Operating partner to visionary founders

The operating system behind the founder.

The trusted right hand to visionary founder-CEOs for nearly 20 years. For the founder whose business is growing faster than the operations can keep up, we install and run the systems that make the load disappear. We do the work together. The vision stays yours.

The ceiling

You did the hard part. Now it needs to become an engine.

You made it past the part where most companies die. Real product, real customers, real traction, won the scrappiest way possible.

But scrappy is not a system. What got you here is instinct, hustle, and a thousand decisions that all run through you. That is not an engine yet. Building that engine is exactly where I come in.

Hiring another executive shifts the bottleneck. Hiring consultants gets you a deck about your potential. Neither changes who the business depends on at 11 pm on a Tuesday.

"We have real traction. But everything still runs through me, and I've become the bottleneck."

What founders tell us, in their own words, in almost every first conversation
The work

A steady operating partner, alongside you.

Not someone to drive your growth. The opposite. Someone who takes what you built on instinct, codifies it into systems, and then runs those systems for you. The execution is carried by technology, never by a team you have to hire, manage, or replace. You own the outcomes. We own the operation.

What's working

Find it and double down

The data names your real engine. We put more fuel behind what is already true.

What's not

Fix it

The leaks, the stalls, the workflows held together by your personal attention. Closed.

What's next

Build it to run without you

Systems we build, then keep running for you. Documented, measured, and carried by technology, so nothing new lands on your plate or your payroll.

What's at stake

Growth that is not carried on your shoulders

Sustainable momentum that survives your vacation, your next idea, and your Tuesday nights.

Days 1–30

Connect, baseline, first win

Diagnostic, not discovery theater. No multi-week study before anyone acts. You get momentum on day one and a decision-grade opportunity map by day 30.

First 30 days guaranteed
Days 31–60

Systematize the engine

The data, not an opinion, gets the vote on where we commit. A live, documented system for the engine we choose, plus the first measurable lift.

Days 61–90

Prove it runs, then the load stays gone

A working engine showing measurable results, and the start of the real model. We keep running it from here, absorbing more of the load as you grow. Day 90 is not a handoff. It is the last day you have to think about any of this.

Method

People. Process. Technology. The order is the discipline.

01

People

Org structure, role clarity, accountability, and the leading indicators that tell you the truth early. Nothing else works until this does.

02

Process

Not a thousand SOPs. We identify the small number of workflows that drive the most impact and obsess over those. Process makes perfect.

03

Technology

The accelerant, never the substitute. AI and automation cannot replace the first two. Lighter fluid, once the fire is built right.

How the work actually splits · the 10/80/10 model
10%You set direction
80%Our systems carry the execution
10%You approve what ships

You stay the author of the first ten percent and the judge of the last ten. Everything in between gets engineered off your plate. That is how founder dependency goes down instead of just shifting onto someone new.

Results

Results that compound, year after year.

The test we hold ourselves to is simple. Is the load still gone, and is the engine stronger this year than it was last year?

8-figure consumer brand · fractional Director of Operations

From a multi-million-dollar decline to doubled in year one

A husband-and-wife founded brand with real product-market fit, trending the wrong way, with every operational decision still running through the founders.

$12M2023
$10M2024
$20M2025
$30M+2026 pace

Doubled in the first 12 months. Now tracking past $30M with a mapped pathway to a $100M brand by 2030.

Road Runner Sports · $100M+ specialty retailer

An eight-figure line built so well it ran for years on its own

Ten years as right hand to the founder-CEO. Rebuilt the fitting strategy and turned the custom insole program, built from scratch, into one of the most profitable lines in company history.

$100M+
retailer scale, a decade as the founder's right hand
40
stores running the process
1,000
people trained and certified
7 yrs
and counting, still producing

Systems built that well do not decay. That is the durability we build to. The difference today is that we stay at the wheel, running and evolving the engine so it compounds instead of coasting.

August Dyess, Founder and CEO of Locomotio
The founder

August Dyess

Founder & CEO, Locomotio

Visionary founders go further when they have a steady operating partner alongside them. I've been that operating partner for nearly 20 years.

Ten of them as right hand to the founder-CEO of a $100M+ specialty retailer, where the programs I built are still running and growing seven years after I left. Most recently, helping an 8-figure consumer brand reverse a multi-million-dollar decline and double the business in year one.

The pattern repeats at every stage. An e-commerce founder closing in on $4M a year with nineteen people reporting straight to him, growth stalling under an org he had outgrown. A law practice whose niche carried it to 400 concurrent clients, straining to keep the trains running behind the scenes. Different businesses, same ceiling. The fix is always a real operating foundation, and a partner who builds it with you.

I know the weight of every decision landing on you, because I've spent my career an arm's length from that seat. I've lived the transition from founder-as-the-engine to founder-as-the-visionary, and I know how to build the machine that makes it real.

Book a call

Let's bring your vision to life.

You've worked too hard to let the business slow you down now. Tell me where you are and what's in the way. I read every note personally and reply within one business day. If it looks like a fit, we book a call. If it doesn't, I'll tell you that too.

Goes straight to August. No list, no sequence, no spam.