, infographics and other tools to help dog owners positively impact the lives of their pets through my pet business at https://TheLightofDog.com/
  • I am building a spec-driven, AI-native product development operating system where structured Markdown (knowledge layer) defines the system, AI agents execute against it to generate and run the product (execution layer), and data feeds back to continuously improve it—making the repository itself an executable blueprint for both digital and physical product creation. This represents a new methodology for creating products and services, as AI becomes the primary execution and production layer. AI is no longer limited to writing code; it is increasingly capable of conducting research, running tests, generating new materials, prototyping products, and operating automated production systems. As a result, new paradigms are emerging for how we communicate intent to AI. This product development OS is my approach to structuring that communication—translating strategy into executable specifications that AI can reliably interpret and act upon. It is published here.
  • A future-proof data platform — already deployed in one of my businesses — where the data is the application. It’s portable, AI-native, and policy-driven, so the data itself defines structure, relationships, actions, and even its UI. That eliminates rigid databases, reduces dependency on static screens, and avoids cloud lock-in. The payoff: dramatically lower cost and complexity, and far greater power as AI becomes the primary operating system for everything. I have a conceptual and architectural framework document that defines guiding principles, emerging patterns and baseline specifications. See it here
  • A public repository documenting a personal edge data center architecture, including its hardware tiers, VM strategy, networking, security practices, backup and disaster recovery procedures, monitoring, power resilience, and solar support infrastructure. It serves as the canonical planning and operations reference for building and maintaining a local-first, AI-ready infrastructure stack across development, production, and standby systems. See it here
  • Excess on-site solar generation, redundant terrestrial and satellite internet, and generator-backed power enable sovereign edge data center hosting in a secure, resilient location outside major metro areas.
  • Published tools on Findability In The AI Era. Core tools include:
  • Not just ideas about AI-native systems, but also working patterns of turning them into repos, skills, deterministic scripts, public templates, private ops docs, receipts, and repeatable workflows.

Tactical Assets

  • A framework that defines a system ontology approach where a complex software system is modeled as a structured graph (nodes and relationships) that serves as the single source of truth—allowing AI to automatically generate diagrams, detect issues, simulate changes, and even build code. It’s important because it transforms system design from static documentation into a machine-readable, AI-operable model, enabling automation, consistency, and far more intelligent development and scaling of software systems. It is published here.
  • A Git-backed personal operating system rooted in C:\projects, with project repositories, source-controlled Markdown, task workflow logs, publication receipts, skill files, infrastructure inventories, and Google Drive/JSON/NAS/email sources treated as inputs for AI-assisted recall and updates.
  • A daily operating and memory-capture workflow that connects task planning, audio logs, project changelogs, CRM/JSON records, calendar review, Git updates, media processing, backups, and AI-assisted prompts into one recurring review loop.
  • concrete AI-native knowledge-structuring architecture that separates human-readable Markdown/HTML from AI-readable chunks, Q&A, CIS/chunk-intelligence signatures, control-plane metadata, discovery files, versioning, policy overlays, and future vector/graph enrichment.
  • Deterministic website-publishing scripts that sync authored content to Hugo, build AI discovery indexes, generate root discovery files, and publish Hugo output while preserving key machine-readable files.
  • A website content-structuring skill stack for authoring, chunking, semantic Q&A generation, AI index/discovery materialization, HTML semantic artifact checks, contact-form deployment, and conversion of the builder to new website projects.
  • A repeatable private-to-public publication workflow for sanitizing operational repos into useful public templates, including explicit source/file gates, anonymization maps, leak scans, validation tiers, ratchet artifacts, and publication receipts.
  • Email intelligence scripts for exporting Listmonk data, pulling Postmark telemetry, backing up Listmonk, sending welcome emails, and analyzing LOD/iNDX non-open segments for follow-up campaigns.
  • Operational scripts and app maintenance utilities, including payment counter reseeding, file path migration, customer data repair, API app work, and AI OS/spec structure.
  • Miscellaneous skill and productivity tool library with reusable prompt/workflow skills for publication, product analysis, brainstorming, bias avoidance, autonomous large-build management, database search beyond Google, Google Docs Markdown conversion with images, Garmin FIT extraction, and Git/Gitea release processes.
  • A ratchet-based skill framework and skill-template repo for turning recurring agent mistakes, workflow lessons, validation gaps, and review patterns into durable skill instructions, checklists, fixtures, and anti-patterns.
  • A Google Docs Markdown conversion workflow with image extraction support, useful for moving cloud-authored long-form documents into Git/Markdown workflows while preserving media.

WHAT I NEED:

  • Software developers or technically inclined individuals interested in partnering to build iNDX. Ideally, these partners would also serve as industry indexers themselves. The vision is to develop iNDX as a decentralized, open-source platform that anyone can use to index their own industry. While we collaborate on building the core technology, each partner operates independently—owning the IP for their specific industry index—while contributing to and benefiting from the shared ecosystem.
  • Customers of my pet business who seek high-quality dog training and boarding services, along with farm-made dog treats produced to the highest quality standards.
  • Old PCs often sit unused because they can’t run modern versions of Windows and their owners don’t know what to do with them. I repurpose these machines by converting them into Linux servers that run applications in my edge data center. Age doesn’t matter—my oldest hand-me-down is a 20-year-old laptop that I successfully converted and put back to work.
  • I’m a big believer in reuse and ingenuity. Extra fencing? Leftover building materials? I may take it to repurpose for use on my farm.
  • I am a gear junkie (hoarder, really) and always love gear from small brands. Climbing holds are always needed and I love old climbing rope for other projects.

Open To

  • Partnerships around AI-native discovery infrastructure, industry indexing, decentralized professional networking, ecological intelligence, and citizen science data systems.
  • Technical collaborators and developers interested in building iNDX and related open-source, AI-native product infrastructure.
  • Advisory, speaking, publishing, and strategic work for DTC, B2C, B2B2C, outdoor, active lifestyle, pet, food and consumer product companies.
  • Consulting, contracting, fractional leadership, and one-off projects where my experience in leading-edge technology, business model innovation, exponential growth strategies, AI-native systems, future-proofing, data architecture, consumer products, outdoor, pet, food or resilient infrastructure can create leverage without requiring a traditional employee role.
  • Customers and partners for The Light of Dog, iNDX, Future Map, and related systems.
  • Learning, exploration, and collaboration around AI agents, data-defined systems, token technology, sovereign infrastructure, and resilient operating models.

Match Context

Ideal Collaborators

  • Builders who are comfortable with ambiguity, hard problems, structured data, AI-native workflows, and open-source/ecosystem thinking.
  • Developers, operators, founders, researchers, indexers, and domain experts who want to create durable knowledge infrastructure rather than short-lived apps.
  • People working in outdoor, active lifestyle, pet, food, consumer products, AI agents, decentralized systems, energy resilience, industry data networks and data centers.

Ideal Problems

  • Transforming fragmented knowledge into structured, AI-ready systems.
  • Building platforms where data, ontology, policy, and agents become the operating layer.
  • Future-proofing companies and industries for AI discovery, generative search, agentic commerce, and resilient infrastructure.

