A Petrichor venture.
You bought the assets, the sites, and the logins. The method that makes your best site run was never in the deal. It lives in one person's head, and it got rewritten around new tools in the last 2 years.
So every office you acquire inherits an org chart and a login, then rebuilds the playbook from scratch. A 5-month ramp is close to a year of unrealized output per hire, and in a rollup that lands straight in EBITDA.
Ramp time is a workflow problem, not a content problem.
Why operators run the audit first
The reason your best site ramps fast is 1 or 2 people who know how the work actually gets done. That knowledge got rebuilt around new tools in the last 2 years and it never left their head. When you acquire a site it doesn't inherit the method, it inherits an org chart and a login.
Your LMS teaches a version of the job the work already replaced, so your newest office never runs intake like your best one. A module bolted onto old workflows can't close a workflow gap. Closing it takes rebuilding the rehearsal around the work as it's done now.
Ramp drag is salary burned against your exit multiple, not a training budget line. A worked example, not a client result: 3 acquired offices each hiring 12 people a year at a fully loaded 65,000 dollars, ramping in 6 months where your best office takes 3, leak about 293,000 dollars a year in unrealized output. At a 12x multiple that's 3.5 million dollars of enterprise value, and the Roll-Up Drag Calculator runs the same math on your numbers.
You don't have to bet the rollup on us. The Workflow Audit takes one team, measures its real ramp against a baseline, and names the gaps up front. You see the result before you commit to a rebuild, and most engagements start here.
Gabe Jewell directed 15 MasterClass courses and wrote The L&D Showrunner, the framework the audit runs on. Josh Gilliam runs the enablement layer that turns the method into a program your managers own. Phil Rimmler scaled startups through acquisition, including growth at Hall Environments through its 2019 acquisition and DUST Identity from Seed to a 45 million dollar Series B.
Most companies bolted new tools onto the old workflow and moved on, so the job your newest hire does looks nothing like the job the onboarding still teaches. That gap sits in nearly every company that changed its tools without rewriting its method. We don't train on this quarter's tools, we rebuild the roles and judgment around how the job gets done now, so the program doesn't expire the next time the model does.
You can't rebuild what you haven't measured. The audit produces the map: where onboarding teaches a replaced workflow, what the gap costs in ramp time, and which workflows to rebuild first. The rebuild follows the findings, or it doesn't follow at all.
What we do
Teach the actual work. Make it worth the time. Give the team a way to keep it that way. Slow ramp is what happens when any of the 3 is missing.
The Workflow Map. A documented account of how your top performers actually do the job today, built from 3 to 5 interviews. Used in the Audit to compare against what your training currently teaches. Where the two diverge, that's the gap costing you ramp time.
The Showrunner Gap Index. A scored 132-point assessment of who owns each part of onboarding and where no one does. Used in the Audit to find the gaps that let quality drift from one office to the next.
The Content Bible. The single standard for how the work gets done and taught. Defines what good looks like, what to refuse, and how new material gets reviewed, so every office runs the same play.
The Five Gates. A 5-stage review process every piece of content passes through before it ships. Concept, structure, voice, production, learner test.
The Notes Framework. A 3-part method for giving creative feedback: location, diagnosis, direction. Used in the Hand off phase to train your team to evaluate content after the engagement ends.
How we work
One 90-day engagement that addresses all 3 jobs in sequence.
We focus on what new hires actually touch in their first 30 to 60 days, not your whole training library. 3 to 5 top-performer interviews, an inventory of the onboarding pathway, and an assessment of who owns quality across offices. You get a written report: where onboarding teaches workflows that have already been replaced, what the gap is costing in ramp time, and which workflows to rebuild first. Sold standalone. Most engagements start here.
Most training programs are a year behind the work. The audit tells you by how much.
We redesign the first 30 days of onboarding around the workflows your team actually uses now. We rebuild one flagship piece of content alongside your team so they learn how to do it themselves. You leave with a redesigned program, the flagship as proof, and a 6-month plan for what to rebuild next.
