Build a business that runs without running you.
Ignite builds interconnected systems that help small teams capture opportunities, automate execution, surface intelligence and move work forward without making the owner the center of everything.
You don't need more tools.
You need a system.
Most growing businesses already have enough software. The problem is that their tools, people, processes and data were never designed to operate together.
Leads get missed. Follow-up becomes inconsistent. Information gets trapped. Owners stay buried in work the business should already know how to handle.
Different capabilities. One operating direction.
Start by finding what's missing. Capture relationships before they disappear. Build the operating infrastructure underneath them. Then add intelligence that can see across the business and help coordinate what happens next.
Absence Audit
Find the missing capabilities, broken handoffs and process gaps that are creating drag — including the problems that do not need AI at all.
Catalyst Card
Turn real-world conversations into structured relationships, then keep them moving online through LinkFlow — our proprietary LinkedIn growth engine built into the system.
Orbit
The intelligence and operating layer we are building next — designed to observe the business, surface what matters, remember decisions and coordinate accountable action across capabilities including content amplification.
The handshake is only the beginning.
Catalyst Card captures the relationship the moment it starts. From there, LinkFlow — our proprietary LinkedIn growth engine — helps keep that relationship moving by connecting professional networking activity directly into the same CRM and pipeline.
One system. Two entry points: in person through Catalyst, online through LinkedIn.
Find the right people. Keep warm relationships organized. Detect engagement. Bring meaningful signals back into the system where follow-up can actually happen.
Most AI tells you what's possible.
Orbit is being built to tell you what's working.
Orbit is the business operating system and intelligence network we are building next — bringing a company's operations, AI capabilities, marketing, content, customer activity, decisions and results into one connected system. We'll build it publicly, prove it inside our own businesses first, and share what we learn along the way.
Know your business
Structure operating data, decisions, actions and outcomes so the business can build institutional memory instead of starting from scratch every time.
Know what's changing
Detect signals across the operating environment — from customers, pipeline, content, execution and the systems feeding the business.
Remember what you decided
Hold the chain from signal to recommendation to decision to commitment to action to outcome, so important work doesn't quietly disappear.
Get the work moving
Route approved work to the right capability, agent or human — and bring the operator the decisions that actually require judgment.
Every month it should know more than the last.
The value is not another model subscription. It is the accumulated intelligence, decisions, accountability and measured outcomes that remain with the business as the underlying technology changes.
Execution models are replaceable. Intelligence and accountability are durable.
You run the business.
Orbit handles the machinery.
Which model. Which agent. Which API, automation or open-source component. That's our problem, and it will change repeatedly.
The operator should be asked what needs to happen — not which provider, prompt framework or model release should make it happen.
- What's happening, and why
- The expected business outcome
- What needs your approval
- What actually happened
- What Orbit learned from it
- Model selection and routing
- Agent configuration
- Prompts, tokens, context windows
- The tool of the month
We run it before we sell it.
Orbit will not go directly from engineering into customer accounts. After production build, we will operate it inside Ignite Your Marketing and VA Benefits Navigator for a minimum of 90 days before onboarding outside businesses.
Real revenue. Real teams. Real consequences. We intend to learn on ourselves first.
Ignite Your Marketing
The engineering company itself. The first place Orbit will encounter the operational messiness, decisions, customer work and accountability it is being built to handle.
VA Benefits Navigator
A separate operating business with its own team, customers, revenue and pressures — giving Orbit a second environment before client onboarding begins.
Before we built the products, we built the company that could build them.
Ignite rebuilt itself as an AI-led engineering company first. Human operators set direction while specialized AI systems help us research, challenge assumptions, design, review, test and accelerate product development.
That is how Absence Audit, Catalyst, LinkFlow and Orbit are being created: using the same principle we bring to customers — let technology carry more of the complexity while people remain responsible for direction and judgment.
We use the operating model before we sell the outcome.
- AI accelerates research, product thinking, engineering and review
- Humans establish direction, approve consequential decisions and accept the risk
- Products are proven inside our own businesses before we ask customers to rely on them
Start with the problem. Build the system around it.
Our products enter at different points, but they are designed around the same principle: reduce operational drag, preserve intelligence and make the business less dependent on manual memory.
