Operations consulting for small and very small businesses. Remote across California and the West Coast.
The calendar is full. The work is good. The customers are real.
And somehow the money doesn’t show up where it should. Invoices age out. The software you pay for goes half-used. The person best equipped to grow the business is the one doing data entry at nine at night.
You didn’t start a business to spend your evenings chasing paperwork. Most owners end up there anyway, and not because they did anything wrong.
Most small businesses don’t have one big problem. They have a dozen small ones that nobody has had time to sit down and look at.
That’s the part we do.
Why us
We’ve started and operated several businesses of our own, and run the operations side for other people’s. Cottage food, software, professional services, trades. Enough range to know which problems are universal and which are particular to you.
That’s why we don’t show up with a framework and a slide deck. We show up with questions about your margins and your aging receivables, and we come back with a number.
Nobody hands you a manual when you start a business. Most of what breaks is ordinary, fixable, and nothing to be embarrassed about.
Most people start with a diagnostic. It’s fixed-fee, it takes a week or two, and you get something useful whether or not you hire us again.
We go through the financials, the vendor contracts, the staffing and roles, and the core processes: how work comes in, how it gets done, how you get paid.
You get a written set of findings with dollar figures attached, ordered by what to fix first, including the things you can fix yourself without hiring anybody.
1–2 weeks. Fixed fee. No obligation to do anything else.
Book a diagnosticFor a business that’s unprofitable, cash-stressed, or has quietly stopped working. We recover aging receivables, renegotiate vendor contracts, audit what you’re subscribed to, and take a hard look at roles and staffing.
Then we streamline how work comes in and goes out, and automate the parts that shouldn’t need a person at all.
60–120 days. Scoped in writing, with a defined end.
Talk about a turnaroundThirty minutes, no charge. You tell us what’s wrong, or what feels wrong. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll say so and point you somewhere better.
We look at the actual numbers and the actual workflow. You get findings you can act on whether or not you hire us again.
Scoped in writing, fixed fee, with a defined end. We’re not trying to become a permanent line item, though plenty of clients keep us on afterward.
You know which parts of the business make money and which ones only look like they do. Invoices go out on time and come back paid. The work that used to need you doesn’t.
You still work hard. You just stop paying for the same problem twice, and you get your evenings back.
Available as engagements. Ask about any of it in the first conversation.
Before you spend the savings. Real startup costs, break-even math, and the two or three things most likely to kill it.
Everything operational: EIN, banking, bookkeeping, insurance, licenses and permits, contract templates, and recordkeeping you can actually maintain.
If there’s more than one of you, have the hard conversation now. Equity, roles, decision rights, and what happens if someone wants out.
Selling, handing it to family, or winding down. Making sure the business is worth something the day you stop running it.
Monthly. For owners who want a competent second opinion on standing call.
Filings, licenses, renewals, deadlines. Quietly handled so none of them surprise you.
Turning your repeated paperwork into systems that fill themselves in. Learn more →
Faster response to new leads, real follow-up, and tracking that tells you which marketing is worth the money.
Selection, migration, and configuration, including rescuing the platform you already pay for and barely use.
Cottage food producers. App developers. Contractors, shops, clinics, agencies, and a fair number of businesses that defy category. Owner-operated, usually somewhere between two and twenty people.
The industry matters less than the situation. If you’re busy and it isn’t adding up, we’ve seen the shape of it before.
Thirty minutes, no charge, no pitch. Tell us what’s going on and we’ll tell you whether we can help.