Non-Ideal Matches

  • Short-term transactional relationships that do not compound or leverage into durable systems, assets, or learning.
  • Generic innovation work that avoids specificity, ownership, measurable output, or hard implementation details.

MY INTERESTS AND FOCUS ACROSS PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DOMAINS

AI, DATA & AGENT SYSTEMS

  • AI
  • artificial+intelligence
  • machine+learning
  • computer+vision
  • AI-native+architecture
  • AI-ready+data
  • AI+orchestration
  • agent+systems
  • agentic+systems
  • agentic+commerce
  • Agentic+Engineering
  • Prompt+Engineering
  • Agentic+Engine_Optimization (AEO)
  • Search+Engine+Optimization (SEO)
  • GEO (Generative+Engine+Optimization)
  • autonomous
  • autonomous+agents
  • AI+automation+systems
  • human-in-the-loop
  • AI+inference
  • world+models
  • context+engineering
  • context+architecture
  • model+context+protocol
  • semantic+layer
  • knowledge+graphs
  • structured+data
  • unstructured+data
  • data+pipelines
  • data+modeling
  • data+normalization
  • data+enrichment
  • data+ontology
  • ontology
  • metadata
  • policy+layers
  • data+governance
  • data+portability
  • access+control
  • interoperability
  • JSON
  • JSON+schemas
  • markdown (MD & MDX)
  • API-first
  • content+indexing
  • AI-native+publishing
  • knowledge+bases
  • living+documents
  • search+optimization+for+AI
  • AI-native+development+framework
  • agent-driven+development
  • AI+operating+system
  • prompt-to-product+systems
  • spec-driven+development

DECENTRALIZATION, TOKENIZATION & DIGITAL ECONOMY

  • token
  • tokenization
  • digital+assets
  • on-chain
  • token+economies
  • programmable+money
  • stablecoins
  • blockchain
  • web3
  • smart+contracts
  • non-fungible+tokens (NFT)
  • Self-Sovereign+Data+Objects (SSDOs)
  • self-sovereign+identity
  • decentralization
  • deplatformization
  • democratization
  • data+ownership
  • data+monetization
  • agentic+commerce

BUSINESS, STRATEGY & GROWTH SYSTEMS

  • business+model
  • strategy
  • growth+strategy
  • go-to-marketmarket+positioning
  • category+design
  • competitive+advantage
  • differentiation
  • flywheel+effects
  • network+effects
  • network+density
  • compounding
  • growth+compounding
  • leverage
  • optimization
  • productivity
  • innovation
  • R&D
  • product+development
  • venture+building
  • startup+operations
  • zero-to-one
  • unit+economics
  • customer+acquisition
  • customer+lifetime+value
  • consumer+attention
  • consumer+sentiment
  • consumer+discretionary
  • direct-to-consumer (DTC)
  • B2C
  • B2B2C
  • consumer+products
  • consumer+brands
  • marketing
  • sales
  • distribution
  • SEO
  • Search+Engine+Optimization (SEO)
  • optimization
  • content+systems
  • gamification
  • community
  • crowdsourcing

ECONOMICS, FINANCE & MACRO SYSTEMS

  • economics
  • finance
  • fiscal+policy
  • monetary+policy
  • soverign+debt
  • wealth+inequality
  • middle class
  • universal+basic+income
  • jevons+paradox
  • secondary markets
  • recommerce
  • used+marketplaces
  • real+estate

ENERGY, INFRASTRUCTURE & COMPUTE

  • energy
  • energy+systems
  • energy+infrastructure
  • energy+efficiency
  • energy+efficiency+systems
  • energy+storage
  • distributed+energy
  • solar
  • battery
  • off-grid
  • backup+power
  • solar+optimization
  • edge+compute
  • distributed+infrastructure
  • self-hosting
  • home+lab
  • proxmox
  • virtualization
  • VM+architecture
  • containerization
  • cloudflare
  • network+security
  • zero+trust
  • connectivity
  • telecom

INDUSTRIAL, MATERIALS & SUPPLY CHAIN

  • reindustrialization
  • industrialization
  • reshore
  • distributed+manufacturing
  • localized+production
  • microfactories
  • advanced+manufacturing
  • 3D+printing
  • additive+manufacturing
  • robotics
  • automation
  • supply chain
  • supply+chain+innovation
  • material+science
  • material+discovery
  • materials+innovation
  • sustainable+materials
  • textiles
  • synthetics

CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT & RESOURCE SYSTEMS

  • climate+change
  • climate+resilience
  • carbon
  • carbon+capture
  • carbonization
  • decarbonization
  • emissions
  • Net zero
  • real zero
  • scope+1
  • scope+2
  • scope+3
  • environment
  • environmental
  • ESG
  • green
  • greenwashing
  • sustainable
  • renew
  • renewable
  • circularity
  • upcycling
  • biodegradable
  • biodiversity
  • biodynamic
  • Regenerative+Agriculture
  • natural
  • water
  • resource+management
  • resources
  • ecosystems
  • citizen+science
  • environmental+monitoring
  • ecological+data
  • conservation+funding
  • public+lands
  • stewardship

INNOVATION, FUTURE & FORESIGHT

  • future
  • futureproof
  • foresight
  • future+mapping
  • scenario+planning
  • trend+analysis
  • trends
  • weak+signals
  • breakthrough
  • exponential
  • exponential+technologies
  • innovation+systems
  • disruption
  • antifragility
  • resilience
  • generational+reset

OUTDOOR, LIFESTYLE & PERSONAL DOMAIN

  • cycling
  • dogs
  • dog+training
  • animal+behavior
  • canine+psychology
  • hiking
  • kayaking
  • paddlesports
  • overlanding
  • photography/videography
  • shooting+sports (archery and firearms)
  • rock+climbing/bouldering
  • skiing (uphill, downhill, XC, Biathlon)
  • weightlifting
  • mountain+biking
  • trail+systems
  • outdoor+recreation
  • adventure+sports
  • Jesus
  • Evangelical
  • Charismatic

PERSONALITY

Below is my personal assessment. See my results here from the My Principles You Assessment.

STRENGTHS

  • Self-starter
  • Organize into systems for execution/growth
  • Able to go from dream/idea to making it a reality
  • Data and analytics
  • Process-driven and linear thinker
  • Aggressive in going after opportunities; very promotion and sales focused
  • Persistent and relentless
  • Think outside the box
  • Look at things strategically and holistically
  • Able to assimilate lots of data and information
  • Get a lot done quickly
  • Able to handle a lot of balls in the air
  • Think big and like to set audacious plans and goals
  • Optimistic
  • Passionate and enthusiastic about products and companies I work with - good at selling when I am in this zone
  • Plan and anticipate as best as possible; always thinking many steps ahead
  • Always learning, becoming more efficient and productive
  • Thrive in environments where there is change, volatility, uncertainty, fluidity and amorphous states, which is why I excel at startups

WEAKNESSES/BLIND SPOTS

  • Move so fast I make mistakes
  • Move so fast I don't stop to look at all the angles.
  • Make mistakes in writing and spreadsheet calculations, which has now become almost a non-issue because AI can correct
  • I am not creatively inclined - ad copy, designing logos, product names, color pallets, etc. Linear and process driven thinker
  • I repeat myself
  • At times, I talk too much
  • I am not a very good writer and get wordy....carries over from my talking too much
  • Don't get subtlety
  • I tend to be very intense, which makes me insensitive to people. I don't mean to be insensitive, I just get so involved that I forget the human aspect. Don't be afraid to point that out to me
  • Once I put my mind to something, it is hard to get me off that track, even if I need to get off that track.
  • Stubborn and bull-headed
  • Impatient
  • Not a nurturer or supportive type to others. Just not how I am built so it is hard for me to use these qualities when needed.

