Business Plans & Funding · E-commerce & DTC
Business plans and funding materials built on your real unit economics
We build investor- and lender-grade plans, models, and decks from your actual contribution margin, CAC, and repeat behavior. Nothing is invented, and every projection traces back to a driver you can defend in a room.
The Outcome
What a fundable plan actually gives you
Not a template full of optimistic numbers — an investor- and lender-grade plan built from your real drivers.
A plan investors and lenders take seriously
A complete business plan and financial model grounded in your contribution margin, blended CAC, and cohort retention, not template placeholders.
A model that survives diligence
A driver-based projection where every revenue and cost line is tied to an assumption you can explain, so questions in the room strengthen your case instead of unraveling it.
The right funding path, packaged correctly
A clear read on whether SBA, a bank line, inventory financing, or equity fits your stage, with the specific package that channel expects.
How we work
Here’s how we’d build it — from your drivers, not a template
We won’t hand you a boilerplate plan with invented projections. What follows is exactly how we’d build your business plan and funding materials — from your real numbers, with transparent, defensible assumptions, and honesty about what can’t be known before you launch. Every figure traces to a source or a stated assumption, so the plan holds up when a lender or investor pressure-tests it.
Who it’s for: For DTC and e-commerce founders raising a first institutional round, seeking an SBA or bank facility to fund inventory and growth, or preparing a lender package, and who want senior consultants building from real drivers rather than a generic plan mill.
What We Build
What we'd build for your raise
Four connected work products, sequenced so the plan, the model, the deck, and the funding strategy all tell one consistent story about your brand.
Business plan
The narrative investors and lenders read first
The challenge: most DTC plans read like a marketing deck or a template fill-in, with no honest account of margin structure, channel concentration, or working-capital reality, and sophisticated readers discount them on sight.
What we’d build: a full written plan covering your brand thesis, market and category dynamics, channel mix, fulfillment and inventory model, competitive position, team, and use of funds, written in the plain, evidence-led language lenders and investors respond to.
Financial model
A driver-based projection tied to your unit economics
The challenge: revenue built top-down from a market-size percentage, with CAC and repeat rates guessed, collapses the moment a diligent reader tests an assumption.
What we’d build: a bottoms-up model driven by traffic, conversion, AOV, contribution margin, blended and paid CAC, and cohort repeat behavior, with inventory and cash-conversion cycle modeled explicitly and every input labeled as actual, benchmark, or assumption.
Pitch deck
An investor deck that matches the model line for line
The challenge: a deck whose headline numbers do not reconcile to the underlying model reads as either careless or inflated, and either kills momentum in diligence.
What we’d build: a tight equity deck (problem, brand, traction, unit economics, channel strategy, market, team, ask, use of funds) where every figure ties directly to the model, plus a data-room-ready appendix for the questions that follow the first meeting.
Funding strategy
The right capital source and a diligence-ready package
The challenge: founders often chase equity when a bank line or inventory facility would be cheaper and less dilutive, or approach a lender with none of the documentation the file requires.
What we’d build: a funding-path recommendation across SBA, bank/debt, inventory financing, and equity based on your stage and margins, then the matching package, whether that is a lender/SBA file with historicals and projections or an investor data room.
The Fuller Scope
Other ways brands use this engagement
The same core materials adapt to the specific reason you are raising and the specific readers you need to convince.
Inventory financing for a growth push
When stockouts are capping growth, we model the working-capital gap and build the package a lender or inventory financier needs to underwrite a facility against your purchase cycle.
SBA loan for an acquisition or buildout
For a warehouse move, equipment purchase, or acquiring a complementary brand, we assemble the SBA-ready plan, historical financials, and projection package that the loan file requires.
Priced seed or Series A round
We build the equity deck, model, and data room, and pressure-test the story against the objections a category-experienced investor will raise.
Bridge or extension with existing investors
A focused update model and memo showing the path since last raise, what the bridge funds, and the milestones it buys, grounded in real trailing performance.
Channel expansion into retail or wholesale
A plan and model for the margin and working-capital shift that wholesale introduces, so the capital ask reflects the real economics of the new channel.
Refinancing high-cost merchant capital
For brands carrying expensive revenue-based or MCA financing, a plan and lender package built to move that debt to a cheaper bank or SBA structure.