Find what's missing before you add more.
See which capabilities your business actually needs, where AI can help, where it cannot, and what should happen first.
Explore the Audit →Keep valuable relationships moving.
Capture the connection, continue the follow-up, and bring engagement into the same relationship pipeline. Catalyst Growth includes LinkFlow — our proprietary LinkedIn growth engine. Not sold separately.
Explore Catalyst →Turn business activity into intelligence and action.
Follow the build of the operating intelligence layer designed to understand what is happening, preserve decisions and help move approved work forward.
Follow the Build →Systems should create more than revenue.
We also apply our time, technology and operating experience to organizations whose return is measured in service, community and impact — not simply margin.
The Mac Parkman Foundation
Supporting work around repetitive brain trauma, education and advocacy.
National American Indian Veterans
Helping strengthen the systems behind service to Native American veterans.
Spirit Lake Youth Sports
Supporting community infrastructure that gives young people more opportunities to participate and grow.
Before you add another tool, find out what your business is missing.
The Absence Audit is designed to identify the systems, processes and operating capabilities already in place — and the gaps creating unnecessary drag.
The operating system for operators who are done guessing.
Orbit is a business operating system and intelligence network designed to bring your operations, AI team, marketing, content, customer activity, decisions and results into one connected system. It helps you see what is happening, put AI to work across the business, understand what is producing results, and keep the right work moving.
And it is designed to get more useful over time. Orbit learns from your business, from the outcomes your work produces, and from patterns across a private network of 400 active companies. The AI models underneath will change constantly. We manage that complexity behind the system so you keep the capabilities — not another technology stack to chase.
One system working across the business.
Orbit is not one AI assistant doing one job. It brings the pieces together so your technology can help you operate, market, create, follow up, learn and make decisions with the same business context behind all of it.
See the business clearly
Bring your goals, customers, pipeline, activity, priorities and performance into one operating view so you can understand what needs attention without checking five different places.
Put a specialized AI team to work
Orbit coordinates AI councils built for different jobs across the business — helping with research, content, growth, customer activity, operations and the work that supports them.
Create once. Amplify further.
Turn an idea, offer or campaign into more useful content and keep it moving across the channels your business uses without starting from a blank page every time.
Know what is actually working
Connect marketing, outreach, conversations, bookings, pipeline movement and revenue so you can see which activity is creating results — and which activity is just creating work.
Keep decisions from dying in meetings
Orbit remembers what you decided, what was supposed to happen next and whether it actually happened — then helps move the work forward when you are ready.
Learn beyond your own four walls
Your business learns from its own results and from useful patterns across the Orbit network, giving you a wider view of what active companies are trying, changing and learning.
The more your business runs through Orbit, the smarter it becomes.
On day one, Orbit starts with what you tell it. Over time it learns from what actually happens — what converted, what stalled, what your team completed, what you approved and what produced a result. It also learns from patterns across other active businesses in the Orbit network without exposing another company's private information.
It learns your business
The more Orbit sees how you operate, the less explaining you have to do and the more useful its guidance becomes.
It learns from the network
Orbit can recognize patterns across active businesses and bring useful lessons back to you — what others are trying, where they are getting stuck, and what appears to be working.
It learns from outcomes
A recommendation is only useful if something happens afterward. Orbit follows the result so the next decision can be informed by what actually worked.
One place to ask. The whole business behind the answer.
Instead of checking sales, marketing, content, customer activity, projects and notes separately, ask Orbit. It is designed to understand the business context behind the question and bring you the answer, the recommendation or the next action that matters.
Behind that Chief of Staff is your company memory — the decisions you made, the priorities you set, the work in motion and the results coming back. You stay in control. Orbit helps you spend less time hunting for information and chasing what should happen next.
- Ask a business question without hunting through five systems
- See what actually needs your attention today
- Know what was decided and what happened afterward
- Get a recommendation explained in plain English
- Approve the next move and help get it underway
- Spend less time managing the machinery behind the business
Ask the business. Get an answer.
Orbit is designed around the questions owners already ask themselves every day — then connects the answer to what happens next.
“What needs my attention today?”
See the handful of issues, opportunities and decisions that matter instead of digging through every system yourself.
“Which leads are going cold?”