WHAT DO I LOOK FORWARD TO DOING EVERY DAY? / WHAT DO I DO THAT I LOSE TOTAL TRACK OF TIME?

  • Spreadsheets, process flow diagrams, databases, content management systems, SOP's (standard operating procedures), methodologies, data and data analysis, software, apps, AI, external research and reading.

WHAT DO I DREAD DOING?

  • Data entry
  • Paperwork
  • Once something is built (product, process), I want to turn it over to someone else to manage, so having to manage it myself is not fun to me. I am a builder, NOT a manager.

WHAT COMES EASY TO ME?

  • Planning, project plans, task lists, organizing, numbers and data, research

WHAT TURNS ME OFF OR SHUTS ME DOWN?

  • Work environments where competition, conflict and confrontation are the way things get done. I am naturally inclined to be in harmony with others around me and I seek to create that harmony in my work environment.
  • Negativity; glass is half empty thinking
  • "That's the way everyone else does it"; "that's the way it has always been done" ..thinking

MY VALUES

  • Keywords/phrases that resonate with me:
    • Authenticity
    • Achievements
    • Autonomy
    • Balance
    • Compassion
    • Challenge
    • Determination
    • Not tolerate problems
    • Growth
    • Kindness
    • Leadership
    • Rebellious
    • Maverick
    • Rogue
    • Learning
    • Openness
    • Meaningful work
    • Service
    • Trustworthiness
  • Values lead to behavior
  • Contribute more than I took; here to help and give back; pass on what I learn
  • Always leave money on the table
  • Honesty: tell the truth; tell it like it is
  • Compassion and understanding because everyone has problems and trials
  • Courage to stand for what I believe
  • Integrity: do what I say I will do; don't throw others under the bus; don't be selfish
  • Treat others like I treat those I love

MY STYLE

  • Down to earth
  • Tell it like it is
  • What you see is what you get
  • Warm, personable and engaging
  • Outdoorsy type, casual

TRUE HAPPY PLACE WHERE I GET DEEP SATISFACTION

  • XC Skiing with a biathlon rifle strapped to my back

KNOWN FOR

  • Always trying to create, build and develop new things - in my personal and professional life. Never satisfied with what is. Always want to improve.
  • Ability to hurt himself without help from anyone else...best to keep 6-feet from him so as not get caught in the blast wave. The last thing I might end up saying before I leave this world: "Well, shit, that didn't work out like I had expected"
  • In dog circles, known as the guy with secret formulas that make the best, most tastiest and healthy dog treats and dog food ("puppy crack")

SUPERPOWERS

  • Relentless optimist
  • MacGyver+hacker+DIYer+homesteader+maverick
  • Ultra low cost operator
  • Leverage what I have to do more

PROFESSIONAL CHRONICLE

SUMMARY

EPOCH 1 - 1987-1998: formal education and early entrepreneurial work experiences

EPOCH 2 - 1998-2007: built DTC/B2C/B2B2C technology companies

EPOCH 3 - 2007-2019: built DTC/B2C/B2B2C physical product companies

EPOCH 4 - 2022-present: building future-proofed DTC/B2C/B2B2C companies and realizing my massively transformative purpose.

WORK INTERRUPTIONS. I paused work in 2011-2012 and "retired" in 2015 due to unknown chronic health issues since 2006 that kept getting progressively worse, severely limiting my ability to work and travel. Instead, I focused on work projects I could do at my own pace via the businesses I own. Through advancing science + my relentless research + trial and error, I was able to understand and fix my issues and came out of retirement in 2022. I used the Functional Medicine Framework to help me regain my health.

I have a genetic variant often referred to as the “mold gene” that was epigenetically activated by environmental mold exposure. This contributed to fungal overgrowth in my body that significantly affected my endocrine and immune systems. While now corrected, the downstream sensitivities from decades of immune dysregulation has created sensitivities to amines, thiols, and FODMAPs in foods.

BASECAMP INQB8R: SEDALIA, CO. FOUNDER/OWNER, 2010 TO PRESENT.

Description: an umbrella entity that serves as a vehicle for me to incubate ideas.

  • In incubation (which may or may not become businesses):
    • Innovation engine signaling, a platform that tracks innovations so that a breakthrough in one field, even halfway around the world, can find its way to the person or organization who needs it most. This project aligns with my Massively Transformative Purpose.
  • Past incubations:
  • Feasibility study on a business that gathers data around the execution of everyday, mundane, repeatable consumer tasks that take consumer time and attention, but which are critically important, in order to train AI models to power smart autonomous units (robots) that will take responsibility for these tasks. This project aligns with my Massively Transformative Purpose. The initial focus was to create an AI model that can be booted up into robots so they understand dog language (vocal, body) and respond appropriately to what the dog is saying. But I believe that AI is getting so advanced that this is not needed. It can source existing data available in the public domain to teach itself, or its human owners will be able to tell it as needed.
  • Token Tech/Web3 For Consumer Brands: spun this off as its own entity under iNDX. This project aligns with my Massively Transformative Purpose.
  • Future map For Consumer Brands: spun this off as its own entity under Future Map. This project aligns with my Massively Transformative Purpose.
  • Consumer brand professionals knowledge share platform for token tech/web3/exponential technologies: not able to generate interest for this project from consumer brand professionals (2022-2023), so I shelved it and may come back to it in the future. This project aligns with my Massively Transformative Purpose.
  • NielsenIQ/IRI/SPINS/NPD for token tech/web3: web3 for consumer brands under blockchain/crypto has failed; if the paradigm can decouple from blockchain/crypto and grow, this might be an interesting project to restart (2022).
  • Informal investment group in DTC/B2C/B2B2C blockchain/web3 projects in startup, devnet or testnet stage. Not able to get interest from others to participate.
  • Offshore companies I set up to help me achieve my startup and investment goals while being as tax efficient as possible. I am too small of an investor to make this feasible and the tax advantages did not prove out.
  • Blockchain mining/validation - the ROI does not make sense at this time for a small operator and it is not in my preferred vertical, which is DTC/B2C/B2B2C/consumer brands (2021-2022).
  • Blockchain real estate tokenization - the market was too early for this when I looked at it and it is not in my preferred vertical, which is DTC/B2C/B2B2C/consumer brands (2021);
  • Telecom tower leasing - successfully spun this off as its own entity under DogCom.
  • Organic raw dog food - not able to get reliable food production labor (2018);
  • Investment prospecting for early-stage web2 DTC/B2B/B2B2C/consumer brands - I was never able to get access to good quality prospects (2017-2019).

iNDX: SEDALIA, CO. FOUNDER/CEO, 2023 TO PRESENT.

