I help close the gap between the story we tell ourselves and what we're actually doing.
Jonathan Engle is an entrepreneur, founder coach, and polyglot based in Utah. He co-founded The Startup Stack, grew it over five years, and sold it to Startup Science in 2025. He currently serves as Head of Marketing at Startup Science and runs Kingsfoil Health, a health insurance brokerage for startups and self-employed people. Jonathan works with early-stage founders on go-to-market strategy, sales systems, CRM architecture, and the practical work of getting from zero to repeatable revenue. He speaks English, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese.
For years I told myself a story about why building a company was so hard. Turns out some of that story was ADHD, some of it was genuinely hard, and the rest was just the ordinary gap between ambition and reality. Learning to tell the difference changed everything.
I'm an entrepreneur, soldier, husband, father, linguist, and recovering perfectionist based in Utah. I co-founded The Startup Stack in 2020, grew it for five years, and sold it to Startup Science in 2025. I'm currently Head of Marketing at Startup Science and founder of Kingsfoil Health, a health insurance brokerage for startups and self-employed people. I also serve as a Russian linguist in the Utah Army National Guard.
I work with early-stage founders on the practical, unglamorous work of building a go-to-market motion. That means cold outreach, CRM architecture, and sales systems. It's the kind of stuff that doesn't make it into the highlight reel but determines whether you make it to the next round.
Backstory
I was adopted at birth, grew up in Provo, Utah, and spent most of my 20s collecting experiences that didn't look like a straight line at the time. I worked as a real estate agent, then as an impact investor, then as the first sales rep at a fintech startup tasked with finding a scalable GTM motion from scratch. Then I went to Paraguay.
The Paraguay chapter is the one I come back to most. Elevate Global sent me to Ciudad del Este to revive their worst-performing franchise in-country. I had one month to learn the Spanish language and their business systems well enough to start rebuilding. That's not a metaphor. I actually did it. Something about that experience gave me a frame for how I approach every hard problem since: figure out the minimum viable understanding you need, then move.
I started The Startup Stack in 2020 as a directory for startup resources. Over five years it became something more: an ecosystem builder connecting founders with the organizations that support them. We got acquired by Startup Science in May 2025. The decade it took to get there was the education.
About eighteen months ago I got diagnosed with ADHD. I was in my late 20s. It reframed a lot, not as an excuse, but as a lens. The systems I'd been building to manage my own chaos suddenly made more sense. So did the particular kind of value I offer founders who operate the same way. I'm not interested in making anyone feel bad about how their brain works. I'm interested in building systems that actually fit the brain that has to use them.
Identity stack
These are the things I carry into every room I walk into, whether or not they're on the agenda.
A few other things
I played French horn for over a decade. I lift weights. I've been getting into Magic: The Gathering. I love Warhammer 40K for the philosophical depth underneath all the skulls. I'm nostalgic for RuneScape and PlayStation 2 in a way that I've stopped apologizing for. I enjoy films that actually make me feel something. I drink yerba maté and I still think about Paraguay sometimes.
I grew up Mormon and am not practicing, but I remain culturally connected and pay respect to it. My family is largely in it. I think the tradition has real value and real problems, and I'm not interested in performing distance from either.
I love puns. I'm cheeky on LinkedIn on purpose. I take things too seriously and also try very hard not to take anything too seriously. These are not contradictions.