Real ecommerce businesses. Real problems. Better outcomes.

No two businesses arrive with exactly the same problem. Sometimes cash is running out. Sometimes sales have stopped growing. Sometimes a business has grown quickly but the foundations haven't kept up.

But ultimately, fixing the business is only part of the objective.

For most founders, there's something else they want the business to give them in return.

That could be more income. More freedom. Less stress. Fewer days spent working in the business. The confidence to invest in growth. Or the opportunity to build something valuable enough to sell one day.

So our job isn't simply to improve the business. It's also to help build a business that works better for the founder too.

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From cash crisis to a stable platform for growth

A menswear retailer came to us after declining sales and increasing costs had created serious cashflow problems.

The business had taken on expensive debt and was struggling to meet wages and tax payments. For the founder, that meant the business had become all-consuming.

Instead of providing the income and freedom it was supposed to create, much of their time was being spent worrying about which payment was due next and how to find enough cash to cover it.

The immediate priority wasn't growth. It was survival and stability.

We negotiated temporary reduced payments with lenders and suppliers, paused non-essential expenditure and created breathing space while we worked through the underlying business.

We introduced detailed cashflow and KPI management, identified cost savings, improved inventory management and found opportunities to increase profit. We then helped replace several expensive loans with a lower-cost funding arrangement.

Once the immediate pressure was removed, the focus could shift from firefighting to improving the underlying performance of the business.

With better visibility of cash, margins and stock, decisions became more deliberate rather than being driven by whatever problem happened to be most urgent that week.

The business could then start growing again - this time with much greater control, healthier profitability and far less reliance on the founder constantly stepping in to keep everything moving.

The objective wasn't simply to get sales growing again. It was to get the business back to the point where it could provide a proper return for the founder without consuming all of their time and attention.

Womens clothing Shopify store turnaround

Rebuilding a brand after two years of declining sales

A womenswear brand came to us after sales had fallen for two consecutive years. The founder wanted to get the business growing again, but there was a bigger issue behind that.

After years of running the company, they didn't want the answer to simply be working longer hours, spending more money on advertising or creating more activity for themselves. They wanted a stronger business that could grow without everything depending on them.

The obvious reaction to declining sales might have been to spend more on marketing. Instead, we first tried to understand why sales were falling.

We surveyed existing customers, analysed visitor behaviour and identified a series of problems affecting how customers perceived and used the website.

That gave us a much clearer picture of where the business was losing opportunities before we started trying to create more demand.

We made changes to the Shopify store, product strategy and pricing, followed by a wider overhaul of marketing including digital PR, influencers, email and SMS.

As the fundamentals improved, so did the economics of the business. Conversion rate increased. Average order value increased. And the company had a much clearer and more repeatable approach to generating growth.

Just as importantly, the founder could start moving away from personally driving things all the time.

Instead of relying on the founder whenever sales slowed down, the business was developing clearer systems, priorities and marketing channels that other people could operate.

That created a route not just back to growth, but towards the founder spending less time inside the day-to-day business while still benefiting from its performance.

Building a stronger business after liquidation

After a specialist accessories and gift retailer went through a difficult voluntary liquidation, its owners had the opportunity to start again.

This time the objective wasn't simply to recreate the old business. It was to build a better one.

The previous business had demanded huge amounts of time and energy from the founders but hadn't ultimately given them the security or financial return that effort deserved. So the new company needed to work differently from the beginning.

We embedded ourselves into the business and introduced systems to manage cashflow, increase profitability and improve return on advertising spend.

We reviewed the product range, worked on average order value and repeat purchasing, and trained the team on the new processes and systems.

As the business became more stable, we introduced management dashboards, P&L forecasting and KPI tracking so the directors could see what was happening without needing to be involved in every detail.

That changed the nature of their role. Instead of constantly reacting to problems, they could increasingly manage the business through numbers, priorities and the people around them.

Over time, we were able to step back too, while continuing to support the directors strategically. The aim was for the company to become less dependent on both us and the founders for its everyday operation.

That mattered because the owners didn't simply want another business that gave them a job. They wanted to build an asset: a profitable, well-managed company capable of paying them properly, operating without their constant involvement and, ultimately, becoming considerably more valuable if they chose to sell it in future.

Solving the problem instead of borrowing around it

A sporting goods ecommerce business approached us looking for investment. The assumption was that more money would allow the company to continue growing.

But once we looked at the business, it became clear that funding wasn't the real answer. The underlying cashflow problems needed fixing first.

For the founder, raising more capital would also have come at a cost. They risked taking on additional debt with personal guarantees, or giving away part of a business that wasn't yet performing as well as it could.

So before looking outside the company for the solution, we looked for the cash already trapped inside it. We introduced cashflow forecasting and arranged a Time to Pay agreement with HMRC, releasing enough cash to place an urgent supplier order.

We then analysed the company's stockholding. Only around 40% of the range was fast-moving, while roughly 15% was generating high levels of returns. Hundreds of slow-moving products were tying up cash, creating unnecessary operational complexity and making purchasing decisions harder than they needed to be.

We cleared those products and moved the company towards a much leaner, more just-in-time stock model.

As cash started to improve, the founder gained much greater visibility and control over the company. The business became cash positive again and could return to its original growth plans without immediately taking on additional investment.

That meant growth could happen from a stronger position - with the founder retaining more control, protecting their ownership and building the value of the company rather than diluting it simply to solve a short-term cash problem.

The longer-term objective wasn't just a bigger business. It was a more valuable one. One that could generate better returns for the founder today while increasing their options in the future - whether that meant continuing to grow it, reducing their own involvement or eventually preparing it for sale.

Every founder we work with gets something different because every business is different.

But the outcome is always the same: a business that performs the way it should, and a founder who's finally getting what they deserve from it.

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