Expertise
Four domains, one set of trade-offs.
The four levers below are not handled separately: each is paid for out of the others. Diversifying channels costs creative cadence. Cutting a cost line can break a service capability. A mandate exists precisely to hold those trades at P&L level, rather than optimising one lever while ignoring what it takes from the other three.
Acquisition
Where does the next pound go, and why there rather than anywhere else?
What I usually find
Budget concentrated on one or two channels, measurement based on last click or on the platform’s own numbers, and a creative process producing variants rather than testing angles. Average performance almost always hides one very profitable segment and one that is digging a hole.
What gets decided
- The split between channels and the saturation point of each: the level of spend beyond which a channel stops returning what it returned.
- The role each channel plays in the mix — capturing existing demand, creating it, or retaining — rather than a direct comparison of their acquisition costs.
- The creative cadence the mix requires: distinct angles per period, not files delivered.
- The measurement approach: incrementality, holdout tests, modelling or declared attribution, according to what your volume genuinely supports.
- Diversification as a dated workstream with a seed budget and a written success threshold — not as an intention.
What gets delivered
- Channel mix plan with saturation thresholds and a seed budget for secondary channels.
- Documented measurement framework: what we believe, what we do not, and why.
- Creative brief: angles to test, order of testing, stop condition per angle.
- Written remit for each media supplier and the measures they are judged on.
What I measure
- Incremental acquisition cost, separate from the platform-reported figure
- Share of revenue attributable to the most concentrated channel
- Contribution margin after acquisition cost, by segment
- Number of genuinely distinct creative angles tested per period
What it is for
A mix that absorbs a budget increase without eroding contribution margin, whose measurement holds up in front of a finance director, and that does not collapse when a platform changes its rules overnight.
Scaling
What breaks first if volume doubles?
What I usually find
A growth decision taken on the demand side, without anyone checking what the business can absorb on the supply side. The step change happens, then delivery times stretch, support drowns, creative quality drops, and cost per unit served rises at exactly the moment it was supposed to fall.
What gets decided
- Identifying the real constraint by measurement rather than intuition: creative production, logistics, support, infrastructure, cash or decision-making.
- The order in which constraints are relieved, knowing that relieving one moves the constraint somewhere else — and that it is better to know where.
- The pace of the climb: what a step change costs in working capital before it returns anything.
- What to bring in-house and what to keep outside at this particular level, given the answer changes at the next one.
What gets delivered
- Constraint map with the measured capacity of each link and its estimated breaking point.
- Costed relief sequence, with the cost and lead time of each step.
- Cash projection tied to the step change, kept separate from the revenue projection.
- Stop conditions: the signals on which the volume increase is paused.
What I measure
- Cost per unit served at current volume and at target volume
- Measured capacity of the most constrained link
- Working capital requirement created by the step change
- Gap between volume sold and volume served within the promised window
What it is for
A step change cleared with unit economics intact, a cash position that was not caught out, and the next constraint named before it shows up.
Cost
Which costs fund growth, and which ones simply endure it?
What I usually find
A cost base built by accumulation: tools bought for a need that no longer exists, suppliers renewed out of habit, infrastructure sized for an old peak, and an acquisition cost watched closely while three heavier lines are reviewed by nobody.
What gets decided
- Acquisition cost, measured against the margin it buys rather than the revenue it triggers.
- Cost per unit served: fulfilment, support, infrastructure, payments, refunds.
- Software and infrastructure spend, line by line, against what each one actually produces.
- The cost of the structure itself: teams, suppliers, and this mandate included — if it is no longer the best use of the money, I say so.
What gets delivered
- Full cost per unit served, rebuilt and documented line by line.
- Tooling inventory: annual cost, observed usage, recommended decision.
- Sequenced reduction plan with the operational risk of each cut stated explicitly.
- Re-entry thresholds: the conditions under which a reduced line can be reopened.
What I measure
- Contribution margin per order, per account or per active user
- Software and infrastructure cost as a share of revenue
- Share of total cost not reviewed in the last twelve months
- Cost of the structure as a share of the revenue it steers
What it is for
Contribution margin rebuilt without blind cuts: lines reduced because they produced nothing, not because they were the most visible in a spreadsheet.
Team leadership
Who decides what, and on the strength of which number?
What I usually find
A capable growth team that ships a great deal and decides very little, suppliers judged on measures they chose themselves, and a weekly meeting that reviews numbers without ever producing a dated decision.
What gets decided
- The shape of the in-house team: which roles, what level of authority, and which hires not to make.
- The split between in-house and external, workstream by workstream, with the reasoning written down.
- Decision rituals: frequency, attendees, agenda, and above all what has to come out of them.
- The measures each remit is judged on, chosen before the period rather than after it.
What gets delivered
- Named map of decision remits.
- Weekly steering framework: format, data required, decisions expected.
- Role definitions and assessment grid for the hires that are going ahead.
- Contractual remit and judging measures for each supplier.
What I measure
- Time between a signal appearing and the decision it produces
- Share of open workstreams with a named owner and a date
- Number of parallel workstreams per person
- Age of decisions that have never been revisited
What it is for
A team that decides on its own within its remit, suppliers judged on measures they did not choose, and an organisation that no longer needs me to hold.
The starting point is always the same.
A diagnostic that rebuilds the real unit economics and names the constraint. The four domains above are not a menu to choose from: the diagnostic decides which one you start with.