Description: iNDX is building authoritative industry indexes to fix broken findability so that small businesses, freelancers, and households—not just giants—can be discovered and thrive in the AI era, all via signal intelligence graphs (SIG).

  • IndustrySIG: Fixing findability for businesses. IndustrySIG maps the companies, products, and services within an industry so they remain visible in the AI era. Instead of discovery being dominated by the largest platforms, structured indexes allow AI systems to surface the best and most relevant offerings, regardless of company size. The goal: make every business and professional discoverable.
  • NetworkSIG: AI-native professional networking. NetworkSIG replaces traditional professional networking with AI-driven connection and collaboration, matching people based on what they offer and what they need. Key features:
    • AI agents perform networking and discovery;
    • Profiles are portable and user-owned;
    • Connections form based on intent and capability, not platform algorithms;
    • The result is a decentralized professional network built for the AI era.
  • TerraSIG: Intelligence for ecological spaces. TerraSIG organizes fragmented information about conservation, funding, technologies, and policies into a single AI-powered discovery system. Think of it as a Bloomberg Terminal for ecological spaces. The result is faster, smarter action for conservation, stewardship, and ecological innovation. By structuring this knowledge, TerraSIG connects:
    • ecological projects;
    • funding opportunities;
    • technologies and strategies;
    • policy frameworks and stakeholders.
  • Snap For Science: Frictionless citizen science at planetary scale. Snap For Science connects the other components of iNDX—focused on industry—with the public.A simple smartphone photo becomes structured environmental data. Each image contributes to an open ecological dataset while also linking the people who visit ecological spaces with the businesses and organizations that support them.

More at https://iNDX.Earth

FUTURE MAP: SEDALIA, CO. FOUNDER/CEO, 2017 TO PRESENT.

Description: My futurist work has been an informal project I have done for my own purposes since 2017. In 2022, I formalized this project to establish myself as a thought leader and futurist for consumer brands, engaging in the following activities (1) publishing predictions and action plans about the future, (2) speaking at industry events, conducting webinars for C-suite leaders and groups, and (3) creating competitively defensible, disruption-proof strategies to equip brands to thrive in the years ahead. See more at my Future Map page.

Achievements: I speak at consumer product industry events and informally help companies future-proof.

THE LIGHT OF DOG: SEDALIA, CO. CO-FOUNDER/MANAGING PARTNER, 2003 TO PRESENT.

Description: niche brand in the pet category.

Achievements: (1) built 6-figure consumer brand focused on developing highly profitable products (30%+ EBIT) with hard-to-copy IP, selling direct-to-consumer; (2) developed and customized the backend administration of the business with cloud databases to manage all operations including accounting, human resources, supply chain, inventory and customers; (3) created large content-driven website with customized e-commerce rules-based sales funnel; (4) developed products and services to expand the business from hyperlocal to one that can market and sell nationally; (5) implemented full online marketing through content marketing, organic SEO, pay-per-click, paid social, affiliate, email, retargeting, retention marketing, direct mail, newsletter/magazine publishing, sponsorships and sampling. New products in incubation:

  • AI Dog Behavior Model and World Model. My wife and I are taking decades of content she has written (books, guides, blog posts), along with 6 years of recording her during private trainings and zoom calls, plus hundreds of training videos, and chunking and vectorizing this content to create a digital AI version of her for dog training, while also creating a dog behavior model that any AI, whether digital or in a robot, can utilize to interact and train dogs.

DOGCOM: SEDALIA, CO. FOUNDER/MANAGING PARTNER, 2017 TO PRESENT.

Description: land lease cell tower company.

Achievements: established relationship and negotiated land lease agreement with Verizon Wireless that allows the carrier to build and operate a tower on land that I own.

BIOTRUST: AUSTIN, TX. VICE PRESIDENT RETAIL SALES & MARKETING, 2014.

Description: direct-to-consumer supplement and food brand.

Achievements: hired by owners/investors to take a pioneering internet-only supplement brand into mainline national retail with a national marketing strategy: (1) secured mainline national retail brands in natural and vitamin/supplement channels including GNC, Vitamin World and UNFI within 7-months of hire; (2) pioneered unique, highly cost effective production techniques for national TV and radio marketing campaigns that increased success and dramatically lowered ROI thresholds; (3) developed retail strategy and full financial forecasts, and established new department by hiring and training staff.

LAUNCHPAD: GREENWOOD VILLAGE, CO. GENERAL MANAGER/VICE PRESIDENT SALES, 2008-2010.

Description: direct-to-consumer and retail-based food brand and education products brand.

Achievements: hired by investors/parent company to grow consumer packaged goods portfolio companies: (1) grew from $1 mm to $50 mm in annual revenue and 0 to 32,000 mainline retail outlets in 18-months for a DTC and retail food brand; (2) grew $0 to $25 mm in annual revenue in 2.5 years for a DTC education brand.

CONTENT RETRIEVER: AURORA, CO. GENERAL MANAGER, 2005-2007.

Description: desktop consumer application.

Achievements: brought in by founders to drive go-to-market strategy for desktop application created by high-tech partners, advising leadership team on $1.5M investment needed for scalability and revenue success: (1) directed developers in go-to-market readiness after adjusting design for functionality; (2) won network TV broadcast media account as first customer by leading market-ready preparations.

ANTIRION: DENVER, CO. VICE PRESIDENT SALES & MARKETING, 2002-2004.

Description: time-sensitive ticket availability/flash sales notification SaaS product.

Achievements: drove development from intellectual property/patent phase through platform creation (market research, design, testing) and sales: (1) spearheaded sales to professional sports and performing arts venues (on- and off-Broadway) for innovative, time-sensitive ticket availability/flash sales notification SaaS product (2) verified product viability with pro sports teams; (3) exceeded industry average for response rate, garnering 5% results versus 1-2% norm.

THE WORLD SCHOOL NETWORK/PLANETY: DENVER, CO. AND OSLO, NORWAY. U.S. COUNTRY MANAGER/CEO, 1998-2002.

Description: social networking and e-learning portal for students.

Achievements: hired by founders to develop, launch and grow the company: (1) raised mid-6 figures in seed funding from investors; (2) championed product development from concept-to-launch throughout 900 U.S. high schools; (3) orchestrated sale of company for 7X ROI; (4) as U.S. Country Manager, surpassed sales goals 10% at 15% under-budget and built a national sales team.

EDWARD J. SOEHNEL CONSULTING: DENVER, CO. FOUNDER/OWNER, 1996-1998

Description: general contract and consulting work during graduate business school studies.

Achievements: (1) produced professional employer organization (PEO) acquisition strategy; (2) conducted target-company M&A analyses and feasibility studies for veterinary industry consolidator; (3) performed research for business improvement district consulting firm.

SOUTH SHORE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION: KINGSTON, MA. HOUSING SERVICES DIRECTOR, 1991-1995

Description: affordable housing non-profit.

Achievements: quickly rose in leadership from line staff to department head within 18 months: (1) expanded staffing 300% after winning new federal and state government contracts; (2) spearheaded public/private partnership in homeownership/REO disposition program with federal and state entities; (3) co-author of the Landlord’s Guide to Property Management, published and sold by the non-profit.

