44 | The One With the Hardest Decision You’ll Make This Year: Kill, Fix, or Scale

Last week, a founder showed me her numbers for the first time.Forty-three SKUs.Eleven were clearly profitable.Eight were clearly losing money.And twenty-four were stuck in the gray zone.Her question was simple:What do I actually do with this?Because knowing your numbers is only half the battle. The real challenge is deciding what to kill, what to fix, and what to scale. And most founders freeze when it’s time to make that call.In this episode, I walk you through the Kill-Fix-Scale framework. The exact system I use to help founders make clear, confident product decisions without guessing, hoping, or relying on gut instinct.You’ll learn:• How to categorize every product using contribution margin thresholds• Why products under 15% margin quietly destroy your growth• The five levers that can move a product from barely profitable to scalable• How to liquidate underperforming products cleanly and strategically• Why the best founders kill products faster, not slower• How to escape the gray zone where most businesses get stuckThis isn’t about cutting products randomly. It’s about reallocating your time, cash, and energy toward what actually builds profit.Because every product in your catalog is doing one of three things: building your business, draining it, or distracting you.Your job is to decide which is which.If this episode helped make your supply chain a little less painful, share it with another founder because nobody deserves to learn these lessons the hard way. Follow Supply Chain Moves wherever you get your podcasts.Connect with Lara & Move Supply ChainWant to keep learning and connect with Lara and the Move Supply Chain community?Follow & Subscribe:⁠LinkedIn – Move⁠⁠LinkedIn – Lara⁠⁠X – Move⁠⁠X – Lara⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠YouTube⁠Get more insights:⁠Unboxed Weekly⁠ – Lara’s newsletter on DTC supply chain moves⁠Lara’s AI Brain⁠ – Ask Lara’s AI anything about supply chain⁠SC Lounge⁠ – Join Move Supply Chain's free Slack community for DTC founders