I saved my own $30M brand over $2M a year.
Rising costs and climbing CAC nearly sank a business I'd spent years building. I fixed it line by line. Now I do the same for other founders.
From the outside it looked like it was working. $30M in sales, 100,000 orders, a stage at Meta. Inside, the business was bleeding out.
Staffing, consultants, tools, fulfilment. Every line crept up while CAC kept climbing. We were doing serious revenue that never reached the bank.
I'd done everything founders are told to do. More creative, bigger budgets, another hire, another consultant. Something worked for a month, then died. I had a slot machine, not a system.
So I stopped chasing spend and fixed the equation underneath. The question stopped being how do I sell more and became why isn't what I already sell making money.
Five moves. No extra ad spend.
Restructured the backend
Cut bloated staffing and consultant layers, kept the same output.
Rebuilt the tool stack
Audited every subscription. Same systems, better rates, no overlap.
Fixed fulfilment
Renegotiated logistics, the biggest silent cost, with zero disruption.
Expanded internationally
Opened new markets the right way, which pulled blended CAC down.
Built membership & services
A subscription and services layer that earned more from existing customers.
You've been sold a lie about ecom growth: to grow, spend more on ads.
So you do. ROAS slides, CAC climbs, and the sales never reach the account. You don't need to double ad spend to double profit. Usually that extra spend is the thing killing your margin. The growth was hiding inside the business the whole time.