Spot opportunities that are slipping and know where follow-up is needed before they quietly disappear.
“What did we decide about this?”
Pull the decision, the reasoning and what was supposed to happen next without searching through old messages and meeting notes.
“What's actually working?”
Understand which efforts are producing movement and which ones are consuming time without creating a result.
“What should I take off my plate next?”
Find work that can be handled by AI, automation or a better process instead of continuing to carry it manually.
“Okay. Let's do it.”
Turn the decision into next steps and keep the work moving instead of ending with another report, idea or to-do list.
The models will change. Your business should not have to.
The best AI model today may not be the best one six months from now. New models will arrive, old ones will fade and the technology underneath the system will keep moving quickly.
That is our problem to manage. Orbit is designed so we can test, replace and improve the AI behind the scenes while the experience and capabilities your business relies on stay familiar. You should not have to rebuild your company around the model of the month.
That is also our role. IYM stays behind the system as your technology partner — maintaining the connections, evaluating new models, improving the AI capabilities and keeping Orbit current as the market changes.
After all, we built it for ourselves first. Ignite Your Marketing and VA Benefits Navigator will run on Orbit before any outside member does. We have to trust and depend on the same system we ask you to rely on.
- Your company knowledge and history
- Your AI team and the jobs you rely on it to perform
- Your workflows, permissions and approvals
- Your performance history and attribution
- Your connection to the Orbit network
- Which AI model is best for the job
- When a better model should replace it
- The connections and technology behind the system
- The constant changes happening across AI
400 active businesses. Learning together.
Orbit gets more useful when it can learn not only from your company, but from patterns across other businesses that are actively selling, marketing, serving customers and making decisions every day.
Membership carries an obligation. Every company in Orbit must remain active — consistently marketing, selling, following up, communicating with customers and creating new opportunities. Orbit is not being built for spectators.
We will maintain a minimum activity standard for the network. Members who repeatedly fail to meet it will be asked to leave so the seat can go to a business prepared to participate. We are not asking you to create busywork for Orbit. We are asking you to do the things a healthy business should already be doing to grow.
Orbit teaches operators how to become better operators. Your private business information stays yours. The network learns from the patterns — what businesses tried, what changed and what worked — so 400 serious operators can learn together, build together and grow together.
Built for companies ready to use it.
Orbit is designed for companies that are already selling, marketing, serving customers and creating opportunities — businesses prepared to put the system to work, not simply experiment with another piece of software.
Well-capitalized startups with an active go-to-market strategy may also be a fit. If you are still figuring out what you sell, who you serve or whether customers will buy it, Orbit is probably early for your business.
Help create a different kind of business network.
The first 250 qualifying businesses will become Orbit's Founding Principals — a group helping establish how a private operating network of active companies learns, improves and grows together.
Orbit will first run inside Ignite Your Marketing and VA Benefits Navigator for at least 90 days. We will use that operating period to understand what it takes to run the system properly before final Founding membership pricing is released.
Founding Principals will receive preferential pricing that remains locked for the life of their active membership.
Get closer to the build before memberships open.
Join the Founding 250 list to receive our public-build newsletter, early looks at Orbit as it takes shape, and priority access when we begin inviting qualified businesses into the first cohort.
No payment required. Joining the list subscribes you to Orbit build updates and does not obligate you to become a member.
- Priority consideration for one of the first 250 memberships
- Preferential Beta pricing once final membership terms are released
- Beta pricing locked for the life of the active membership
- A 12-month membership commitment, paid monthly if preferred
- Early participation in the Orbit operating network as it comes online
We are deliberately waiting to publish final Orbit pricing until the system has operated inside our own businesses long enough for us to understand the real cost and responsibility of running it well.
Build it publicly. Prove it on us. Then open the network.
This October we launch Absence Audit, Catalyst and LinkFlow. Then our engineering focus moves to Orbit and we share the build as it happens. Before the first outside Orbit account comes aboard, the system will run inside Ignite Your Marketing and VA Benefits Navigator for at least 90 days.
Launch the foundation
Put Absence Audit, Catalyst and LinkFlow into customers' hands and learn from real use.
Build Orbit in public
Share what we are building, what we are learning and how the system is taking shape as engineering moves forward.
