Good things grow here.
Plant something with meScroll to plant
Chapter 01 · The seed you’re carrying
You’re here because something wants to grow.
A product that’s stuck, and a team that can’t say why.
A business that knows AI matters, and can’t cut through the noise.
A store with traffic that doesn’t turn into sales.
A career ready for its next move, with no map and no mentor.
Each of these is a way we can work together. Tap the one that’s you.
There’s plenty of noise out there already. What’s harder to find is someone who’s actually grown these things before. That’s what the garden’s for.
Chapter 02 · What I grow by
Things I believe.
Ambiguity is an advantage, once you give it structure.
Ambiguity creates a lot of questions, ideas and alternative paths you can take, which means most people freeze without the map. I build the map and make choices transparent, use structure to think through paths, build evidence gates, small steps, a process to follow through the fog.
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.
AI amplifies you. It does not replace you.
AI today is too generic. I believe in a version that brings people into the workflow and activates the expertise each of us has built, rather than replacing it. It’s a companion that needs your context, your brain, your partnership. Let it do the mechanical work, so you’re free for the hard things only a human can do.
People grow when they feel safe and see possibility.
Fear keeps people small. Show someone real safety that allows them to be fearless, and watch what they become.
Chapter 03 · Your gardener, Simone Dive
Every garden needs a gardener who has seen winters.
I’m Simone Dive. Nearly 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’m 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’s 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 the whole product portfolio. These days I’ve got two things on the go. The Proxies is the AI company I co-founded, giving businesses a staff of AI helpers that actually do the work. Gourdanen is where you hire me directly, for your product, your company, or your career. Gourdanen is named after a dog. Meet the dogs →
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’s possible in themselves and in their business.
I’ve spent my life proving people wrong. I’m not done.
The whole path
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.
The Proxies is its own company. Here, you get me, and I bring everything I’ve learned running AI inside real businesses. You get me, and the helpers I’ve built to work alongside me.
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’s 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
AI
I show your departments how their workflows need to change, what’s possible now, and how to get unstuck. You’ll get a diagnosis, a plan, and coaching so it survives me leaving.
- 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
Growth & Optimization
Your online presence, made to sell. Audits that find the money you’re 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 to find the gains
- Short-term growth planning and website builds
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
Chapter 06 · How I work
Tended, not tortured.
Every engagement moves through three stages, two questions at a time. Each bloom above shows what they look like for that service.
Discovery
What problems should we solve and where do we want to get to?
Build
What to build and did we solve it?
Design
What could this look like? What’s in the way and how could we overcome?
Research
Where is your business, product or career right now? Where do you want it to be? What is your current and future story?
Definition
Where is the biggest pain and opportunities? What should get prioritized to move forward?
Barriers
What is standing in the way? Gaps in profitability, skills, time, luck. Name what is stopping you.
Choices
What solutions can you come up with and what steps will you take now, next and later? What will you try first?
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? We check the data, not the vibe. Keep iterating. Continue, start, stop, pivot or kill, without drama.
It’s a cycle. Discovery doesn’t stop when design starts, you’re gathering evidence the whole way through, and Build hands you back to Discovery knowing more than you did the first time round.
Chapter 07 · 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 AI Business Diagnosis
A free review of your business, department by department. Workflows, whether AI is the default or an afterthought, capability, willingness to change. Invite others to score it too and merge the reviews into one bloom.
Use it before you spend a dollar on AI tools or consultants.
Start the diagnosisProduct management competency framework
Fourteen competencies scored on the same five-rung ladder, from customer and market through data, business acumen, technical aptitude, design partnership, agile delivery, leadership and developing others. Then it holds your scores against the real profile of eight roles, junior PM through Director.
Use it to see the gap between where you are and the role you want, and to walk into your next development conversation with something specific to talk about. Have your manager score you too and compare.
Start the check-inThe 6 Week AI Challenge, start here
The beginner path. Six weeks of small experiments in your own work, each week a different way of using AI. Showing it things instead of typing, handing it your files, saving a setup so you stop re-explaining, connecting it to where the work lives, and building a small tool. Pick the version for your role once you are in.
Use it if you keep meaning to get AI working for you and it keeps not happening.
Start the challengeThe Business Map
The whole business on one page. Vision and purpose, who you serve and what you promise them, what you run on, what you are honestly weak at, the goals, the horizons, and the three things this quarter with a name against each. Built to print at A3 and hang where the team sees it.
Use it when everyone could tell you what they are doing this week and nobody could tell you why.
Build my Business MapIn their words
Simone is one of those super-sharp, high-energy people who brings an incredible amount of curiosity and momentum to everything she does. She’s an energizer bunny with big ideas, terrific out-of-the-box thinking, and a real ability to challenge conventional wisdom and see possibilities others miss. She’s a lot of fun to work with and she makes things happen.
I’ve had the incredible privilege of working with Simone at two different companies, and I can honestly say she is one of the most extraordinary product leaders I’ve ever worked with.
Simone has that rare combination of exceptional product, design, and UX instincts and a genuine, almost infectious obsession with customers. But what makes her truly special is her energy. Give her a hard problem, an impossible challenge, or a blank sheet of paper, and she lights up. The bigger the challenge, the more excited she becomes.
She has an extraordinary ability to make the people around her believe in what’s possible and to see beyond today’s constraints and imagine something bigger, better, and more meaningful. She brings people together, creates momentum, and makes the work feel exhilarating.
I would follow Simone into the hardest, messiest, most ambitious challenge imaginable. She is that good and that rare.
Simone is a coach turned friend I’ll always be grateful for. I first admired her from afar while she led her team, she’s incredibly smart, and has a gift for bringing the people around her forward in their careers. When I finally worked up the courage to message her about feeling stuck, she was on vacation, yet she responded right away and made time for me within a week. She helped me see my own potential, pushed me to stop selling myself short, and gave me the tools, referrals, and confidence to grow both my career and my side hustle. Simone doesn’t just coach you, she brings you forward.
I had absolutely no clue what I was doing in AI but everyone kept telling me I had to figure it out. I am a sole business owner and already time strapped, so the thought of trying to learn tech with no support made me melt with stress.
I was referred to Simone from a friend and from day one she has been so patient, knowledgeable and kind with showing me the ropes. I have asked her so many stupid questions and she always just makes me feel ok for doing so.
I have found the AI transition stressful if I’m honest, but since working with Simone each month, bit by bit getting help to use AI in new ways, I am getting more time back and also learning a lot in the process. I am no longer completely clueless and have Simone to thank for that.
Chapter 08 · Plant something
This lands with me, Simone. You will hear back from a human.
Tell me what you want to grow.
A product that’s stuck. A company that knows it should be using AI better and hasn’t started. A store that should be selling more. Or your next move. Start here.