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I helped take Karmaloop from bankruptcy to profit in 10 months. I also took AutoAnything from losing $7M annually to profitability in a year.

In each case, I used a simple framework.

The framework was so effective that Shopify had me teach a course on it.

I’ll summarize that course here.

I call my approach the Three Multipliers:

1️⃣ Context:

Karmaloop was losing hundreds of thousands of $$ every month as it entered bankruptcy.

AutoAnything was losing millions when AutoZone decided to divest of the asset.

In each case, I worked with PE funds to acquire these companies. And as is the case with most PE deals, the funds wanted an immediate return on their investment.

The task? Get profitable in a short period of time. Juice revenue, ASAP. Ideally, in less than 100 days.

2️⃣ Strategy:

When tasked with growing revenue quickly like this, I break revenue down into its three components.

You see there are three, and only three, ways for a company to impact revenue:

- the average order value (AOV) x
- the frequency of purchases or no. of purchases per customer (F) x 
- the total number of customers (C)

Sure there are lots of other ways to cut the onion, but I find these Three Multipliers the easiest to operationalize.

You see, when faced with rapid growth, you don’t need to kill it in any one of these Multipliers.

You just need to increase each by 30%

Why 30%, you ask?

Because the results multiply.

If you increase AOV by 30%, 
If you increase frequency of purchase by 30%,
If you increase the total number of customers by 30%.

… you've just doubled the top line:
1.3 * 1.3 * 1.3 = 220%

3️⃣ Tactics:

So you now think of revenue in terms of Three Multipliers. And you know that if you improve each, the results multiply.

What do you bite off first?

Here I build out a Google Sheet Backlog.

Focused on the Three Multipliers, I work with the team to brainstorm a list of tactics and ideas within each Multiplier.

We put each in a Google Sheet and rank by two things: 1) expected impact and 2) ease of implementation.

(Because even the best ideas aren’t worth much if they take years to see the light of day.)

We sort by the overall score, and then we focus on the most promising tactics within each Multiplier.

That’s it. It sounds simple. Indeed, I’ve rarely over 20 years experienced a true doubling of the top line within 100 days.

But in most cases this approach unlocks more growth than you thought possible. Certainly more than the company has been able to achieve in the past.

The key is simplicity and focus.

Any questions?