Run it on our businesses first
Operate Orbit inside Ignite Your Marketing and VA Benefits Navigator for at least 90 days before asking a client to rely on it.
Open Founding accounts
Bring in the first reserved businesses only after Orbit has earned its way out of our own operating environments.
See what Orbit becomes before we open it up.
Orbit is being built and proven inside our own businesses first. Follow the build to see what we're learning, how the system evolves, and when Founding accounts become available.
No payment required. Following the build does not obligate you to become an Orbit member.
Know where AI actually helps your business. And where it doesn't.
A guided 15-minute conversation about how your business really runs. Within 48 hours, you get a report built around your business — what's slowing you down, where AI can actually help, what to fix first, and what you can safely ignore.
You've been told AI changes everything.Nobody told you which part applies to you.
Every week brings another tool, another agent, another confident claim. Most of it is irrelevant to your business. Some of it would genuinely change your month. Almost nobody will tell you the difference, because almost everybody selling AI advice is selling AI.
Six things, in one report.
It stands entirely on its own. No call required to make it worth having.
AI Readiness Snapshot
Where your business actually sits today — Emerging, Developing, Applied, Integrated or AI-Native — described honestly, not scored theatrically.
Priority Absences
Three to seven findings. Each one names what's missing, quotes your own words as evidence, explains the business consequence, and says whether AI is the right answer.
The Opportunity Map
Every opportunity sorted into Do Now, Plan Next, Watch — and Ignore For Now. The ignore list is the one most people find most valuable.
Capability Recommendations
What capability your business needs, first. Current tools shown only as examples, with real costs and setup effort. Capabilities last; vendors don't.
30/60/90 Plan
Opening with a Week One Quick Start — three or four actions of fifteen minutes each. Sometimes it says: add no AI yet, fix your process first.
AI Landscape Brief
A plain-language orientation to what's actually happening right now — models versus agents, reasoning versus execution, and why no single provider should own your strategy.
Fifteen minutes from you. Forty-eight hours from us.
A guided business conversation
Not a form. Around 25 to 35 questions, roughly 15 to 20 minutes, at your own pace. Some are quick selections about your stack and your team. The important ones are open: walk me through yesterday. What work do you dread? Where does everything pile up? What would you delete if you could?
Structured analysis
Your answers run through eight diagnostic lenses — executive clarity, structure, capability coverage, process maturity, data and systems, decision rights, accountability and institutional memory — plus a dedicated look at where your time and revenue leak.
Human quality review
Every early report is reviewed personally before it's sent. Recommendations get checked against your actual size, revenue and stack — nobody gets told to buy enterprise software for a four-person team.
Delivered in 48 hours
A report you can read in twenty minutes and act on this week. Yours to keep, act on, or hand to someone else — with no obligation to buy anything from us, ever.
"This understands my business."
That's the only review that counts. The failure condition is equally clear: if it reads like a generic list of AI ideas, we've failed — and every finding in your report has to trace back to something you actually told us.
"Use AI for lead follow-up."
"You said most leads arrive through Facebook Ads, your team responds manually during business hours, and follow-up after first contact is inconsistent. Automated first-response qualification is your clearest immediate opportunity."
One Audit. Three ways to get it.
Every option includes the complete Absence Audit and six-part report. Beta is limited launch pricing. Advisor adds a live review session.
Beta
The complete Absence Audit at founding launch pricing for the first 25 businesses, in exchange for candid feedback.
- Complete six-part report
- Human quality review
- 48-hour delivery
- Feedback requested
Core
The complete Absence Audit at standard pricing — built around your business, with clear priorities and a practical action plan.
- Complete six-part report
- Human quality review
- 48-hour delivery
- 30/60/90 action plan
Advisor
Everything in Core, plus a 30-minute review with an IYM team member to work through the findings and decide what happens first.
- Everything in Core
- 30-minute review session
- Priority sequencing for your business
- Direct questions answered
Our guarantee. If the audit doesn't surface at least three meaningful opportunities specific to your business, you get a full refund.The only thing you can lose is fifteen minutes.
Want the Absence Auditwhen it goes live?
Join the launch list now. We'll notify you as soon as purchasing opens in October, with everything you need to decide whether the Audit is right for your business.
No payment today. Joining the launch list does not obligate you to purchase.