CONTENT PROJECTS

  • Inspiration & Wisdom
  • Future Map For Consumer Brands. Slideshares and toolset for my futurist work.
  • Token Tech/Web3 For Consumer Brands. Toolsets for B2C/B2B2C/Consumer Brands who want to understand, strategically position for, and tactically operate in token tech/web3.
  • Alexandria Project. This document is a guide I assembled to help us realize the goal of creating artificial intelligent (AI) personal assistants to massively increase our productivity.
  • DTC Startup Roadmap For DTC/B2C/B2B2C Startups. Roadmap and knowledgebase of content, methodologies, processes, tools, spreadsheets, diagrams, resource lists, research, data and software, organized to take a startup from idea to $50 million in annual sales; regardless of whether you want to stay small and private or grow large with investor participation, it teaches the fundamentals on developing, launching and growing a DTC/B2C/B2B2C company.
  • Bible & Commerce. I want to learn what the Bible teaches about developing, growing and running a business and publish tools based on my research and experiences.
  • GeoEarth Project. I’ve combined my love of the outdoors, gear, data, technology and maps to create tools I use to play in and explore the outdoors.
  • Quora.com. Writer on subjects including retail, e-commerce, consumer goods, CPG and startup strategy.

EDUCATION PROJECTS

  • JSON Object Databases. I developed a process for transitioning relational databases into JSON object databases to make them much more compatible with AI and semantic search. I did this with databases I use to run my businesses,
  • Off-Grid Energy Infrastructure. I designed and built my own off-grid energy systems. For my home, it was a ground-based solar array, with a generator as a baseload if full off-grid is needed. For my sovereign edge data center that I operate from my home/farm property, it was battery backup. For my van, it was roof-top solar with coach batteries to power stationary use. See here for my ground-based solar design that anyone can use which satisfies Colorado wind and snow loads.
  • Full stack software engineering & self-hosted infrastructure. While my core expertise lies in strategy, market-facing product development, finance, marketing, and sales, I’ve always maintained a strong technical orientation. Over time, I’ve developed the ability to understand and architect full technology stacks and databases. With the rise of AI, I’ve incorporated software development into my skillset—using AI tools to accelerate and automate most coding tasks. I now have a sovereign edge data center that I operate from my home/farm property. Assuming direct control of my hosting environment has significantly reduced my technology cloud costs and increased trust and control compared to traditional cloud services.
  • Forward guidance and predictions. A side project since 2017 for my own personal purposes was understanding technology trends in the context of cultural, societal, and geopolitical factors to gain clarity about the future and position for success. This project kicked into high gear in 2022 largely from the publication of five seminal books from well-known authors and subject matter experts, each which discovered multi-decade repeating cycles that can be used to help map the future. This helped me formalize this project into my Future Map For Consumer Brands.
  • Tax Strategy for Investing. Deep dive with my tax attorneys into using different tax and corporate entity structures (domestic and offshore) to maximize tax efficiency, originally for cryptocurrencies, but could be applied to general investing in businesses using different corporate structures and their tax implications.
  • How To Decide. Book about decision making with many strategies and tactics that I integrated into my risk-management and decision-making processes.
  • The Science of Selling. Book with extensive and detailed processes on selling backed by science, which I folded into my own sales operating procedures.
  • Principles by Ray Dalio. Book with extensive and detailed principles for managing people and culture, many of which I included into my own human resources operating procedures.
  • Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Book about risk, diversification and correlation, whose principles and concepts I have incorporated into my own life, especially as an investor.
  • Using the Functional Medicine Framework to maximize good health. I spent 14 years with chronic health issues whose causes were unknown and during periods for months at a time from 2010 to 2020, had to stop work and most activities. I discovered the Functional Medicine Framework and along with advancing science + my relentless research + constant trial and error, I was able to fix my health.
  • Overlanding. Designed, learned all the ins-and-outs of, and worked with a van up-fitter to convert our 2014 Ford van for road adventure travel.
  • How To Make Healthy Food Choices For Your Dog. A comprehensive document which covers the following topics: (1) How to select the right foods to purchase and avoid the ones that are not healthy; (2) the foods and ingredients to absolutely avoid; (3)how to scrutinize the ingredients in the food you give your dog; (4) how to do an apples to apples comparison between dog food products to see which ones are healthier; (5) how to choose quality protein sources; (6) …and more.
  • The complete checklist for evaluating dog boarding, dog kennel and pet sitting options. This checklist is not just for pet owners looking to make the best decisions for their pets, but also serves as an operating manual for my wife and I in running our own facility through our business, The Light of Dog. It describes why we do what we do, and how we are different from other facilities. We learned through research and tours of existing options, and trial and error since 2007 operating our facility.

FORMAL EDUCATION

  • UNIVERSITY OF DENVER – DANIELS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS, CO. 1995-1997. Master of Business Administration (MBA): Emphasis in Entrepreneurial Studies & Finance. Founder Toastmasters & Net Impact Chapters; Vice President of the Graduate Business Student Association.
  • PITZER COLLEGE, CLAREMONT, CA. 1987-1991. Bachelor’s Degree: Organizational Studies. Minors in Economics & Spanish; 6-month study abroad in Seville, Spain; Track & Field; Collegiate Cycling.
  • THE WEBB SCHOOLS, CLAREMONT, CA. 1984-1987. College Preparatory Boarding High School. Honor Committeeman. Basketball, Track & Field, Cycling.
PROFESSIONAL & PERSONAL AFFILIATIONS & ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

THE LIGHT OF DOG FARM

My wife and I purchased a distressed property in foreclosure as our primary residence, which includes a home, barns and livestock pens on 14-acres of land. We now use the property for personal and business purposes. Major projects include:

  • we split the residence in two to create a portion for our pet business and the other portion as our living residence, fixed the barns and livestock pens;
  • removed 26 dumpsters of trash and junk left over by previous owners;
  • created a section for growing using regenerative agriculture and grow up to 1000 lbs per year;
  • constructed trails for walking
  • constructed indoor and outdoor training areas for our pet business;
  • constructed dog parkour obstacles, firearm shooting range, archery station, climbing/bouldering wall, ax throwing wall, horseshoe pit, Ninja Warrior obstacles and punching bag;
  • Fenced-in 14 acres;
  • 2009-present.

SOEHNEL FAMILY TRUST

I was managing trustee and chief investment officer for a trust for my mother and father that invested in private companies, real estate and public securities. The trust was dissolved in 2024.

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Where possible, I record talks and post slideshares here.

