The three disciplines we run every business on.
Upstream Growth provides a shared operating spine across our owned brands and a handful of outside partners. The service set is deliberately narrow — these are the disciplines we believe matter most over a ten-year horizon.
Strategic Management
We act as the steady hand on the wheel for every brand in our portfolio — and for a small number of outside operating partners. Long-horizon planning, financial discipline, and the conviction to keep doing what already works.
- — 01Operating P&L ownership
Quarterly closes, variance reviews, and cash discipline across every business we run.
- — 02Annual & 3-year planning
We set the numbers, then build the operating plan to hit them — without chasing growth that breaks the model.
- — 03M&A and integration
Sourcing, diligence, structuring, and the post-close work that determines whether an acquisition actually compounds.
- — 04Executive recruiting
Hiring the GM, head of marketing, and operators that quiet, durable businesses are built around.
Marketing
Performance and brand marketing built around customer LTV, not vanity metrics. We run the channels, hire the talent, and take ownership of the outcomes.
- — 01Paid acquisition & creative
In-house media buying across Meta, Google, TikTok, and emerging channels — plus the creative engine to feed them.
- — 02Lifecycle & retention
Email, SMS, loyalty, and post-purchase experience that turn first orders into a thirty-month relationship.
- — 03Brand & positioning
Naming, identity, packaging, and the long-form story work that lets a brand charge a fair price for a decade.
- — 04Ecommerce merchandising
Site, PDP, and catalog optimization grounded in real customer behavior — not theory.
Administrative Services
The unglamorous infrastructure that makes a business durable. Done well, it lets operators stop firefighting and start operating.
- — 01Accounting & controls
Day-to-day bookkeeping, monthly close, AP/AR, and the financial controls that keep small businesses honest.
- — 02People operations
Payroll, benefits, onboarding, and the HR machinery a 20-person team genuinely needs (and no more).
- — 03Systems & vendor management
Tooling consolidation, 3PL and supplier relationships, contract review, and procurement.
- — 04Compliance & risk
Sales tax, entity governance, insurance, and the boring work that prevents expensive surprises.
We work with a small number of outside operators each year.
Most of our capacity goes to brands we own. The rest goes to founders and operating teams whose work fits the way we run a business. If that's you, we'd like to talk.