Straight answers.
Is this a sales pitch for something else?
No. The Absence Audit is a standalone product with no obligation to recommend anything we sell. It's free to conclude that you need a process fix, a hire, better data discipline, an off-the-shelf tool, or nothing at all. If Orbit is genuinely the right answer for your business we'll say so — and if it isn't, we'll say that too.
Do you connect to my CRM, ads or accounting data?
Not in this version. The audit is a guided, self-reported diagnostic — which is why it takes fifteen minutes and costs what it does. Every finding is framed as "based on what you told us," and we never claim certainty we haven't earned. A deeper connected audit using live business-system data is something we may offer later.
What if my answer really is "you don't need AI yet"?
Then that's what the report says, in writing, with the reasoning. That verdict is a feature. Telling a business to fix its process and its data before adding anything clever is often the most valuable thing in the report.
Will you recommend specific tools?
We lead with the capability your business needs, then show one or two current tools as examples — with indicative cost, setup effort and time saved. Tools change every quarter; the capability doesn't. We have no vendor relationships influencing what appears in your report.
Who is this for?
Owners and operators of small businesses — roughly two to twenty people — who are AI-curious, AI-overwhelmed, or already using AI and unsure whether they're using it well. If you want a technical implementation plan for a fifty-person engineering org, this isn't it.
Capture the lead.
Let technology do the rest.
One tap gets them into your system. AI instantly follows up, helps qualify their interest, and guides serious prospects toward booking time with you — without relying on you to remember who to contact next.
The follow-up shouldn't depend on you.
You meet someone worth talking to. Then the day moves on. The contact gets buried, the follow-up gets delayed, and a good opportunity quietly goes cold.
Catalyst captures the lead while the conversation is still fresh and puts the follow-up in motion immediately — so you do not have to remember who to contact, when to reach out, or who was actually serious.
Captured. Followed up. Qualified. Booked.
Catalyst takes the repetitive follow-up work off your plate so promising relationships keep moving without you having to chase every one yourself.
Capture the lead
The connection goes straight into your system while the conversation is still fresh.
AI follows up instantly
Your follow-up starts right away instead of waiting until you get back to your desk — or remember later.
Qualify the interest
Catalyst helps separate people who are genuinely interested from people who were simply being polite.
Drive the booking
Serious prospects are guided toward the next step, including getting time onto your calendar.
Keep the context
The relationship, conversation and next step stay together so you are not trying to reconstruct the interaction later.
Stop losing good opportunities
The system keeps working after you walk away, so valuable connections are less likely to disappear into your phone or inbox.
AI follows up. LinkFlow keeps cultivating.
For relationships that need more than one touch, Catalyst Growth includes LinkFlow — our proprietary LinkedIn growth engine. Not sold separately.
LinkFlow adds another touchpoint by helping you stay connected, continue the conversation, and spot people showing real interest on LinkedIn — while you stay in control of meaningful replies.
- Find the right people on LinkedIn
- Bring your existing LinkedIn network into the same system
- Keep warm relationships moving with thoughtful outreach
- Spot replies, comments, reactions and other signs of interest
- Use AI to sort responses and prepare a suggested reply for your approval
- See which LinkedIn relationships turn into real opportunities
Your account can go live before your physical card arrives.
Pre-order customers do not have to wait for production. We configure the account, relationship flow and messaging foundation first so you can begin using Catalyst from your phone while the physical card is on the way.
Complete your onboarding
A guided 30–60 minute session gets the account configured around your business, your profile, your follow-up goals and the documentation needed for messaging registration.
We configure the system
We build the account, relationship flow and messaging foundation, then prepare and submit the required business messaging registration using the documentation you provide.
Start using Catalyst from your phone
Your account can go live before the physical card arrives, so you can begin sharing your Catalyst experience and moving relationships into the system immediately.
Your physical Catalyst Card arrives
The same live account is now available through the physical card. Nothing starts over and nothing needs to be rebuilt.
Messaging approval is subject to carrier requirements. Customers must provide complete and accurate business documentation required for submission.
Start with stronger follow-up. Add deeper intelligence over time.
Catalyst launches first as a practical relationship-capture and growth tool, with LinkFlow extending that relationship into LinkedIn and the CRM.
