When I sold Accelo a year and a half ago, I promised myself something I’d never really given before: a break.
Truth is, I wasn’t great at it. My family will tell you I failed miserably at “learning how to sit still.”
But spending more time with them made me realize something important: if I was going to be the father I want to be, I needed to get into shape.
My own dad died young, and I couldn’t keep being unfit and overweight if I wanted to be around to walk my three girls down the aisle one day. So I did something about it. I dropped over 18kg (45 pounds), got fit, and rediscovered what it feels like to have a body that can keep up with my ambitions.
Back to Building
By the end of last year, I felt the itch again. I wanted to get back into technology. I wanted to build. And I wanted to really get my hands dirty with AI – to figure out what’s real vs hype, and harness it to do things differently for my next startup.
Rather than following tutorials or vibe coding yet another photo app, I decided to actually build a product that I wish I’d always had when running Accelo. At the beginning of this year, I began building TeamScore.
The Problem That Wouldn’t Let Go
Running Accelo, one of the toughest challenges my managers and I faced was managing a remote team – especially one that wasn’t hired to be remote.
When you’re in the office, you have peripheral vision. You see who’s busy, who’s stuck, and where things are slipping. Remote took that away.
I saw that managers were left with three bad options:
- Turn into a micromanaging tyrant, staring at the color of lights on Slack, scheduling 5pm Friday meetings and pestering for constant updates. That didn’t fly with us.
- Hope for the best, flying blind until problems blew up. And since hope isn’t a plan, surprise surprise, blew up they did.
- Install invasive monitoring software on employee devices which that monitors mouse movements, takes screenshots, records browser history and more. While it provided data, spyware is kryptonite for the superheroes on your team. Killing their passion just to get a clearer lens on performance never felt like a trade worth making, and treats your best people like suspects.
That pain stuck with me. I could see remote wasn’t going away, but the more I talked to other entrepreneurs, the more it was clear that remote wasn’t really working, either.
So I decided to build TeamScore.
What I’m Building
TeamScore is a zero-footprint, instant-setup platform that transforms the cloud security logs companies already have into AI-powered insights for managers.
No spyware or agents on employee devices. Just clear, actionable visibility into what your team is actually working on – so you can make remote work.
It’s the tool I wish I’d had, and the one I believe many managers and entrepreneurs need today. And today it is being launched into public beta – join the waitlist at app.teamscore.io/sign-up.
I was determined to make Chapter 4 different – drawing on the lessons of helping more than 5,000 businesses succeed in my prior startups, but not just running the same playbook again.
AI has changed the game. Its rapid progress makes it possible to build technology faster, leaner, and more affordably than ever before.
That’s why the goal for TeamScore is ambitious but focused: to build a $10M ARR startup serving over 100,000 businesses while keeping headcount to under ten full-time employees. Not by cutting corners, but by building smart, automating what can be automated, and keeping the team razor-focused on what matters.
And TeamScore is just the start. My vision is to launch a family of products designed to help entrepreneurs and their businesses thrive—ideally one new venture each year. TeamScore is the first step, and it won’t be the last.
It’s been an incredible journey so far, and I’ll have plenty more to share in the months ahead. But today I’m excited to say: TeamScore is ready for public beta.
Read the TeamScore launch post here.
Closing Thoughts
Time off reminded me I’m bad at sitting still. Getting healthy reminded me that discipline pays off. And starting again reminded me that the best problems to solve are the ones you’ve lived yourself.
So here we go. Round 4. Let’s gooooo!
geoffmcqueen.com 
Hi Geoff,
I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was a midweek night, Wednesday or Thursday after midnight, and I was standing in the Keira Street lane in Wollongong having a cigarette when you and Jon walked up from a late night at the Internetrix office in Smith Street. I asked, “Where are you two off to?” and you said you had just finished something you have been working on and set it live.
I said, “Come in, let’s have a drink,” and we stood at the front bar of Bourbon Street having a beer. Then you got a notification on your phone and said, “Yes, someone has just subscribed.” We raised our drinks, called out a big cheers, and that was the beginning.
Wishing you all the very best in the future, and don’t forget to visit when you’re back in Wollongong.
Cheers,
-Lu Ristov
Thanks Lu, I remember that night like yesterday, too!