Ross Beyeler is the VP of Business Intelligence at Zaelab, a B2B digital consultancy that helps manufacturers and enterprise organizations modernize the customer experience. In his role, Ross leads data, analytics, and business intelligence strategy, helping organizations translate complex operational and financial data into actionable insights that improve profitability and decision-making. With experience in e-commerce, agency operations, and data-driven growth, he also founded and led multiple companies.

Most companies assume growth is just a matter of getting more customers, but the real story is often buried inside their numbers. Revenue can look strong while profitability quietly erodes through hidden costs, misaligned incentives, and decisions that don't show up on a surface-level dashboard. If your business is growing but margins aren't improving, what are you missing?

According to profitability expert Ross Beyeler, the key is learning to read a business through its contribution margin rather than top-line revenue alone. He emphasizes separating new customer acquisition from retention-driven growth, since each carries very different cost structures and long-term impact. Ross also advises leaders to scrutinize return rates, software spend, and fixed-versus-variable cost decisions, because these often determine whether scaling improves profit. Leaders should remain close to the organization through skip-level conversations and direct visibility into teams, so they don't lose touch with operations. The companies that win are the ones that understand what drives profit, not just what drives activity.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris chats with Ross Beyeler, VP of Business Intelligence at Zaelab, about how to uncover hidden profit drivers in growing businesses. Ross discusses P&L analysis beyond revenue, customer acquisition versus retention economics, and why over-optimization can distort decision-making. He also breaks down post-acquisition integration challenges and how founders can stay connected to the operations.

Michael Kleinmann is the Founder and CEO of Michael Kleinmann Consulting, a bespoke consultancy helping DTC e-commerce and subscription brands grow. He is also the Founder and CEO of Underwear Expert, a men's underwear platform that evolved from a digital media brand into a leading curated subscription service. As a seasoned e-commerce entrepreneur, Michael spent a decade as the President of Freshpair, where he helped build one of the largest online retailers in the underwear category. With over two decades of experience scaling e-commerce and subscription brands, he focuses on brand building, subscriptions, operations, marketing, technology, and customer experience.

When growth stalls, most brands immediately reach for a new agency, a better campaign, or a larger ad budget. Before pouring more money into an acquisition, leaders have to ask themselves, is the business actually built to scale?

The answer is to diagnose the foundation before trying to scale what sits on top of it. E-commerce operations and subscription expert Michael Kleinmann advises brands to validate their data, focus on gross profit over ROAS alone, and audit their systems for issues with sizing, product structure, COGS, and inventory forecasting. He suggests fixing low-hanging operational problems first, not training customers to expect deep discounts, using 3PLs when fulfillment distracts from growth, and ensuring subscription models have the right infrastructure before launching. Sustainable growth comes from strengthening the systems that support marketing, not simply spending more on acquisition.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris sits down with Michael Kleinmann, Founder and CEO of Michael Kleinmann Consulting and Underwear Expert, to discuss fixing the hidden cracks that stop DTC brands from scaling. Michael shares lessons from early e-commerce, subscription complexity, AI opportunities, inventory forecasting, 3PLs, discounting mistakes, and operational audits.

Jess Chan is the Founder and Executive Chair of Longplay Brands, a full-service retention and lifecycle marketing agency for DTC e-commerce brands. She is also the Founder and CEO of Backbone, an email strategy automation tool. As a former CMO of a multimillion-dollar DTC e-commerce company, Jess bootstrapped Longplay to seven figures in revenue within the first 18 months. She is a sought-after speaker, podcast guest, product developer, and consultant on topics like retention, lifecycle marketing, and progressive agency business modeling.

Rachyl Neidecker is the CEO and Partner at Longplay Brands. She specializes in turning complex or broken business operations into scalable systems. Previously, Rachyl served as the COO and interim CEO of an eight-figure e-commerce brand, the Director of Operations at COO Alliance, and has consulted for companies with $10M–$100M+ in revenue.

E-commerce brands often chase stronger channels, faster tactics, or higher revenue goals without identifying whether the company's foundation can support the growth. When trust, profitability, and operations are misaligned, even strong marketing can amplify the wrong problems. So how can founders diagnose what's holding their business back?

With expertise in lifecycle marketing and operational leadership, Jess Chan and Rachyl Neidecker point to a more disciplined way to scale. They recommend looking beyond surface metrics to identify root causes, such as brand inconsistency, product-market fit issues, over-discounting, weak customer education, bloated org structures, and hidden logistics costs. Instead of moving fast on foundational decisions, brands should slow down, inspect the full customer journey, build trust at every touchpoint, and optimize for profit and enterprise value — not just revenue. Sustainable growth comes from diagnosing the system before prescribing the tactic.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris sits down with Jess Chan and Rachyl Neidecker of Longplay Brands to discuss diagnosing e-commerce growth problems. They cover DTC brands' costly misdiagnoses, lifecycle metrics that reveal root causes, and the difference between scaling revenue, profit, and enterprise value.