To Scale or Not To Scale?
The unexpected dilemma that's keeping us up at night...
I've been staring at our P&L spreadsheet for the last hour, wrestling with a question that wasn't even on my radar when Travis and I bought Dr. Barry's…
Should we double down on what we have, or stay patient for what's next?
First, the numbers: We hit $25,500 in February ($23K on Amazon, $2.5K on Shopify), continuing our steady 10-20% month-over-month growth. Not bad for a brand we stripped down to bare bones when we bought it, right?
But here's the interesting part...
Travis and I found ourselves in a fascinating strategic debate recently: Should we be focused on aggressive scaling of Dr. Barry's, or patiently waiting for our next acquisition?
It's a classic entrepreneur's dilemma, and I wanted to share our thought process because I think it reveals a lot about how we're approaching this whole business-buying adventure.
The Scale Option: Going All-In on Dr. Barry's
If we decided to pour gasoline on Dr. Barry's, here's what we'd likely do:
Add a third product (Total Liver is the frontrunner - ironically, we sold through our inventory of this super quickly without even trying)
Increase ad spend aggressively (Travis's experiments showed we could crank up Facebook ads in particular)
Find a "face" for the brand (My specialty - bringing in someone who genuinely represents our reflux-relief customer)
New product every quarter (Travis's playbook for hitting $1M - tried and tested in other brands)
The catch? This would require approximately $50K in working capital and significant time/energy investment.
The Patient Approach: Building a Perpetual Sales Machine
The alternative (which is our current path) looks different:
Run Dr. Barry's as a "perpetual sales machine" - optimized but not requiring constant attention
Stockpile cash for both reorders and future acquisitions
Focus energy on finding our next brand - potentially one with $200K-$1M in EBITDA
Play the long game - recognizing that patience often leads to better deals
What's fascinating about this approach is that it requires fighting against the typical entrepreneur's instinct to "scale at all costs." Sometimes the best growth strategy isn't pushing harder on what's not working perfectly - it's recognizing when you've built something valuable (even if it's not massive) and using those lessons to level up.
Our Biggest Insight So Far
Travis shared something that's stuck with me: "I'm going to start taking money out of businesses when they're doing probably a million dollars or more. You can get to a million dollars a lot faster when you don't take money out of the business and just pump it all back in."
But here's the key: "You have to do it intelligently. You can't just throw money at advertising that's not working, throw money at a strategy that's not working, throw money at products that aren't working."
That last part is crucial. We've seen so many e-commerce brands fail because they scale the wrong things. Before Dr. Barry's, the previous owners had seven SKUs with minimum order quantities of 8,000 units each (about $35K or more in inventory costs each time you order!).
No wonder they were constantly cash-strapped!
What We're Learning About Supplement Products
Another fascinating discovery: There's a fundamental difference between "aspirational" supplements (like multivitamins or greens powder) and "pain-relief" supplements (like our reflux product).
With aspirational products, customers accept that results take time. With pain-relief products, they want instant results - and that makes the marketing challenge completely different.
It's made us rethink our entire product strategy. In fact, Travis had an interesting idea: repackaging our Reflux Essentials as "Coffee Companion" - a digestive supplement specifically for coffee drinkers. Same formula, different positioning... from pain-relief to lifestyle enhancement.
That's the kind of creative thinking that comes from the trenches of actually running these businesses.
Want to hear us work through this in real-time?
Check out Episode 18 of our podcast, where you'll hear Travis, Justice and me debating these exact questions. You'll hear about our experiments with ad spend, our candid thoughts on various product options, and even a "gun to your head" scenario where Justice asks what we'd do if we HAD to scale to $1M.
Until next time,
Deacon, Travis, and Justus
P.S. Are you sitting on an e-commerce brand with great products but struggling with marketing, operations, or cash flow? Or maybe you're looking to invest in this space? Either way, hit reply - we'd love to tap into our experience as Marketers, Operators, and now Acquisition Entrepreneurs to see if we can help.