I help founders get ahead of cash, margin, and inventory before the numbers show up too late. Ten years in the VP Finance and CFO seat, now for a few brands at a time.
Most growing DTC brands don't run out of ambition. They get blindsided by their own numbers.
Sales look fine. Inventory's moving. The model says the year works. And cash still feels tighter than it should, every PO turns into a hard call, and the team is reacting to the numbers instead of running on them. The bad news rarely shows up five weeks out. It shows up five days out, usually on a Friday, right before a payment runs.
The founder is still asking "are we good on cash?" more often than anyone's comfortable with.
The 13-week cash flow exists. Nobody fully trusts it.
Inventory buys, wholesale timing, and vendor payments keep creating cash pressure you see late.
Marketing's dashboard looks great. Contribution margin after ad spend tells a different story.
You have a budget, a forecast, and a dashboard. You don't have a weekly operating cadence.
Finance is technically covered. The team still doesn't have clarity.
It's usually not an effort problem. It's a cadence problem.
It isn't dramatic. It's calmer, cleaner, and more in control. Everyone knows what matters this week.
Most engagements start with a focused two to four week diagnostic sprint: cash discipline, margin reporting, inventory and PO commitments, and the weekly decision cadence. We build the system behind those numbers, then I stay on with a small number of brands to keep it sharp and to be in the room for the decisions that move the business.
This is for brands that have outgrown back-of-the-envelope finance but don't need another platform, another framework, or a full-time CFO they're not ready for. I work with the team you already have, your bookkeeper, your agency, your controller, as the senior finance voice in the room. In the weekly decisions, not just the monthly report.
Senior operating finance for the decisions that move the business, not outsourced bookkeeping or another dashboard to babysit.
I take a few brands at a time, so I'm honest early about whether you're one of them.
At Public Rec I was the first finance hire. I built the finance function from the ground up and ran it as VP Finance. Growing apparel brand. Inventory, wholesale, cash timing, and a lot of "we'll figure it out."
One Monday the founder Slacked me: "are we good for payroll Wednesday?"
I said "a little tight, but we'll be fine."
The truth is I didn't know it with the confidence I should have. I had spreadsheet math and instinct. I didn't have a process I could trust. That was the last time I wanted to operate that way.
Since then I've built and run finance across DTC and apparel brands. Cash flow, forecasting, inventory planning, QuickBooks and Shopify, an ERP migration when a brand outgrows them, board reporting, vendor and lender negotiations, and the messy middle between finance, ops, and leadership.
Built and led finance at Public Rec, a premium menswear brand, from $17M to $50M and through an acquisition, over six years
Has run finance for three Shopify brands at once, and worked inside a $100M consumer brand
Shopify, QuickBooks, and ERP migrations, inventory and WMS, forecasting, ABL and LOC facilities, payroll, board reporting, working capital
Licensed CPA, with the operator miles to go with it
You work with me. Not a firm, not an account manager, not a junior doing the real work behind a logo. I'm not bringing a generic consulting playbook either. I'm bringing the system I wish every DTC finance team had before things got tight.
Yes, I'm a CPA. I'd just rather spend the call on your reorder timing than your accounting policies.
And I use AI the way it actually helps: to get through the mechanical work faster, the modeling, the reconciliations, the first pass at the analysis, so the judgment calls get more of my time, not less. The tools handle volume. The decisions still need an operator who has made them before.
A weekly letter on the operating finance behind DTC brands. Cash, margin, inventory, and the soft numbers that don't sit neatly in a spreadsheet. Trust, cadence, and whether the team actually knows what matters this week.
If cash, margin, inventory, or working capital feels harder than it should, I'll help you see what's missing and what to fix first.
We start with what's actually happening in your business.
Or email me directly: bradschroeder84@gmail.com