We train your team to maintain what we built. You get a Content Bible written for your team, the Five Gates review process documented, and training in the Notes Framework so they can give creative feedback without us in the room.
Who this is for
Big enough that slow ramps show up in EBITDA, often mid-rollup, where every office onboards a little differently. Small enough to rebuild the program in a quarter.
The COO or hands-on CEO who's tired of buying tools and wants the company to run the same way in every office, without them in the room. A VP People or CHRO often surfaces it; the operator owns the budget.
Maybe an add-on just closed, maybe you're 60 days into a new seat, maybe the board is asking why the deal math isn't showing up in the P&L. Whatever the trigger, you don't have the playbook yet.
Why us
Directed 15 courses at MasterClass with instructors including Steph Curry, Steve Martin, Timbaland, and Malcolm Gladwell. Co-founded MT Copeland, the venture-backed learning platform that hit 10 million views teaching tradespeople. Author of The L&D Showrunner.
13+ years scaling B2B and B2C startups through the workflow transitions Mettle's clients are facing. Led growth at Hall Environments through its 2019 acquisition. Took DUST Identity from Seed through its $45M Series B.
Seasoned L&D and Product/GTM operator. Experienced in fast-growth B2B SaaS where revenue, retention, and scalability rely on proper programs in place. Executes on behalf of the C-suite to make sure the business evolves into its next, better version.
Together they founded Petrichor; Mettle is its onboarding-rebuild venture. We work AI-native ourselves, which is how we ship a full rebuild in 90 days. Every artifact we hand you, the proposal, the audit, the materials, was built with the same workflows we'll teach your team to run.
The objection
The most common objection we hear is credibility: a young firm, a serious engagement, no logo wall. Fair. Here's the proof stack, with the basis for each answer stated so you can judge it before a first call.
Mettle's first client engagement runs against the team's own ramp baseline: time to full operational independence per hire, before and after the rebuild. The measurement is live and updates as cohorts clear. The number and its basis sit in the proof section below.
The audit runs on The L&D Showrunner, the framework Gabe Jewell built directing 15 courses at MasterClass. The book is free on this site. If the method doesn't hold up when you read it, skip the call.
The Workflow Audit takes one team and measures its ramp against your own baseline. It names the gaps and what they cost in ramp time. If the findings don't justify a rebuild, the engagement ends with the report.
The Ramp Cost Calculator and the Roll-Up Drag Calculator take your real hire count, salary, and ramp, and hand back the drag in dollars. If your number comes back small, you don't need us. The tools sit in front of the call on purpose.
Mettle is a Petrichor venture, run by the 3 operators above. If an answer here doesn't hold up when you check it, that's worth knowing before a call, for both of us.
The math, before you have your own
A model, not a client result. Arithmetic on the inputs below, run through the Roll-Up Drag Calculator.
A platform integrating 3 acquired offices, each hiring 12 people a year at a 65,000 fully-loaded salary. Your best office ramps a new hire in 3 months. The acquired offices, still running the process they closed with, take 6.
$293,000: Annual ramp drag from that 3-month gap, across the 36 acquired-office hires.
$3.5M: The same drag capitalized at a 12x exit multiple.
The multiple is yours to set. Healthcare platforms typically trade 8 to 18x (source: FOCUS Investment Banking, 2025). This is a projection on assumptions, not a measured outcome. Run it on your real hire count, salary, and ramp:
Proof
120 to 85 days: Time to 100% operational independence, per hire.
Before Mettle, a new hire reached 100% operational independence in 120 days. We rebuilt the first weeks of onboarding around how the work actually gets done now, not the process from before the tools changed. Hires now clear full independence in 85 days, 35 days sooner.
Measured against the team's own 120-day baseline. The engagement is active, so this is the result to date, updated as later cohorts clear independence. A live number, not a closed case study.
An operating team, engagement in progress
The Workflow Audit is $75,000, 2 weeks, sold standalone. If you move to a rebuild within 60 days, the audit credits against it. 30 minutes is usually enough to know if this is a fit.