As Orbit comes online, those same relationship and engagement signals become part of a broader operating picture — giving the intelligence layer more context about where opportunity is forming and what may deserve attention next.
- Premium physical card, matte navy, embossed sleeve
- No app required — theirs or yours
- Works with every modern phone, tap or QR
- Update once, every card updates
- Standalone — no membership required
- Designed to feed richer relationship signals into Orbit later
Start now. Lock your rate before the cards arrive.
Your account can go live before your physical card arrives. Pre-order before our first production cards arrive and lock the Founding monthly rate for the life of that active account.
Catalyst
Regularly $79/month after the Beta launch period closes.
- Live Catalyst account and structured business profile
- One physical Catalyst Card from the first production run
- Relationship capture, follow-up and pipeline organization
- Messaging foundation and account support
Catalyst Growth
Regularly $149/month after the Beta launch period closes.
- Everything in Catalyst
- Includes LinkFlow — our proprietary LinkedIn growth engine. Not sold separately.
- LinkedIn relationship discovery, matching and cultivation
- Engagement detection and AI-assisted reply triage
- Human-approved response drafting and opportunity attribution
Includes a 30–60 minute onboarding session, account configuration, and preparation and submission of your business messaging registration. Standard onboarding becomes $99 after the Beta launch period closes. Messaging approval is subject to carrier requirements, and customers must provide the required business documentation.
We identify meaningful human problems and engineer elegant solutions.
Ignite Your Marketing is an engineering company. Not an agency, not a reseller, not a consultancy that ships slide decks. We build the systems we needed ourselves, run our own businesses on them, and only then offer them to other operators.
Four rules we don't bend.
We are our first customer
Every product begins as something we needed. We build it, operate it, depend on it, and refine it inside Ignite Your Marketing and VA Benefits Navigator. Only then does it become available. We don't speculate — we operationalize.
AI accelerates. Humans establish direction.
AI can analyse, propose, draft, synthesise and execute. Humans set the objective, approve what matters, accept the risk, and decide. Nothing consequential happens in our systems without a person deciding it should.
Architect, never vendor
We don't sell hours, implementation services, or access to our engineering team. We build products and stand behind them. It's a narrower business, and a far more honest one.
Capabilities are durable. Implementations are replaceable.
The models, tools and providers underneath our products will change repeatedly. What you rely on shouldn't. We design for the outcome, and we swap the machinery when something better arrives.
Built by an operator, for operators.
Don Fried is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, entrepreneur, founder of Ignite Your Marketing and co‑owner of VA Benefits Navigator. Over more than two decades in business, he has worked with and coached more than 100 businesses across growth, marketing, technology and operations.
He approaches technology from the operator's seat: not technology for technology's sake, but as a force multiplier for building better systems, making better decisions and creating businesses that are less dependent on the owner. Everything offered here exists because a business he runs needed it first.
Start wherever makes sense.
Diagnose what's missing, strengthen how relationships move through the business, or follow the build toward Orbit.
Systems should create more than revenue.
We believe the same operating discipline used to build stronger businesses can also strengthen organizations serving people, families and communities. Some of our most meaningful work is measured in impact rather than margin.
Capability applied where it matters.
These relationships are not decorative logo placements. They are organizations where Ignite contributes real systems, marketing, technology, strategy or operating support.
CareerSkills2Work
Supporting career pathways that connect education, hands-on experience and sustainable employment for students, veterans and career seekers.
Visit organization →Healing America Foundation
Supporting work that honors service, teaches the value of freedom and reaches veterans, first responders, students and families.
Visit organization →Hattie Mae Kimble Foundation
Supporting programs that expand education, mentorship, resources and opportunity for underprivileged youth in the Tampa region.
Visit organization →The Mac Parkman Foundation
Supporting education, advocacy and systems around repetitive brain trauma and the people affected by it.
Visit organization →National American Indian Veterans
Supporting a Congressionally chartered veterans organization working to advance recognition, advocacy, benefits and support for Native veterans.
Visit organization →Spirit Lake Youth Sports
Supporting community-level youth sports and the infrastructure that helps more young people participate and grow.
Visit organization →Business capability can be put to work beyond the business.
That idea is part of how we define what building well is ultimately for.