  • Paddlesports Trade Coalition Colab October 2025.The Mechanics Of America’s Next Economic Supercycle; Building An Industry Index For The AI Era.
  • Outdoor Media Summit October 2024. 10-Year Outlook For the U.S. Outdoor Industry: A sobering if not unsettling perspective on a very difficult time ahead, but also how to find the opportunities amidst the challenges and positioning for the tremendous resurgence that follows.
  • Paddlesports Trade Coalition Colab September 2024. 10-Year Outlook For the U.S. Outdoor Industry: A sobering if not unsettling perspective on a very difficult time ahead, but also how to find the opportunities amidst the challenges and positioning for the tremendous resurgence that follows.
  • Outdoor Retailer June 2024. 10-Year Outlook For the U.S. Outdoor Industry: A sobering if not unsettling perspective on a very difficult time ahead, but also how to find the opportunities amidst the challenges and positioning for the tremendous resurgence that follows.
  • Outdoor Retailer November 2023. Skating To Where The Business Puck Will Be: Learn How To Navigate Future Opportunities And Avoid Threats From Emerging Technologies, Key Marketing Trends, New Business Models And Future Business Cycles
  • Outdoor Retailer June 2023. FUTURE 2025-2045: How Consumer Brands Can Thrive In This Massively Transformative Era Through token tech/web3, Artificial Intelligence And Other Exponential Technologies

MENTOR, FOODX AND HAX, part of SOSV

SOSV is a venture capitalist; Locations: Shenzhen, China; San Jose, CA; New York, NY. 2012-2018.

ADVISOR, INNOVATION CENTER OF THE ROCKIES

Entrepreneurial support organization, Boulder, CO. 2013-2016.

RISKINETICS

A financial security allowing a lender to securitize and sell off portions of the risk on their small business loan portfolio. I developed the concept through the course of my business school tenure, culminating into a business plan at the end of graduate studies and a working data science algorithm that I tested with actual bank lending data. I did not pursue it as I was asked to join The World School Network/PlanetY. 1996-1998.

OTHER AFFILIATIONS AND ACTIVITIES

  • Foster for retired racing greyhounds, Colorado Greyhound Adoption, 2004-present, Denver, CO.
  • Industry Trade Group Board Member, Colorado Internet Keiretsu, 1998-2005, Boulder, CO.
  • Big Brother, Big Brothers Big Sisters. 2002, Denver, CO.
  • Seminar Instructor, Aurora Small Business Program, 1997-2003, Aurora, CO.
  • Hawaii Ironman Qualifier 1994.
  • NGO Founder & Board Member, Mediation Works, Inc., 1993-1995, Kingston, MA.

ADDITIONAL SKILLS AND KEYWORDS

STRATEGY

Agriculture, Apparel, Baked Goods, Bakery, BBQ, Barbeque, Blockchain, Briquette, Coins, Consumer Brands, Consumer Insights, Consumer Packaged Goods, Consumer Products, Consumer Trends, Convenience, CPG, Crypto Mining/validation/nodes, Culture, DEFI, Decentralized Finance, Diapers, Digital Assets, Digital Twins/Phygitals, Digitally Native Vertical Brand (DNVB), Direct-to-consumer, Disruptive, Ecological Spaces, Education, Farming, Firelog/Firestarter/Firewood, FMCG, Foresight, Food, Food Bars, Futurist, Geopolitics, Goals, Go-to-market, Health Care, Hydroponics, Innovator, Laundry, Ledgers, Lifestyle, LOHAS, Lump Charcoal, Mission, Non-fungible tokens (NFT), Outdoor, Paddlesports, Public Lands, Pets, Regenerative Agriculture, Smart Contracts, Sports Venues, Start-ups, Startups, Supplements, Tokenization, Tokens, Vision, Vitamins, Weight Loss.

SYSTEMS/TECHNOLOGY

3D Printing/Additive Manufacturing, Agentic AI, Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO), Agentic Engineering, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Business Intelligence, Caddy Server, ChatGPT, Codex, Correlation, CSS, Customer Data Platform (CDP), Data Analysis, Data Mining, Data Science, Database, Desktop Publishing, Discourse, Docker, E-Commerce, Edge Computing, Evernote, Excel, Financial Technology (Fintech), Generative AI, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Goal Seek, Google Cloud, Google Data Studio, Google Sheets, Google Workspace (formerly Google Suite), HTML, Hyperlocal Manufacturing, JSON, JSONata, Knack (Cloud Database Platform), Layer 1, Layer 2, Ledger Nano X and Ledger Live, Linux, Nginx, Mailchimp, Machine Learning, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Power BI, Midjourney, NocoDB, NoSQL, Personalization, Personalized Medicine, PHP, PostgreSQL, Product Delivery, Prompt Engineering, ProxMox, QNAP, Python, Regression Analysis, Robotics, SaaS, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Sharding, Spreadsheet, SQL, Stable Diffusion, Tableau, Technology Stack, Trezor, Ubuntu, Virtual Machine, Virtual Reality (VR), WordPress, WooCommerce, Zero-Knowledge Proof

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Customer Surveys, Passive Voice Research, R&D, Unique Selling Proposition, Value Propositions.

FINANCE

ACV, Accelerator, Accounting, ARPC/ARPU, Breakeven, Capital Raising, COGS, Contribution Margin, EBIT, Forecasting, Fundraising, Gross Margin, Incubator, Key Performance Indicators (KPI), LTV, M&A, Margin Analysis, P&L Responsibility, Pricing, ROI, ROIMI, Seed Funding, Tax Strategies, Venture Capital.

PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS

3PL, Amazon FBA, Inventory Management, Supply Chain.

MARKETING

A/B Testing, Active Marketing, Affiliates, Analytics, Analog Marketing, Awareness Marketing, Backlinks, Blogging, Blog, Brand Marketing, Call to Action (CTA), Conversion Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Copywriting, CPC, CPO, Digital Marketing, Direct Marketing, Direct Response Marketing, Earned Media, Email Marketing, Engagement Marketing, Facebook, Funnels, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Grassroots Marketing, Instagram, Keywords, Landing Pages, Lead Magnet, Marketing Automation, Marketing Copy, Media Spend, Negative Keywords, Owned Media, Payback Periods, Paid Media, PPC, Product Stack, PR, Radio, ROAS, ROIMI, Sampling, Segmentation, SEO, Social, Storytelling, TV, Trials, Trip-wire, UX/UI, Video, Word of Mouth.

SALES

7-Eleven, Albertsons, Amazon, BJ’s, Brokers, Category Buyer, Category Management, Channel Management, Club, Convenience, Costco, C-store, CVS, Distributor Agreements, Drug, ECRM, GNC, Grocery, KeHe, Kroger, Mass, Meijer, National Distribution, Natural, Natural Grocers, Organic, Publix, Retail, Retail Margin, Retail Markup, Rite Aid, Safeway, Sales Channel Development, Sam’s Club, Specialty, Sports Supplement, SuperValu, Target, Tradeshow, Tradespend, UNFI, Vendor Agreements, Vitamin Shoppe, Vitamin World, Walgreens, Walmart, Wegmans, Wholesale, Whole Foods Market.

SUPPORT/OTHER

Community management, DIY/Hacker/Maker, Legal (incorporations - US domestic and offshore, general contracts, NDA’s) Intellectual Property, Trademark, Spanish.

QUOTES THAT SPEAK TO ME

These quotes are organized from my source quote list into themes that reflect recurring patterns in my thinking, work, values, and operating style.

