Gourdanen Ventures
Good things grow here.
Your product, your business, your career.Bring the seed. The garden does the rest.
Plant something with meScroll to plant
Chapter 01 · The seed you are carrying
You are here because something wants to grow.
A product that is stuck, and a team that cannot say why.
A business that knows AI matters, and cannot cut through the noise.
A store with traffic that does not turn into sales.
A career ready for its next move, with no map and no mentor.
You do not need more noise. You need someone who has grown these things before. That is what this garden is for.
Chapter 02 · What I grow by
Things I believe.
Customer obsession makes great experiences.
And it is never one and done. It is co-creation: working with your customers again and again to find solutions, improve them, and bring the knowledge together.
AI amplifies you. It does not replace you.
It is a companion that needs your context, your brain, your partnership. Let it do the mechanical work, so you are free for the hard things only a human can do.
Ambiguity is an advantage, once you give it structure.
Most people freeze without a map. I draw one: evidence gates, small steps, a process for the fog. The workbooks below are that process, written down.
Vision needs a path.
You have to know where you have been and where you are now to choose the right next steps. Most people only talk about the vision. Ungrounded, it stays a dream instead of a build.
Listen where care meets competence.
The opinions that matter come from people who truly care about you and people who have already done the thing. The overlap is small. It is also gold. Most everything else is noise.
Everyone has potential. Not everyone gets the support.
Guidance should not be a luxury good. I build for people who were never handed a map, not just the ones who can afford a guide. It is why the seed packets below are free.
People grow when they feel safe and see possibility.
Fear keeps people small. Show someone real safety and a real path, and watch what they become.
Chapter 03 · Your gardener, Simone Dive
Every garden needs a gardener who has seen winters.
I am Simone Dive. Twenty years growing businesses and the people inside them, from Australia to Canada with a few continents in between. My path was not the usual one. No handouts, no safety net, no straight line. I earned every step while living and working all over the world, and I moved faster because of it.
I started in HR, training and developing people, then moved into tech in 2007. I am a creator at heart who loves understanding what makes humans tick, which is why product and design pulled me in. I have made a whole career of that curiosity.
Along the way I kept getting handed the blank page: first UX departments, first innovation departments, first product teams, programs that did not exist until I built them. Building teams from the ground up taught me to turn how I work into structure other people can use. That is how I grow products, open new markets and make businesses more money, while keeping people and customers at the centre.
I have done it in payments, gaming, renewables, home services and a nonprofit, in public companies and startups, from UX architect to Chief Product Officer. Most recently I was VP Product at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, accountable for a portfolio supporting six hundred million dollars in revenue. Today I run two gardens at once. The Proxies is the AI company I co-founded, giving businesses a staff of AI helpers that actually do the work. Gourdanen Ventures is where you hire me directly, for your product, your company, or your career.
Ambiguity is where I do my best work. People find me when there is no map and no mentor, because I have been there and found the way through. I love showing people what is possible in themselves and in their business.
I have spent my life proving people wrong. I am not done.
Chapter 04 · The Constellation
One gardener, many gardens.
At The Proxies, my co-founders and I run fleets of AI helpers inside real businesses: junk removal operators, painting companies, builders, schools. Each one is a garden growing on its own, tended by helpers we planted.
When you work with me, that whole system comes with me. You are not hiring one person. You are hiring a person with reach and an AI workforce supporting the work I do to support your business and career.
Chapter 05 · The Blooms
Four ways we can grow something.
The garden has been green until now. Watch what happens when the blooms open.
Product & Strategy
I step into your business and run product like it is mine. Strategy, roadmap, team and delivery, taught by doing. Show, not tell, from inside the work.
- Fractional product leadership
- Product operating model: implement, train, teach
- Strategy review, or strategy built from scratch
- Product coaching for your team
Dig deeper
How this one runs: I do not audit from the sidelines. I join the work, run it alongside your team, and leave the operating model behind when I go with champions ready to run it. Typical shapes: a strategy reset, a product operating model install, team assessments and development or fractional leadership a few days a week.
AI
I show your departments how their workflows need to change, what is possible now, and how to get unstuck. No hype, no theatre. A diagnosis, a plan, and the coaching to make it stick.
