Founder · Operator · Growth Advisor

Helping founders build teams, grow revenue and make the next move.

I’m Tom, and I work with founders and operators on the decisions that shape a growing business: where to focus, how to reach customers, who to hire and what to build next. My deepest experience is in B2B SaaS, but I work across sectors with people solving practical problems.

Talk about your business Explore my advisory work
Portrait of Tom Kieley
Operator first.Founder, board member, advisor.
Co-founderSourceDay co-founder and former CEO
$60M+Raised on the SourceDay journey
BoardSourceDay Board of Directors
AdvisorThe Soccer Movement · EcoPulse

Where I can help

The decisions that shape a growing business.

Find the focus

Define your ideal customer and the personas who care, the problem worth solving and why they’ll pay to solve it now.

How we work on it →

Build the path to revenue

Work through positioning, sales execution, partner channels that actually produce revenue and the handoff from founder-led selling to a repeatable approach.

How we work on it →

Prepare for the next stage

Strengthen the team, sharpen the fundraising story and turn priorities into a practical operating plan.

How we work on it →
The SourceDay team in matching green jackets at a company event

A founder in your corner

What building SourceDay taught me.

Clint McRee and I co-founded SourceDay to improve collaboration between buyers and suppliers. Manufacturers live and die by their suppliers, and the information that matters was getting lost in email and spreadsheets until it showed up as a problem on the production floor.

I led the business as CEO through the work behind every milestone: customer discovery, founder-led selling, enterprise buying cycles, integrations, raising capital, building the team and growing a partner ecosystem. Across that journey, the company raised $60M+. We anchored the culture in a simple principle: #BtheB, Be the Best.

I now serve on the SourceDay Board of Directors and continue to build businesses of my own. I bring that operating perspective to the founders I work with: direct questions, practical choices and a willingness to get into the details.

$3.5MSeed · 2017
Draper, Silverton, ATX Seed
$6.5MSeries A · 2018
$12.5MSeries B · 2020
Led by Baird Capital
$31.5MSeries C · 2022
Led by Norwest

Company recognition, earned by the SourceDay team: Austin A-List winner (2019), Inc. Best Workplaces (2020), Aggie 100 in 2020, 2021 and 2022, Austin Inno Fire Awards (2022), and Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in Logistics (2025, after the CEO transition).

How I work with founders →

Current work and roles

Still building and advising.

I lead Bryte Light and am building ChoreScroll, SkillScroll and DripMyCup. I also advise The Soccer Movement and EcoPulse, bringing a founder’s perspective to team building, fundraising preparation and growth.

Operating and building

CEO

Bryte Light

I lead Bryte Light, which designs and delivers intelligent, low-voltage lighting and controls infrastructure for commercial buildings: lower energy costs, faster installs and a direct connection into building management systems. It’s where my operating background meets the physical world.

bryte-light.com →
Founder · Live on the App Store

ChoreScroll

A family app that connects completed chores with earned screen time. I built it for my own house: kids finish real-world chores, verify them with a photo and earn their screen time. Parents get a dashboard; everybody gets fewer arguments.

chorescroll.com →
Founder · Early access

SkillScroll

Reps before reels. SkillScroll connects physical activity and earned screen time: apps stay locked until the reps are done, counted in real time by the phone’s camera. Built for young athletes, families and anyone who wants more movement in their day.

skillscroll.ai →
Family brand

DripMyCup

My wife and our three kids had an idea for making water bottles more personal and easier to tell apart. We turned it into a family-built brand of drinkware accessories inspired by sports, hobbies and personal style.

dripmycup.com →

Built with AI

Side project · Built in one evening

Don’t Wake the Puppy

A friend who teaches first grade needed a calm, visual way to keep her classroom’s noise down. I built it with AI in one evening: a cute sleeping animal that wakes up when the room gets too loud. It’s now live, and teachers can subscribe to use it in their classrooms.

dontwakethepuppy.com →

I build with AI every week, from quick prototypes like this one to automated development and go-to-market workflows. It keeps my advice to founders current and hands-on.

Board and advisory roles

Board of Directors

SourceDay

The supply-chain collaboration company I co-founded and previously led as CEO. I continue to serve on its board.

sourceday.com →
Advisor

The Soccer Movement

I advise The Soccer Movement on building the team, preparing for fundraising and scaling the business. Founded by pros Diego Rubio and Gyasi Zardes, it connects young athletes with verified professional players for training and mentorship.

thesoccermovement.com →
Advisor

EcoPulse

I advise EcoPulse and its founder on fundraising preparation and the next stage of growth. Its AI helps manufacturers find and manage PFAS risk across products, materials and supply chains, which connects directly with my supply-chain background.

ecopulsenow.com →
Cover of Start-Up Lessons Learned Along the Way: Our SourceDay Journey by Tom Kieley and Clint McRee

Lessons from the journey

Start-Up Lessons Learned Along the Way: Our SourceDay Journey

Clint McRee and I co-authored this book to share the experience behind how I build companies: listen to customers, make decisions with incomplete information and keep learning as the business changes. It’s the honest version of what building a company actually takes, written for founders who are in the middle of it.

Get the book on Amazon Read about it

About me

It started with summer construction jobs.

While I was studying Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M, I spent my summers owning and running construction projects with my buddies. Nobody handed us a playbook. We bid the work, did the work and learned what it means when the outcome is on you.

That lesson followed me onto the manufacturing floor at Dell, into enterprise software sales and into every company I’ve started since. I like finding a practical problem, rolling up my sleeves and building the team that solves it.