Action, Courage & Persistence

  • If you can’t stop thinking about it don’t stop working for it
  • All the good stuff happens when we act even if we don’t know for sure
  • The diligent man makes good use of everything he finds
  • A few things you need to achieve exceptional results: Quantity: you take lots of shots; Quality: you take thoughtful shots; Consistency: you keep shooting for a long time; Feedback: you take better shots over time; Luck: you get a few favorable bounces.
  • An emotional example will convince more people than any set of statistics ever could
  • Awareness is often enough to motivate change
  • Be the best version of yourself
  • Change happens slowly. Then all at once
  • Consumption leads to thoughts leads to action – make better consumption choices
  • Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear
  • Create your life rather than live it
  • Don’t fight who you are. You will loose
  • Don’t stay in a place where no one sees your value
  • Embrace the shit
  • If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn’t thinking
  • If you have the choice, always choose to sprint and then rest
  • If you’re not failing you’re not pushing your limits and if you’re not pushing your limits you’re not maximizing your potential
  • If your choices don’t match other’s expectations, that is their concern, not yours
  • It’s not about what someone can do for you, it’s who and what the two of you become in each other’s presence
  • Look at every action, task, situation, opportunity, event, person you meet and figure out how to leverage that beyond what is is on the surface
  • When negotiating always leave money on the table…give more than you take
  • Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react
  • If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking. General George S. Patton
  • If you're not making mistake, then you're not doing anything. Jack Wooden.
  • Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has. Marguerite Yourcenar
  • The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will. Vince Lombardi
  • He pursues “situations that develop and force you to become so much of a greater person than yourself, than you thought you could ever be, and it really elevates you to achieving new things and becoming a better version of yourself.” Pat Milbery
  • Limit your time with people who see the downside of every situation
  • quote attributed to Lenin: There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen
  • Figure out what you're good at without trying, then try.
  • "If you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right." Paul Graham
  • Tom Bilyeu (Impact Theory), who first heard this from his father, says it best: "Find something you would die for, and live for it."
  • Do the right thing. Even when no one is looking. It's called integrity.
  • Nearly everything awesome takes longer than you think. Get started and don't worry about the clock.
  • Your day is going well, then one thing after the other goes wrong, and you realize at that moment the Fuckening has begun.
  • I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center. Big, undreamed‑of things—the people on the edge see them first. Kurt Vonnegut

Systems, Habits & Execution

  • If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead
  • Before you try to increase your willpower, try to decrease the friction in your environment
  • Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will take 4 to sharpen the ax
  • Habits are crucial – they cast repeated votes for being a certain type of person
  • To take advantage of your brain’s natural gardening system, simply think about the things that are important to you
  • Your energy should go into building better habits not chasing better results
  • Your habits are often a byproduct of convenience. Humans are wired to seek the path of least resistance, which means the most convenient option is often the one that wins. Make good choices more convenient and bad choices less so. Behavior will improve naturally. James Clear
  • Look at your habits: Are they the product of innumerable little cowardices and lazinesses...or of your courage and inventive reason? Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Your system(s) moves at the speed of its slowest part
  • The modern world is optimized for convenience, not improvement. But the body and mind only grow when placed under a stimulus. If you want improvement, you have to choose something different than convenience.

Learning, Growth & Self-Improvement

  • Definition of an expert. An expert is a person who has found out by painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field. Niels Bohr
  • Stability shuts down the brains learning centers. Do hard things 70 percent of the time
  • Philosopher Eric Hoffer on adaptability: "In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
  • It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace. Chuck Palahniuk
  • I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it. Vincent Van Gogh
  • If you do not actively choose a better way, then society, culture, and the general inertia of life will push you into a worse way. The default is distraction, not improvement. James Clear

Problem Solving, Decisions & Risk

  • Find a game where the probabilities favor you and keep taking shots
  • Do not tolerate problems
  • Half your problems are just your mind making minor things seem like major things
  • If a decision is reversible the biggest risk is moving too slow; if a decision is irreversible the biggest risk is moving too fast
  • If you’re stuck in a negotiation, figure out the 1 thing that is truly non-negotiable for you and then compromise on everything else
  • Research shows power dulls you to risk
  • The more precisely you define the problem the more easily you can find a solution
  • Your success depends on the risks you take. Your survival depends on the risks you avoid. Avoid the risks where your survival is at stake
  • Life can't be just about solving one miserable problem after another, that can't be the only thing, they need to be things that inspire you and that make you glad to wake up in the morning and be part of humanity - Elon Musk

Entrepreneurship, Creation & Innovation

  • Each problem is a puzzle that when solved gives a principle to avoid same problem in the future
  • Fighting against the existing reality: You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
  • Entrepreneur is a synonym for salesperson, and salesperson is the pedestrian term for storyteller We (entrepreneurs) are all impostors who must deploy a fiction (a story) that captures the imagination and attracts buyers (and/or capital) to pull the future forward and turn rhyme into reason. The only way to predict the future is to make it. Even if a startup make no sense. Scott Galloway.
  • Writing is the superpower of humankind. It is our truest form of magic. Writing allows you to conjure up something of value where nothing previously existed. It costs little for you to write down the lessons of your life and yet those few minutes spent writing can be life-altering for the right reader. As I once saw it put: "there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words. Furthermore, writing is the foundation of nearly every technology and innovation because we have to record what we know before we can build upon it. And these innovations are passed down from generation to generation, allowing our children to inherit a richer intellectual fortune than what we were born into. The world is richer because we write and nobody is made poorer in the process. James Clear
  • Invention is by its very nature disruptive. If you want to be understood at all times, then don’t do anything new. Jeff Bezos.
  • “It is impossible to make a perpetual motion machine, you’ll waste your time if you try. It is possible to write a book of poetry that will sell 10 million copies. It is unlikely, it probably won’t happen, but it is possible.Science and innovation and creativity engage with the possible. Possible means “might.” It takes persistence to stick it out when we’re not sure. Once certainty arrives, it becomes an engineering problem.After the first fusion reactor is shown to work at any scale, we’ll know it can be done. Now the hard work is simply making it work better. Most organizations do this sort of work. Chipping, filing, refining. Before you get to work, it’s worth deciding which hat you’re being asked to wear… pursuing the possible or optimizing the certain.” https://seths.blog/2025/08/possibility-vs-certainty/

Identity, Meaning & Authenticity

  • Define what’s meaningful: Something I can do or create that would bring me more meaning in life is . . . The activities that I currently do that bring me the most meaning are… The activities or projects that I should stop doing because they are not bringing me any sense of meaning, are . . . If I was going to add new activities that bring me more meaning, the first ones I would add would be . . .
  • Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
  • Science Has Confirmed That If You’re Not Outside Your Comfort Zone, You’re not learning
  • The more an idea is tied to your identity, the more you will ignore evidence it is false
  • Don't compromise on living your truth - it is non-negotiable. Embrace yourself and who you really are
  • The more an idea is tied to your identity, the more you will ignore evidence it is false. To continue to grow and learn, you must be willing to update, expand, and edit your identity.
  • You will destroy your dreams if you stay in your comfort zone
  • Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
  • To understand others, watch what they reward. To understand yourself, watch what you envy. James Clear
  • When we die, all the true, deep, incredibly meaningful and impactful experiences and knowledge die with us and cannot be preserved to benefit future generations — one of the greatest tragedies of our existence.
  • Where is your Self to be found? Always in the deepest enchantment that you have experienced.