- AI diagnosis of your company
- Workflow redesign, department by department
- One on one AI coaching for business owners
- AI coaching for leaders and teams
- Getting stuck teams unstuck
Dig deeper
How this one runs: side by side, in your real work. I use AI myself to go deeper and wider than one person normally could, so I can review and absorb more of your business than you would expect. Then I show each department how their workflows can change, live, in their tools. Along the way I make people comfortable with not knowing, more comfortable with learning, and I give their AI development real structure. People believe what they watch being built in front of them.
Growth & Optimization
Your online presence, made to sell. Audits that find the money you are leaving on the table, and short, sharp plans to go and get it. This site is my proof.
- Ecommerce and usability audits
- Channel audits
- Conversion optimization
- Quick-win diagnosis: find the gains
- Short-term growth planning and website builds
Dig deeper
How this one runs: audit first, always, and grounded in your data: what is dropping off, what is working, and where your biggest short term focus should be. I have been around the block enough to see the quick wins fast, because I have done them before. Big builds take time, but the small wins along the way compound. So I size the gains, hand you a short plan ordered by payback, and then we fix, measure, and go again.
People & Coaching
Companies bring me in to assess teams and find rare expert talent. People bring me their next move. I coach anyone who wants to build or learn: AI, business, product, career.
- Team assessments
- AI skill assessments
- Expert talent hiring
- Career development and coaching
- Resume and LinkedIn review and refinement
- Interview prep
Dig deeper
How this one runs: assessment first, so we know where you actually are, and a deep dive into your goals so I know where you want to go. Then we build your career path the way I build strategy for a business: choices clear, future clear, measured and refined along the way. The plan fits the person or team in front of me, not a template. For companies, hiring works the same way: I scope the role with you, source and screen against a real competency bar, and stay until the hire lands. I have been training and developing people since before I was in tech, and it is still my favourite part.
Chapter 06 · How I work
Tended, not tortured.
Business, product or career, every engagement moves through three stages, two questions at a time. Each bloom above shows what they look like for that service.
Discovery
Now
Where is your business, product or career right now? What is your current story?
Future
Where do you want it to be? What is the future story you are trying to tell?
Design
Barriers
What is standing in the way? Gaps in profitability, skills, time, luck. Name what is stopping you.
Choices
What steps will you take now, next and later? What will you try first?
Build
Implementation
What do you need to make your choices real? Support, skills, structure to keep you on track. What will we build, and how will we know it is right?
Refine
Did we reach the goal? The data answers, not the vibe. Keep iterating. Continue, start, stop, pivot or kill, without drama.
However we work, two things stay true. I show rather than tell, in the real work with your team. And AI does the mechanical lifting alongside us, so the human time goes where judgment lives.
Chapter 07 · Full bloom
This site is one case study.
It went from first idea to live on this domain in a single working session: hours of work, not months. The art direction, the artwork, the words, the code, all grown with AI in hand.
AI has become a dirty word in places, and fair enough. Most of what it makes is generic, because most people hand it the wheel and skip the review. They cannot tell it what good looks like. Everyone can build apps and websites now. The difference is that I have actually done these jobs. I know what good is, so I know what to ask for and what to throw away. AI did the heavy lifting here, and I made every decision and reviewed every single thing.
That is exactly what I bring to your product, your store, your team.
A kind word is growing here.
Another seed, freshly planted.
Watch this space bloom.
Chapter 08 · Seed packets
Take some seeds home.
Free workbooks and tools I make for people who want to start growing on their own. Take them, use them, pass them on.
The 6 week AI challenge, business owner edition
Six weeks of weekly AI tasks aimed at your business.
Use it if you want AI working for you but keep putting it off.
The 6 week AI challenge
Six weeks of weekly AI exercises for anyone. No tech background needed.
Use it to build the AI habit from zero.
The AI diagnosis workbook
A workbook that walks you through finding where AI saves time or makes money in your business.
Use it before you spend a dollar on AI tools or consultants.
AI business review framework
The checklist I use when I review a business for AI opportunities.
Use it to run your own review, department by department.
AI employee review framework
A simple way to assess AI skills across your team.
Use it to see who needs support and who can lead.
The competency frameworks are live in the Growth Garden. The rest are still being pressed: save your copy above and it will be in your inbox the day it drops.
Chapter 09 · Plant something
This lands with me, Simone. You will hear back from a human.
Tell me what you want to grow.
A product that is stuck. A company that should be using AI better. A store that should sell more. A career that needs its next move. Start here.