Growing sharply and nearly burning the founder out doing it

Direct-to-consumer retail brand · Growth Partnership

Where it started

Sales were up sharply, which sounds like a good problem. It didn't feel like one. The founder was working weekends, still personally approving every supplier order, and the team had started leaving because nobody could get a decision out of her without waiting days.

What we did

The three-month programme went straight at the bottleneck: which decisions genuinely needed the founder, and which ones didn't. We built simple decision rules for the team to use, and a weekly rhythm that meant the founder saw what mattered without touching everything.

Where they landed

Order approvals that used to sit on her desk for days now clear the same day, without her. She took her first full weekend off in over a year in month two of the programme, and the business didn't notice.