OPS4FOUNDERS | Operations for Founder-Led Consumer Brands
OPS4FOUNDERS

I fix the operations that break when consumer brands grow.

No bullshit decks. No finger-pointing. I get into the mess, fix what’s actually broken, and build the systems, teams and infrastructure that make growth work.

James Coccaro working at a laptop in front of a whiteboard listing product, supply chain, inventory, margins, team and scale

Capabilities

Twelve places the work shows up.
One operating system underneath it.

Most operating problems start in one place and show up somewhere else. Inventory looks wrong because purchasing is wrong. Fulfillment gets blamed because planning failed. Freight gets expensive because manufacturing ran late. Finance doesn’t trust COGS because nobody owns landed cost.

My advantage is knowing how to follow the problem across the business instead of fixing one symptom at a time.

The mess travels.

That’s why I don’t treat these as twelve independent services. They are twelve parts of the same operating system.

Territory 01 · Capabilities 01–05

Flow of goods.

Forecasting affects purchasing. Purchasing affects inventory. Inventory affects fulfillment. The symptom shows up in one place; the cause usually lives upstream.

01

Supply Chain Management

Run the chain as one system.

Demand, purchasing, manufacturing, inventory, freight and fulfillment are connected whether the org chart acknowledges it or not. I build the planning, ownership and operating cadence that connects them — so a vendor delay does not become a surprise stockout three departments later.

Demand planning

Purchasing and PO management

Vendor and co-man coordination

Component and packaging planning

Production and capacity planning

Lead times and service levels

Inbound freight and replenishment

Channel inventory flow

Multi-vendor / multi-3PL coordination

Landed-cost visibility

Exception management

Demand-to-supply coordination

Next in the chain: Inventory & Planning

02

Inventory & Planning

If nobody trusts the number, you don’t have an inventory system.

Finished goods are only half the story. Bottles, jars, pumps, caps, cartons, labels, inserts, lead times, MOQs, lot requirements and shelf life all determine what you can actually make and sell. I build planning around those dependencies and establish which system owns the truth when three different systems disagree.

$3M+

Inventory assets managed

$7M+

Annual purchasing

Next in the chain: Manufacturing & Vendor Management

03

Manufacturing & Vendor Management

A supplier relationship is not a supplier-management system.

Co-mans, fillers, component vendors and packaging suppliers all sit inside your operation. I manage MOQs, lead times, capacity, quality handoffs, finished-goods coordination, cost structure, terms and vendor performance. That is also where a lot of recurring margin gets lost quietly.

5 countries

Manufacturing footprint

$60K+

Recurring supplier savings

Next in the chain: Fulfillment & 3PL

04

Fulfillment & 3PL

Your 3PL may suck. It also may not be the whole problem.

Network design, 3PL selection, transitions, SLAs, kits, bundles, subscriptions, parcel economics, damage and leakage. Most fulfillment problems are a mix of partner performance, bad standards, weak visibility and nobody consistently managing exceptions. I fix the operating model, not just the relationship.

$180K

Annual fulfillment cost removed

5–7 → 2–3 days

Fulfillment cycle

16,000 sq ft

Fulfillment center built

Next in the chain: Freight & Shipping Cost

05

Freight & Shipping Cost

Stop paying for urgency you created upstream.

Mode, lane, carrier, parcel rate structure, inbound consolidation, accessorials and expedited freight. Freight gets expensive fast when manufacturing and planning are late. I work both sides of that equation.

~$170K

Annual freight savings across six brands

I didn’t just advise on brands.
I built them.

See what I’ve built
Simply Natural gummy vitamins for women, men and children
Simply Natural
ZzzRight SnoreTronix mouthpiece and ZzzRestore gummies
ZzzRight
MomEase silicone breast pump with retail packaging
MomEase
Simply Natural USDA organic mints tins
Simply Natural

Territory 02 · Capabilities 06–08

Operating system.

Systems affect visibility. Ownership affects everything. This is the layer that decides whether the flow of goods runs or keeps breaking.

06

Operating Leadership

Somebody has to own the whole thing.

Org design. Hiring. Developing and evaluating ops people. Operating cadence. KPIs. Escalation paths. Cross-functional decisions. Most importantly: decisions stop routing back to the founder because someone actually owns the function. Embedded four, six or eight days a month. Designed to shrink.

