Case Studies

A handful of past businesses I have worked with and how I have helped them solve problems.

Dark Yellow Dot

Who are they?

Dark Yellow Dot (DYD) is a platform to help emerging artists make a living from their talent. They run a community of artists, a blog, competitions and run gallery events.

Where were they before working with me?

DYD had been growing steadily for 5 years and had a strong reputation but had been struggling to become profitable.

What problem were they facing?

Some services were not bringing in enough money and others were taking a lot of time and had too much going on for 1 founder and 2 part time staff to manage.

The founder needed to figure out which direction to take the business so it could make more passive income for the business and to give her time back to work on her other businesses and family.

What did I do to solve it?

I worked as a mentor with the founder to establish what she wanted to achieve from the business (passive income and helping artists to create their businesses).

We evaluated the business strategy, analysing the different parts of the business for potential, value, time involvement and what the founder enjoyed doing most.

We established that prioritising the blog as the core business function was the priority (the element that would provide the momentum for the flywheel to drive growth across the whole business), the gallery shows and artist competitions were important additional services and that the online shop was not a priority and should be closed.

Streamlining the services in this way enabled the business to manage resources effectively to create a very strong core business that would increase recurring revenue and become scalable.

Testimonial:

Emma was my mentor for 3 months. She was reliable, consistent, and true to her word. Not to mention such a pleasant person to talk to and share ideas with. As a soloprenuer, it can be lonely and quite difficult to get outsider perspective on business decisions. I was reluctant to try another mentorship program after a bad experience in the past, but I'm really happy to have met Emma. If you need someone open minded, takes initiative, knows what they're doing and gives good advice, get first dibs on Emma!

Lauren Little | Founder

Mahabis

Who are they?

Mahabis are a D2C footwear brand with a mission to make the most comfortable footwear for your home.

Where were they before working with me?

Mahabis had experienced extremely high growth for five years but had struggled to build out the range and get customers to make repeat purchases. They had also had quality problems with their core product and had to pivot the business and had sales challenges which ultimately led to the business going through administration.

What problem were they facing?

After being bought out of administration they had the challenge of rebranding, rebuilding the product pipeline and rebuilding the team.

What did I do to solve it?

I worked with the leadership team and a specialist footwear agency to create a new vision for the product range that elevated the brand positioning and resonated with more target customers based on data and industry analysis that would increase AOV and profitability.

I led initiatives to move the supply chain and bring production to Europe, develop new packaging and source sustainable materials to position the brand as higher quality and more innovative. These changes enabled the brand to be more agile with stock holding, reduce overall costs and have greater cash flow flexibility.

Enna

Who are they?

Enna’s mission is to help neurodivergent job-seekers find meaningful employment with inclusive employers. They want to support these employers to attract, recruit and integrate neurodivergent talent and solve the problem of underemployment for neurodivergent people.

Where were they before working with me?

Enna was a young start-up that was starting to get traction with companies and job seekers. They had a few different service offerings but were struggling to manage all of them and decide which direction to take the business in.

What problem were they facing?

Enna were struggling with their customer journey and figuring out how best to offer their services to companies and what their ongoing support offer should be. They were also struggling with marketing and attracting customers.

What did I do to solve it?

I was on the advisory board and worked with the other members to provide support, listen and ask relevant questions to help the founder figure out the next steps for Enna. I supported in developing a new customer journey map, repricing services and team growth and skills development. Focusing on defining the customer journey enabled Enna to figure out what services and marketing were most relevant to customers at each stage and identify the resources they needed to reach the next stage of growth.

Shackleton

Who are they?

Shackleton is a British outdoor and lifestyle brand with a track record of building premium apparel and equipment for adventure.

Where were they before working with me?

Strong creative and product development capabilities had gained real momentum in the last couple of years. Clear ambitions to turn profitable within eighteen months and scale significantly, but needed stronger commercial rigour and strategic clarity to support that growth confidently.

What problem were they facing?

Shackleton approached me wanting to strengthen their commercial thinking and bring more strategic clarity to their product and range decisions. They wanted to understand what was truly driving value, how to prioritise their efforts, and how to build the commercial frameworks and processes that would let them scale consitently.

What did I do to solve it?

I came in as a strategic commercial consultant, focusing first on merchandising - the area with the greatest immediate impact - before building out broader frameworks across the business.

I worked on the five-year vision and built a roadmap of priorities to get them there. I created frameworks for prioritising and evaluating hypotheses — so every decision was grounded in both commercial logic and customer insight.

As the commercial foundations were established, I began working across other areas of the business - developing go-to-market approaches for product launches and introducing AI tools and education to the team to accelerate ways of working and free up capacity for higher-value thinking. The systems, frameworks and processes put in place continue to support their journey toward profitability and scaling.

Testimonial:

"Emma brought impressive data analytics and strong commercial rigour into our range build and buy decisions. She spotted gaps in the collection, identified obvious revenue drivers with strong margins, and helped raise the bar with sophisticated thinking behind our commercial decisions. The systems and processes she implemented continue to drive the ongoing growth and success of the business."

Sara Lewis | Product Director at Shackleton | Design & Development Consultant | On Good Authority

Borro

Who are they?

A pre-seed fashion rental business building a more sustainable model for baby clothing, founded and led by Sarah Green.

Where were they before working with me?

Three years in, accelerator-backed, with an Innovate UK grant secured to build a new B2B revenue channel.

What problem were they facing?

A stretched founder with a year-long project spanning new tech, an untested proposition, unclear regulation and unproven brand appetite. She needed a commercial operator to take it on, not just advise.

What did I do to solve it?

II came in as fractional COO to run the Innovate UK project end-to-end. I led the discovery phase, brought in regulatory experts, scoped and shipped the MVP with the tech team, led brand outreach and secured first B2B customers, and managed the full Innovate UK reporting cycle through to final presentation. Alongside this, I brought apparel and sustainability insight into commercial planning — giving Sarah a trusted partner to think with.