Jason & Mel

Jason and Mel had built their ecommerce outdoor and adventure products business together over eight years. sixteen people. $4.9m revenue across direct-to-consumer, wholesale, and a growing b2b channel supplying outdoor education programs and corporate adventure experiences. the business had a strong brand and a genuinely differentiated product range developed in-house.

the partnership had a structural problem that both of them felt but neither had named clearly. Jason led product development and the b2b relationships. Mel led marketing and the wholesale channel. both reported to each other informally on everything. neither had the authority to make a significant decision without the other's involvement. the business moved slowly because every significant decision was a conversation rather than an authority. Jason had been wanting to invest in a new product range for two years. Mel had been wanting to restructure the wholesale channel for eighteen months. neither had moved because neither wanted to act unilaterally and neither had found the time to align.

the b2b channel had margin and structure problems. Jason managed all the b2b relationships personally. the channel had grown to $680,000 in revenue but had no account management structure - every reorder, every customisation request, every client query went to Jason. the b2b contracts were also priced at rates set when the channel launched and had never been reviewed against the actual cost of servicing the clients.

the product range Jason had been wanting to develop was launched in month five. the first time in two years that a significant product decision had moved without requiring months of alignment. the wholesale restructure Mel had been wanting to execute happened in month four. b2b revenue grew from $680,000 to $1.1m in twelve months. overall revenue grew from $4.9m to $6.4m. Jason and Mel both described the year as the first one where they had operated as business owners rather than as the people who approved everything for each other.

the partnership had the capability and the vision. what it didn't have was a structure that let both people move. the decisions that had been stalled for two years weren't complicated. they were waiting for a format that made them possible.