I'm Taylor Sicard. I co-founded WIN Brands Group, a consumer-brand operator we scaled to nine figures in annual revenue, was an early Shopify employee who helped build the Partner Program, and built and sold a software company to Tiny. Now I work as a fractional DTC growth consultant to founders scaling from $5M toward $100M and beyond. You get an operator's judgment on the decisions that move the P&L, not an agency selling you more execution.
I work across the consumer category: direct-to-consumer and ecommerce brands, CPG and retail, and subscription businesses, on Shopify and beyond. What they share is an inflection point, the moment the moves that got you here stop compounding and the next decision genuinely matters. If revenue is growing but profit is not, if CAC keeps climbing, or if the org has outgrown the way it was built, you don't need more theory. You need someone who has stood exactly where you're standing and run the P&L out the other side.
Pushing through the walls that come at $5M and $10M: CAC discipline, channel mix, retention and repeat rate, and getting contribution margin to a place that compounds instead of bleeds. Growth from someone who has run the numbers, not just advised on them.
The harder problems of scale: retail and wholesale expansion, operating systems that survive growth without wrecking margin, category defense, and getting the business ready to raise, sell, or hold. The work most consultants have never actually done.
Most brands past $5M are already paying two or three agencies. When growth stalls, the instinct is to add a fourth, or to hire a full-time VP. Both are the expensive way to solve what is usually a judgment problem, not a capacity problem. An agency runs channels for you. A full-time leader runs close to $25,000 a month fully loaded, before a three-to-six-month ramp and the real chance you have to hire twice. The question is rarely "can I afford a VP." It's "do I have forty hours a week of that work, or ten hours of the judgment trapped behind it?"
| Your situation | The right tool | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You don't know what to do next | Fractional advisor | Senior judgment on the few calls that move the business |
| You know what to do, need hands | Agency or junior hire | Execution capacity once the strategy is set |
| A whole function, all day, ongoing | Full-time hire | True forty-hour ownership the business can't run without |
I wrote the full breakdown, with the cost math and the failure modes of each option, in fractional advisor vs agency vs a full-time hire. The honest version: an advisor is the wrong tool plenty of the time, and I'll tell you on the first call when it is.
No two engagements look the same, but the work clusters in a few places. The deliverable changes by client; the thinking doesn't. If you want a feel for how I read a brand before we ever talk, the DTC profitability calculator and max allowable CAC calculator run the same first-pass math I start with.
Your true contribution margin and the path to profitable growth, not just more top line. The work behind the DTC profitability teardown and the inflection points.
Fixing the channel mix and getting CAC and payback under control, from Meta versus Google to owned audience, retail media, and the shift off rented reach.
Brand architecture and the move into retail, wholesale, and marketplaces without losing the margin or the brand that got you here, including the own store versus marketplace call.
When to scale, when to take profit, when to sell, and how to get ready. I co-founded a nine-figure acquirer and sold my own company. Decisions made with someone who has been on both sides of the table.
A direct conversation, no deck. Where you are, where you're going, and whether there's a real fit. Free.
We walk through what I'm seeing, where the leverage is, and whether my read lines up with the team. A working review, not a formal audit.
A monthly retainer with a weekly cadence, often with a quarterly week on the ground. Typically twelve months, then month to month.
Engagements end when the ROI stops compounding or the team has internalized the patterns. The goal is finished work, not standing meetings.
Most DTC consultants have run marketing at one brand, or an agency that served many. I've been the founder, the operator, and the merchant. I joined Shopify early to help build and scale the partner ecosystem, then co-founded WIN Brands Group, the acquirer behind Homesick, Qalo, and a portfolio of scaled consumer brands, and built Uptime from scratch and sold it to Tiny, a publicly traded acquirer. Alongside the DTC work I've advised Fortune 500 consumer-goods teams, including Nike, Coca-Cola, Hallmark, and P&G, on challenger-brand strategy.
The thread through all of it is pattern recognition. Consumer commerce has a relatively small set of real problems, and most of them repeat. I've seen them at $5M and at nine figures, inside Shopify and inside the brands built on top of it. I don't advise from theory, I advise from having run it. More in what DTC operators actually know, what to look for in a DTC consultant, and the full background. If you build software or apps in the ecosystem rather than a consumer brand, see Shopify growth consulting, or browse all advisory tracks.
Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute scoping call. No pitch, no deck, a direct conversation about where you are, where you're going, and whether there's a fit. I'll tell you honestly when the answer isn't me. Want a faster read first? Run the DTC Growth Scorecard.
Start a conversation