FOUNDERS HAVE AN IDEA AND SCALE IT. THEN THE BUSINESS HITS THE WALL.
You still want to be the founder and CEO. What you need is someone who knows how to run the business past your own knowledge base, so an exit becomes a real option.
That’s what Ed does.
The right hand operator who understands finance to ops to marketing and how the answer usually lives in the seams between them. At this stage, that seat doesn't exist.
So Ed built it.
WHAT THE WALL LOOKS LIKE.
THE P&L SAYS PROFITABLE. THE BANK DISAGREES.
The cash is tied up in inventory. You bought to the forecast. Now every dollar on those shelves is a dollar that can't fund the next stage of growth.
YOU CAN'T HIT THE NUMBER WITHOUT THE PROMO.
You have to anniversary last year's sale to make this year's plan, and you know what that’s doing to the brand.
MARKETING USED TO PAY FOR ITSELF.
The cost to acquire a new customer has been climbing for six straight quarters. You’ve tried a new agency, new creative, new platforms. Each one works for about a month, but nothing sticks.
EVERY FUNCTION HAS AN ANSWER. NONE IS THE ANSWER.
Marketing wants more spend. Operations wants better forecasts. Finance wants to cut spend. All three make sense inside their own silos, but no two of them agree.
When every obvious answer checks out and the business is still stuck, the problem lives in the seams.
That's the job Ed does.
SOUND FAMILIAR? ↓
MILE 22 CO. IS ED RAINEY.
When you hire Mile 22, you get Ed. You don’t get a firm that hands you off to a team or a junior person. You get one operator working with a small number of founder-led consumer brands. He looks at the whole business, not just one department's view of it, because he's sat in every seat.
Ed spent eleven years inside Knockaround, the San Diego eyewear brand, from Director of Finance to VP of Finance & Operations to COO to CMO to Chief Brand Officer, through the growth years and a private equity capitalization.
12X
Revenue growth across his tenure.
11
Years inside one founder-led brand.
5
Senior roles, including COO & CMO.
SAME PROBLEMS. SOLVED BEFORE.
THE ADS GOT EXPENSIVE.
When growth slowed, Ed had the team judge ads by contribution margin, not just revenue. Spend moved to what actually made money.
Paid ads started paying for themselves again.
THE CASH WAS IN THE WAREHOUSE.
Ed led the team in rebuilding buying, planning, and the inventory cadence, so cash came off the shelves and went to work for the business.
~4X faster inventory turns and more cash to invest in growth.
THE PROMOS BECAME THE BASELINE.
Ed worked with the team to shift from sitewide to product-specific sales, launch new products at full price, and grow brand marketing that drove better traffic.
The discount stopped being the business model.
FROM THE PEOPLE IN THE ROOM.
"Most people know their function. Ed knows how the whole business fits together — and that's a much harder thing to find.
Adam Moyer
Founder, Knockaround
"Ed's operational experience across all aspects of a business puts him in rare territory to see results from all perspectives. What we saw at Knockaround was just one example, and his expertise is invaluable in generating tangible results.”
Jeff Hennion
Chairman & CEO, Knockaround · Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Woodside Ventures
HOW ED OPERATES.
NUMBERS BEFORE NARRATIVE.
The financial model and data get read before anyone's version of the story gets accepted. The founder's, the board's, or Ed's own.
LOYALTY IS EARNED, NOT BOUGHT.
You can buy customers with promos. What you can't buy back is a brand that's taught its customers to wait for the discount.
THE DATA DECIDES. THE GUT GETS A VOTE.
Building a brand is both science and art. The numbers always come first, but eleven years inside one brand taught Ed that pattern recognition and instinct are important too.
THE UNGLAMOROUS STUFF IS WHERE BRANDS DIE.
Books that close on time. Inventory that doesn't tie up cash. It's the unsexy stuff, and it kills more good brands than anything else.
HOW IT WORKS
Every engagement starts with The Read.
A four-week, fixed-fee diagnostic across finance, operations and marketing. Ed gets full access to the financials, the data and the team. Nothing gets recommended before the numbers get read.
MONTH 01 — THE READ
READ THE NUMBERS
Working sessions with each team lead and full access to the financials. It ends with a written assessment, a clear direction, and a recommendation on what the engagement should be. Your time: a few hours a week.
MONTHS 02-03 — THE WORK
START WITH THE REAL PROBLEM
The engagement starts on the top priority The Read uncovers. Ed is embedded in the business on a defined rhythm. He is in the working meetings and accountable for the outcome.
MONTH 04 — THE CHECKPOINT
DECIDE ON THE NUMBERS
Ninety days into the engagement with real data to look at, there is an honest conversation about whether this is working for both sides.
IF ANY OF THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR,
IT'S WORTH 30 MINUTES.
For founder-led consumer brands doing $5M–$50M.