Eli Halliwell — Strategic Partner

The Role

Strategic Partner

A force multiplier of the CEO's time and attention. Not a consultant who hands you a deck and disappears. A thought partner who learns your business and stays in the fight with you.

I learn your business thoroughly. I track daily KPIs for warning signs and opportunities. I strategize with you weekly.

Drawing on years as a founder, CEO and board member of multiple consumer businesses, I serve as both an extra set of eyes on the business and a second opinion on the decisions that keep you up at night. I bring the perspective of an investor and an owner-operator — because I've been both.

All decision-making and accountability stay with you. I'm not here to run things. I'm here to make sure the person running things has the sharpest possible read on what's actually happening.

What to expect

Deep knowledge of your key drivers and how they show up in daily KPIs and monthly financials
Candid feedback and debate on decisions involving customers, vendors, employees and board
Ability to dive deep into strategic initiatives to improve odds of execution
Introductions to potential vendors from prior relationships

Time commitment

~1 day per week, spread across the week. Weekly 1:1 with the CEO, regular Slack/text, plus ad hoc calls as needed.

Engagement

Three-month initial engagement, then month-to-month if we both want to keep going. 30-day notice either way.

The 3-Month Assessment

At the end of the initial engagement, you walk away with something concrete: a comprehensive written assessment of your business — what I found, what it means, and what to do about it. Six areas, no hedging.

New Customer Acquisition

Acquisition efficiency across all paid channels, payback period, cross-channel halo impact. Where to increase spend, where to reallocate, and a framework for evaluating CAC and ROAS targets with defined payback goals.

Customer Retention

Cohort-level LTR and LTV trends, retention probabilities by order number, at-risk cohorts. How to improve repeat customer journeys and reduce over-reliance on discounting to drive repurchase.

Channel Profitability

Profitability across DTC, Amazon and wholesale — including branded vs. non-branded ad efficiency. Where spend can be cut without losing sales, and where the channel mix is working against you.

Product Strategy

SKU-level performance, AOV and UPT trends, bundling opportunities. Whether your entry-point strategy is optimized for acquisition and long-term retention — or accidentally optimized for something else.

Discounting Strategy

A full audit of discount penetration and magnitude by channel, mechanic and customer type. The overall trajectory, and specific recommendations for cutting inefficient discounting without hurting conversion or retention.

Data & Analytics

Gaps in real-time visibility, reporting and forecasting. The tools and frameworks you need to track KPIs, forecast sales by channel at the SKU level, and make faster decisions with better information.

About

Built on doing, not advising

A mentor told me early on: when everyone is running in one direction, the best opportunities come from heading the other way.

I've spent my career testing that theory. Selling fish tanks after college. Used cars after business school. Going into hair when everyone was going into finance. Moving to Australia to run a skincare company that grew its own ingredients on a farm. Co-founding Hairstory on a single conviction: everything the hair industry has ever told you about shampoo is wrong.

At Hairstory, we replaced shampoo — a product most people had never once questioned — with something fundamentally better. Bootstrapped to profitability, 35,000 reviews, and a customer retention rate that still surprises people who see it. Now, with Sans Savon, I'm trying to do the same for soap.

I've built, scaled or turned around six businesses over three decades — some that worked, a few that didn't, one that was pulled out from under me and is now worth a hundred billion dollars. Along the way I've learned that the most important skill an entrepreneur develops isn't fundraising or strategy or product development. It's the ability to recognize what is actually happening versus what you hoped would happen — and to stay in the game long enough for those two things to converge.

LinkedIn → Substack →

Businesses built

Years as an operator

$400M+

Shareholder value created

Track Record

Where I've been

Founder & Executive Chairman

Hairstory

Replaced shampoo with a fundamentally different approach to cleaning hair. Bootstrapped, profitable, 35,000+ reviews. Still at it.

Co-founder

Sans Savon

Applying the same contrarian logic to soap. Foaming detergent is the problem — we're building the alternative.

Co-founder

iMotors

Used car e-commerce, circa 2000. The internet bubble killed it. A decade later, the same model came back as Carvana — valued at $100 billion. Timing is everything.

General Manager

Bumble and bumble

Ran the business for one of the most iconic premium salon brands in the industry.

President & CEO

Jurlique

Led a skincare company in Australia that grew its own ingredients on a farm. About as far from Wall Street as you can get.

Board member

Ursa Major Skincare

Advising on growth and strategy for a leading clean skincare brand.

Founder & Chairman

CP Soccer

500+ kids across the US, nearly 20 regional teams, 20% of the current US Paralympic National Team squads. It's a nonprofit. It's also the best business I've ever built.

How it starts

No pitch. No proposal. A conversation.

I take on a small number of partnerships at a time. Here's how we figure out if this is the right one.

We talk

A candid conversation about your business, what's working, what isn't, and whether my experience maps to your challenge.

I listen

I get access to your data, your team, your numbers. I learn the business before I start forming opinions about it.

We commit

Three months, both sides. Enough time to go deep, not so long that either of us is stuck if the fit isn't right.

We work

Weekly strategy sessions, daily visibility into KPIs, and the kind of honest counsel that only comes from someone who's been in the seat.

I've built six businesses over three decades. Now I help founders build theirs.