Operational Transformation — Founder-Led Product Businesses
Your business has outgrown the way it runs, and it still runs through you.
Revenue keeps climbing, but every vendor issue, inventory call, and fulfillment fire still lands on your desk. For founder-led physical product companies roughly $2M–$20M in revenue, we rebuild the operation underneath your business so growth stops depending on you personally.
Landed cost / unit
$5.60
+24.4% over FOB
Meridian Hardware · cleared customs
Operating Cadence
See It
Fix It
Own It
Partner
- $8M+
- Revenue Scaled
- 2M+
- Units Managed Annually
- 25+
- Vendor Relationships
- <1%
- Error Rate at Full Scale
I. The Pattern
Your business isn't broken. It's outgrown the way it operates.
From the inside, this is usually what it looks like.
You're approving a $40 reorder from your kid's soccer game.
You find out you're out of stock the same day the ad spend hits.
Nothing ships on time unless you personally follow up.
Everyone's busy. No one owns the outcome.
The same fire gets put out every quarter — the cause never gets touched.
Vendors still call you, not your team, when something's wrong.
II. The Real Constraint
What gets noticed is rarely what needs fixing.
- Missed deadlines
- Unclear decision rights
- Inventory issues
- Disconnected planning
- Team frustration
- No accountable owner
- Vendor problems
- Processes built around one person
- Fulfillment exceptions
- Recurring workarounds, never resolved
Try It Yourself
This isn't a pitch deck. It's how we actually work.
Two small examples of how we actually work — real math, real tooling, not slideware. Not the full range of what we bring, just a taste of it.
Cost & Sourcing Math
A simplified estimate to make the real number visible fast — not a substitute for a full landed-cost model across your SKU mix. That's exactly the kind of tool we build during the Assessment.
Landed cost per unit
$5.60
+24.4% over FOB
- FOB unit cost
- $4.50
- Freight / unit
- $0.64
- Duty / unit
- $0.34
- Other / unit
- $0.12
Operational Systems
This is a real, working tracker — click a stage to cycle it forward, add a row, delete one. It's a small version of the kind of internal tool we scope and ship for clients in days, not months.
A stripped-down preview — real trackers get built around your actual fields, vendors, and stages during the Assessment.
Currently embedded with our first client — a founder-led manufacturer working through the full Assessment-to-Ownership arc. Specifics stay confidential, consistent with how we work with every client. Happy to speak to fit and approach on an introductory call.
III. How We Work
We don't leave behind a deck. We leave behind an operation that runs without you in every seat.
The goal isn't a business that depends on IGP instead of you. It's a business that doesn't depend on any one person.
A paid, two-to-three-week diagnostic covering workflows, systems, numbers, team responsibilities, and decision paths. You leave with a clear diagnosis, priority decisions, recommended ownership, and a 90-day roadmap.
You don't need someone with an opinion about your business. You need someone who's already run one — and knows exactly where it's bleeding.
IV. Who's Doing the Work
Operated, not advised.
Clients aren't buying a résumé. They're buying pattern recognition — the ability to walk into operational chaos and know exactly what to fix first, and the ability to build the tools that make the fix stick.
Alycia Marsello
Founder — Operations & Diagnosis
Alycia hasn't spent her career advising operators. She's been one. She built a fulfillment and customization operation from nothing into a department processing thousands of orders a day, under a 1% error rate, having never built one before. She's managed international sourcing, multimillion-dollar purchasing, roughly 1,400 active SKUs across 25+ supplier relationships, and delivered a 350,000-unit launch into a national retailer.
Hillary Scalmanini
Product & Systems Partner
Hillary doesn't wait for a diagnosis to land on her desk. She's in the interviews and the data alongside Alycia, then turns what they find into working software herself. Five years turning operational chaos into shipped tools — starting on the support desk, now writing specs and building features with AI-native coding tools. She's the one who hears “we need a tracker for this” and hands back a working system days later, not a slide about one.
How the partnership works: Both partners lead every engagement directly and work the diagnosis together. Alycia brings the operating pattern recognition from the physical-goods side; Hillary brings the systems eye and builds what the work calls for. Neither hands off to the other. It's the same two people, in your business, from the first interview through the tools you're left running on.
- ~1,400
- Active SKUs Managed
- 25+
- Vendor Relationships
- ~2,000,000
- Units / Year
- 350,000
- Unit National Launch
- <1%
- Error Rate at Scale
- 20–30
- Team Built From Zero
V. Scope of Work
Where we operate inside your business.
- Supply chain and vendor management
- Inventory and purchasing
- Product development, packaging, and commercialization
- Wholesale and retail account operations
- Fulfillment and operational workflows
- Quality control and compliance
- Team structure and accountability
- SOPs, systems, and operating cadence
- Internal tooling and workflow automation
- Profitability and operational risk analysis
VI. Who We Work With
Built for businesses ready to change how they run.
Good Fit
- +Founder-led physical product company, roughly $2M–$20M in revenue
- +Manufacturing, inventory, fulfillment, or supply-chain complexity
- +Wants real operational ownership and implementation, not just advice
- +Team is ready to make changes
Not a Fit
- –Pre-revenue concept looking for general business coaching
- –Wants advice without implementation
- –No meaningful physical-product operating complexity
- –Not ready to give the access and participation a real diagnosis requires
VII. Questions
What founders ask before we talk.
Still unanswered? The introductory call is the fastest way to get a straight answer.
VIII. A Quick Check
Is your business ready for this?
Click what's true. No email required — this just tells you what you already know.
Your count
0/5
Click the ones that are true — the count updates as you go.
Currently Accepting Assessments