Founder buyout or partner exit
A plan and model supporting the financing of a partner buyout, structured so a lender can underwrite the transaction against the business's cash flow.
What a fundable plan has to prove
The drivers we build your model around
Funders scrutinize a handful of things before they say yes. Here’s what our work is built to prove.
Contribution margin
Product, shipping, and fulfillment costs modeled per order so the plan shows what each sale actually contributes after variable cost.
Blended and paid CAC
Acquisition cost split by channel and blended, so the model reflects how efficiency changes as spend scales rather than assuming it holds.
Cohort repeat rate and LTV
Repeat purchase behavior by cohort, so lifetime value is earned from your data instead of asserted.
Inventory and cash-conversion cycle
Days of inventory, payables, and receivables modeled to size the working-capital need that most DTC plans ignore.
Return and refund rate
Returns modeled as a real drag on net revenue and margin, because lenders and investors will ask.
Payback period
Months to recover CAC from contribution margin, the single number that most determines how much growth capital your model can responsibly deploy.
We build every projection from your real drivers: trailing revenue, contribution margin, channel-level CAC, and cohort repeat data pulled from your store and ad platforms. For an established brand, that means the base case is anchored to what your accounts actually show, with growth assumptions you can defend. For a pre-launch or early brand where history is thin, we say so plainly and build from comparable category benchmarks and your own tested inputs, labeling every assumption as such rather than presenting a guess as a fact. We do not invent traction, fabricate projections, or borrow another brand's results to fill a gap.
The Engagement
Investor- and lender-grade, and yours to defend
A scoped engagement built from the drivers you actually control — not a fill-in-the-blank template. We build the plan, the model, and the funding materials, then prep you to defend every number in the room.
Sourced and honest. Every projection ties to a real driver or a stated assumption, downside cases are shown rather than hidden, and where something can’t be known yet we say so — a plan built to survive diligence, not to flatter a raise.
Every raise is different. The scoping call is where we map your drivers and your funding path.
How It Works
From drivers to a plan funders trust
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Discovery & drivers
We map the real operating and financial drivers — model, market, unit economics — and the exact funding you’re pursuing.
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Plan & model
A clear business plan and driver-based financial model with a transparent assumptions layer everything flexes from.
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Funding materials
The pitch deck or lender/SBA package your raise needs, built from the same model so the story and the numbers never diverge.
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Diligence readiness
We pressure-test the plan against the questions a lender or investor will ask — use of funds, repayment, returns — and fix what doesn’t hold.
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Support the raise
You get a documented plan your team owns, plus support taking it into the loan application, the pitch, or the investor meeting it was built for.
FAQ
E-commerce & DTC — business-plan & funding questions
Will you put numbers in my plan that I can't back up?
No. Every figure in the model traces to one of three sources: your actual data, a cited benchmark, or a labeled assumption you have signed off on. We would rather show a defensible modest number than an impressive one you cannot support in diligence.
Should I raise equity or take on debt?
It depends on your stage, margins, and what the capital funds. Inventory and predictable growth often suit a bank line or SBA loan, which is cheaper and non-dilutive; a step-change bet may warrant equity. We give you a specific recommendation, not a default.
Can you help with an SBA loan for my brand?
Yes. We build the SBA-ready plan, assemble your historical financials, and produce the projection package the loan file requires. We prepare the materials; the lender makes the credit decision.
Do you guarantee we'll get funded?
No honest firm can. Funding decisions rest with lenders and investors. What we control is the quality and credibility of your materials, which is where most raises are won or lost.
How do you handle a pre-launch brand with no sales history?
We build from comparable category benchmarks and any tested inputs you have, and we are explicit about what is known versus assumed. We never dress up a pre-launch projection as if it were based on trailing performance.
Who actually does the work?
Senior consultants build the plan, model, and deck directly. You are not handed to a junior analyst working from a template.
How long does an engagement take?
A typical plan-and-model build runs a few weeks depending on how clean your data is and how many funding channels we are packaging for. We scope the timeline before we start.
Can you refine a plan we already have?
Yes. If you have a draft, we can rebuild the model on real drivers and tighten the narrative rather than starting from scratch, whichever gets you to a credible package faster.
The Full Practice