10 / 30+

Direct / indirect reports led

From zero

Ops functions built, more than once

07

Systems & ERP

Software does not fix a process nobody agreed on.

ERP, WMS, inventory, ecommerce, fulfillment and finance systems only work when the process underneath them is clear. I work through selection, implementation, integrations, data hygiene, ownership and the operating process the system is supposed to represent.

Sometimes you need new software. Sometimes you need to stop blaming the software.

08

Finance & Operating Infrastructure

If you can’t see the margin leak, you can’t fix it.

Landed cost. COGS. Purchasing controls. Inventory accounting. Channel economics. Operating reporting. I build the operational layer that gives finance better information and gives operators numbers they can actually run the business on.

Accounting belongs with accountants. Making the operation produce trustworthy inputs belongs here.

Territory 03 · Capabilities 09–11

Channel execution.

Fulfillment affects customer experience. Every channel inherits what happens upstream — each one just breaks in its own way.

09

Retail & EDI

Retail should get easier every time you do it.

EDI. GS1 labeling. Routing guides. Retailer onboarding. Chargeback prevention. Compliance and execution. The first big retailer can feel like inventing the process from scratch. The second one should not.

Target → Kroger → Walmart

Onboarding sequence

~2 months → ~2 weeks

Time to onboard

10

Ecommerce & Website Operations

Marketing makes the promise. Operations has to keep it.

Shopify setup, order routing, fulfillment logic, SKU and catalog integrity, shipping rules, dropship workflows, subscriptions and returns. This is the operating layer behind the customer experience — where what the website promises meets what the company can actually execute.

11

Amazon Operations

Amazon is its own operating system.

FBA. FBM. MCF. Replenishment. Channel inventory. Shipment planning. Compliance. Chargebacks. Reimbursements. Account health. Stranded inventory. Aged inventory.

Run it casually and Amazon taxes the rest of the business. Run it deliberately and it becomes a channel instead of a recurring emergency.

~$18M

Amazon channel scope operated

Territory 04 · Capability 12

Build from zero.

The same operating system, built before there is anything to fix. It’s why I can diagnose a mature operation: I’ve had to build one from nothing.

12

Zero-to-One CPG Build

There is nothing to fix yet. So build it right.

Define the brand clearly enough that the creative work can execute against it. Then build the operating company underneath it: manufacturing, packaging, components, systems, 3PL, freight, inventory, cost structure and launch capacity.

Zero-to-one means committing real money while demand is still mostly a hypothesis. You do not have to be perfectly right. You have to be right enough to survive what you got wrong.

What I’ve Built

How we start

01Operations Diagnostic

Before we fix anything, find out what’s actually broken.

For when you know something’s wrong but not exactly what. Ten business days from data-complete. You get the problems in priority order, the evidence, what each one is costing you and what I’d fix first. No hundred-page deck.

02Operating Project

One problem. One owner. One definition of done.

3PL transition. Inventory controls. Planning. ERP cleanup. Retail onboarding. Freight reset. Fulfillment redesign. It’s finished when the outcome exists — not when the hours run out.

03Embedded Leadership

You don’t need another recommendation. You need someone to own it.

Four, six or eight days a month inside the business. I run the operating cadence while the team grows into it. The goal is for the company to need me less, not more.

Tell me what’s broken
James Coccaro, founder of OPS4FOUNDERS

James Coccaro

I’ve spent my career turning ideas and messes into operating companies.

I didn’t come up through consulting. I came up doing the work.

I’ve built brands and launched products. Sourced manufacturers and negotiated with them. Opened warehouses, ran Amazon, implemented ERP and managed 3PLs. Supported major retail. Hired teams. Owned the purchasing, the inventory and the consequences when either went wrong.

Both ends. That’s the point. I know what founders are carrying because I’ve carried it.

20+ years CPG · $30M operating scope · $18M Amazon scope · 16,000 sq ft fulfillment build · multi-country manufacturing · DTC + Amazon + retail + wholesale

Seeing your mess in here?

Good. Tell me what is happening. We’ll figure out whether you need a Diagnostic, a project, an operator inside the business — or something else entirely.

Thirty minutes. No deck.

Bring me the mess See what I’ve built

Don’t feel like scheduling a call?

Send me the problem. I’ll take a look.