I live in Cedar Park with my wife and our three kids. Today I split my time between leading Bryte Light, serving on the SourceDay board, advising founders and building a few products of my own.

  1. College summers

    First taste of ownership

    Owned and ran summer construction projects with friends while in school.

  2. Class of 2004

    Texas A&M University

    B.S. in Industrial Distribution. Gig ’em.

  3. Early career

    Dell → enterprise software

    Led a 60-person manufacturing team at Dell, then moved into enterprise software with Boomi, Pervasive and Asure.

  4. 2008

    Founded RightGift

    My first venture: a web and mobile gift registry for every gift-giving occasion, which grew into a platform for in-kind giving to nonprofits.

  5. SourceDay

    Co-founder & CEO

    Built with my co-founder Clint McRee, from bootstrapped beginnings through a $31.5M Series C led by Norwest Venture Partners.

  6. Jul 2017

    SourceDay’s first institutional round

    Closed our $3.5M seed round with Draper, Silverton and ATX Seed, named among Austin’s biggest funding rounds that month. Austin Business Journal →

  7. 2017

    RightGift majority sale

    Sold the majority of RightGift to Kyle Kothe and stayed on as a minority owner and board member until early 2026.

  8. Nov 2024

    SourceDay Board of Directors

    Handed the CEO role to Michael Miller and moved to the board to pursue new ventures.

  9. Today

    Operator, advisor, builder

    Leading Bryte Light, advising founders and building products of my own.

Where it started · RightGift, 2008

A bad gift giver builds a gift registry.

Shortly after I got married, I was coming up on our first anniversary and realized I was like most guys: not a great gift giver. So I built RightGift.com, a web and mobile gift registry for any occasion: weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, birthdays, holidays and graduations.

I hired a small development team to build the platform. A bookmarklet let you add any item from any store’s website to your wish list, a mobile app scanned barcodes to add items on the spot, and affiliate partners paid us when a gift was purchased.

Then our customers showed us a better use. A women’s shelter in California signed up and started building in-kind wish lists: immediate items for a specific person that are hard to source and hard to receive from donors. We followed that lead, and RightGift organically pivoted toward nonprofits.

In 2017 I sold the majority of the business to Kyle Kothe, who relaunched the platform for charitable and in-kind giving and bulk buying for nonprofits. I remained a minority owner on the board until early 2026.

Family & life

The people behind the work.

I’m a husband and a dad of three, and family is the reason behind almost everything I build. When I’m not working you’ll find me at my kids’ sporting events, on the lake, on a ski slope or in the garage. I love wrenching on classic cars, whether it’s the Great Race Camaro or my Cobra. My other hobby is building furniture. I don’t get in the shop nearly as much as I’d like these days, but I plan to get back out there one day.

The Kieley family together Tom and his son at an Austin FC match at Q2 Stadium Tom and his wife at a charity gala Tom and his son in a classic roadster Tom behind the wheel with his kids at the 2025 Great Race
Tom and his kids on a ski lift Family selfie outdoors

Faith

Prayer is part of my daily life. I try to be intentional about making room for it alongside family, health and work.

Family

My wife and kids are my co-founders in the ways that matter most. I want to build something they can help carry forward.

Free enterprise

I believe in hard work, merit and the power of small businesses to change lives for owners, employees and whole communities.

The Great Race

A family tradition, one checkpoint at a time.

My dad got our family hooked on the Hemmings Great Race, a nine-day, cross-country time-speed-distance rally for vintage cars. It’s not about going fast. It’s about precision, teamwork and keeping a car that’s older than you are running every single day.

In 2025 we ran two classic Camaros from St. Paul, Minnesota to Lake Murray, South Carolina. Dad and my brother-in-law Mike Roberts drove the ’68. I drove the ’69 with my sister Erin navigating. The kids followed the whole route with my mom in the support vehicle.

The ’69 fought us the whole way: punctured fuel lines, failed wheel bearings, an oil pan that needed welding and an ignition we rewired on the fly. Every night we were in a parking lot or garage with tools out, and every morning we made the start line.

Sportsman Division ChampionsTom Kieley & Erin Roberts · 12th overall of 124 cars
Richard Fredette Perseverance AwardOur family team, for keeping the car in the race

Mike wrote the full story: 2025 Great Race: Teamwork and Perseverance → · Official 2025 results →

Tom Kieley and his sister Erin Roberts holding their 2025 Great Race trophies
Tom working under the ’69 Camaro during the 2025 Great Race Tom and Erin with the ’69 Camaro The Kieley family team at the 2025 Great Race
Tom with his wife, three children and the family puppy at the lake

Giving back

Austin Angels.

My wife and I have supported Austin Angels for years, and it’s a cause close to our hearts. Since 2010 they’ve been bringing stability to kids in foster care across Central Texas through something simple and powerful: consistent relationships.

“When consistent adults show up, stability grows. When stability grows, outcomes change.”

Through the Love Box® program, volunteers wrap around foster families with practical support. Through Dare to Dream®, mentors walk alongside youth as they chase what’s next. If you’re in Austin and looking for a place to show up, start here.

Get involved with Austin Angels →

Press & recognition

The journey, in the news.

Personal

SourceDay & the team

Company honors belong to the whole SourceDay team.

Tom Kieley headshot

Contact

What are you working through?

Tell me about your business, the decision in front of you and where you could use another operator’s perspective.

Your message comes straight to me and stays confidential.

I use your details only to reply to you. They aren’t shared or added to any mailing list.