Relationships, Communication & Kindness

  • People will forget what you said people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel
  • How to make meaningful connections in life and business: “Understanding a person’s hunger and responding to it is one of the most potent tools you’ll ever discover for getting through to anyone you meet in business or your personal life.”
  • What is more effective is not telling people what to do but stimulating their interest and curiosity with what you say
  • Who can I surprise today with a thank you a gift or a moment of appreciation
  • Winning an argument. What research on reframing shows is that the key to winning any argument is to understand your opponents’ perspective first, and then to link the beliefs supporting their perspective to your argument. The point is to influence them by finding enough common ground to win them to your side–not running to opposite corners and shouting across the divide.
  • Understanding a person's hunger and responding to it is one of the most potent tools you'll ever discover for getting through to anyone you meet in business or your personal life.
  • A simple rule that makes life easier: Always strive to give value before you ask for value. James Clear
  • Astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. The effect you have on others’ lives is the highest expression of your own. Maya Angelou

Attention, Freedom & Wealth

  • How to define wealth: Real wealth is not having to do things certain things, like: not worrying about jerks claiming your attention, time and energy; not being locked into status games and living based on other’s expectations; not feeling like you have to say “yes”; Real wealth is about freedom. Money can help achieve these things, but there are plenty of people who make lots of money yet aren’t free.
  • Not being busy is a competitive advantage
  • More than anything else, controlling your attention is about being able to figure out what you should be working on and identifying what truly moves the needle.

Resilience, Hard Things & Adversity

  • It is a fundamental law of nature that you get stronger only by doing difficult things
  • 40 percent rule: When your mind tells you that you're exhausted, fried, totally tapped out... you're really only 40 percent done. You still have 60 percent left in your tank.
  • On persistence and luck
  • The secret to success is rejection or specifically the willingness to endure it
  • You never know what worse luck your bad luck saved you from
  • You drown not by falling in a river but by being submerged
  • To make something great, the right way is the hard way
  • You are tough when your mood is not dependent on your conditions
  • I believe that the fear of regret for me is greater than the fear of judgement, and that's why I do what I do - Gary Vaynerchuk
  • When everything seems to be going aghainst you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. Henry Ford
  • If you keep showing up, you'll almost certainly break through — but probably not in the way you expected or intended. You need enough persistence to keep working and enough flexibility to enjoy success when it comes in a different form than you imagined.
  • Whenever you feel like giving up, remember: your brain is naturally wired to conserve energy and keep you safe, sometimes making you want to take the easiest path. You have to resist this. Peter Diamandis

Excellence, Craft & Flow

  • There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it. Mark Twain
  • Perfection. That's what it's about. It's those moments. When you can feel the perfection of creation. The beauty of physics, you know, the wonder of mathematics. The elation of action and reaction, and that is the kind of perfection that I want to be connected to. Samuel Anders.
  • Personally, I think mindset is an entrepreneur’s most critical asset. Yet few of us ever take the time to craft it -- to purposefully select and sharpen the mindset(s) we desire. Diamandis
  • Your best performances will come when you are working in a way that is a full expression of you. The work becomes a natural display of your personality. This is when you not only get better results, but also love the activity — because in doing the craft, you feel alive. James Clear
  • You get to pick a new career based on one factor: Your job is to do the activity that most frequently puts you into a flow state. Flow state = you feel fully immersed in your work, you're in "the zone," time flies by without you realizing it, etc. What do you choose? James Clear
  • Your first task is to find what feels effortless to you. Your second task is to put maximum effort into it. James Clear
  • A 1000-gram iron bar. Its raw value is about $100. If you choose to make horseshoes, its value will rise to $250. If instead you make sewing needles, the value will rise to about $70,000. If you make watch springs and gears, the value will rise to about $6 million. But if you make precision laser parts from it, like those used in lithography, it will be worth $15 million. Your value is not only in what you are made of – but most of all – in how you make the best of who you are.
  • Tennis great Roger Federer spoke to Dartmouth graduates in 2024: “In tennis, perfection is impossible... In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches... Now, I have a question for all of you... what percentage of the POINTS do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. In other words, even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. You teach yourself to think: OK, I double-faulted. It’s only a point… The best in the world are not the best because they win every point... It’s because they know they’ll lose... again and again… and have learned how to deal with it. You accept it. Cry it out if you need to... then force a smile. You move on. Be relentless. Adapt and grow. Work harder. Work smarter.”

Reflection Questions & Self-Awareness

  • Are you solving problems at the branch level or the root level?
  • What if I could only subtract to solve problems?
  • What or who might trip me up or cause stress and how can I respond in a positive way from my highest self?
  • What would you have done differently today and why?
  • Will you regret doing or not doing this at end of life?
  • Which of your current habits is least aligned with the type of person you hope to become?
  • Which expense in your life delivers the least happiness per dollar and which delivers the most happiness per dollar?
  • Look around you right now. What small change could you make to your surroundings that would steer you toward good habits and away from distractions? James Clear
  • If I could only fix one thing in how I work or live, what change would make everything else easier?

Markets, Consumers & Strategy

  • Consumers don’t want more choices, they want more confidence in the choices presented
  • Brand marketing gives symbolic value to ordinary consumption

Faith, Stewardship & Wisdom

  • God has given [you] some special abilities; be sure to use them to help [others], passing on to [them] God’s many kinds of blessings
  • If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you.
  • He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’ [18] Remember the LORD your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful.
  • Don't give up! The hardest battles are given to the strongest soldiers. Also: God doesn’t give the hardest battles to His toughest soldiers; He creates the toughest soldiers out of life’s hardest battles.
  • It’s tempting to seek out the easy gigs and the straightforward projects. But of course, if they’re the easy ones, there’s probably quite a few people eager to do them. So your ability to add unique value goes down. The alternative is to find and focus on the projects that take insight, guts and a tolerance for risk. The projects that involve significant human connection and effort. When new technology shows up, some people ask, “how can this make my job easier?” But what happens if we ask, “how can I use this to do something really hard?” seth Godin
  • Wonder is the feeling we have when our experience extends beyond our expectations. Seth Godin
  • More trouble than it’s worth. This is the hallmark of projects that turn out to be worth doing. The trouble might be a symptom that we’re onto something that others don’t care enough to do. And the things that are obviously worth doing are probably already being done. Seth Godin
  • Sometimes it pays to accept and celebrate what we get. And sometimes, we only get something because we settled for it. It helps to be able to discern the difference between the two. Seth Godin

PROFILE IMAGE

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ADDITIONAL SIGNALS FROM MY INSIGHT HUB

I maintain a 6-month snapshot from my Hub database—an object-oriented JSON system I built as the nerve center of my life.

It captures my daily activities as a searchable memory layer, helping me surface signal, trends, and insights that get lost in day-to-day noise.

What follows is a filtered view of what I’ve chosen to make public: what I’m learning, reading, thinking about, and working on and anything else I find interesting. I update this weekly with recent additions.

Last 6-month entries: https://projects.eddiesoehnel.com/adminprojects/eddie-soehnel-portable-identity-document-OPEN/src/branch/main/data/insights-hub/insights-hub-posts-last-6-months.md