DOCUMENT TSC-2026/SVC · SHOPIFY GROWTH ADVISORY · REV. 01
Shopify Growth Consultant & Fractional Advisor

A Shopify growth consultant who has actually scaled the brands.

I'm Taylor Sicard. I was an early Shopify employee who helped build and scale the Partner Program, co-founded WIN Brands Group, have built portfolios of consumer brands to mid nine figures in annual revenue, and built and sold a software company to Tiny.

15+ yrs
Operator & advisor
Nine figures
Brands scaled
Idea → $100M+
ARR advised in SaaS
Exit
Software sold to Tiny
01/ Who this is for

Two kinds of founders, one common problem.

The brands and founders I work with are almost always at an inflection point: the playbook that got them here has stopped working, and the next decision carries real weight. If that's where you are, talk to someone who has already stood there.

DTC & consumer brands · $5M to $100M+

Founder-led brands pushing through the walls that come at $5M, $10M, and $25M: CAC discipline, channel mix, retention, retail and wholesale expansion, and the operating systems that survive scale without wrecking margin. I've run that P&L myself, and the brand strategy and growth advice comes from there.

Shopify apps & ecosystem SaaS

App and SaaS founders from six-figure ARR up who need ecosystem-native go-to-market: App Store distribution, partnerships, pricing and packaging, and the founder-led to team-led GTM shift. I bring the view of someone who helped build and scale Shopify's Partner Program from the inside.

02/ Why an advisor

You probably don't need a $25K-a-month hire.

Most founders reach for a full-time executive when they feel a gap, which is the most expensive way to solve a part-time problem. A leader of that caliber runs $25,000 to $35,000 a month fully loaded full-time, versus $10,000 a month for Advisory, and that's before a three-to-six-month ramp and the real chance you have to hire twice. The gap you feel is usually ten hours of judgment, and filling it with a forty-hour hire is how that second hire happens.

Your gapThe right toolWhy
You don't know what to doFractional advisorSenior judgment on the few calls that move the business
You know what to do, need handsAgency or junior hireExecution capacity once the strategy is set
A whole function, all day, ongoingFull-time hireTrue forty-hour ownership the business can't run without

I wrote the full breakdown on this, with the cost math and the failure modes of each option, in fractional advisor vs agency vs a full-time hire. Plenty of the time an advisor is the wrong tool, and I'll say so when it is. If you are comparing a few people, the seven-step version of that decision is in how to choose a growth advisor.

03/ What I actually do

Where the work lands, merchant side and app side.

Which of the four below apply depends on which side you're on: the merchant, or the one selling to merchants.

Growth & channel strategy

Finding the one binding constraint, fixing the channel mix, and getting CAC and contribution margin to a place that compounds instead of bleeds. The work in scaling from $5M to $25M.

Brand, retail & expansion

Brand architecture, positioning, and the move into retail, wholesale, and marketplaces without losing the margin or the brand that got you here.

Shopify ecosystem GTM

For apps and SaaS: App Store distribution, partnership motions, pricing, and the go-to-market shifts most founders get wrong. See Shopify growth consulting.

M&A: buy, sell, or hold

Whether to raise, sell, or keep compounding, and what has to be fixed before any of it. Brands and apps get valued on different math. I've priced both, closed acquisitions, and sold a company of my own.

Before the call

Two kinds of founder read this page: one selling to merchants, one selling to Shopify. The seat is the same and the weeks look different, so say which one you are and the first call is already useful.

Say which one you are
04/ How it works

Thirty minutes before either of us commits.

01 · WEEK 0

30-minute call

A free call that starts by settling whether you sell to merchants or sell as one, because everything after that depends on the answer.

02 · WEEKS 1–2

The Read

Two weeks, fixed fee. I go through the storefront, or the app listing and the distribution, plus the numbers behind them, and hand you a written read. You tell me where it's wrong. Credited back if you sign a tier within 30 days.

03 · ONGOING

Pick a tier

Consulting, Advisory, or Partner, from $6,000 a month. A brand's weekly agenda and an app founder's look nothing alike, which is why the tier is set in the readout, not on a rate card. Seed-stage software usually starts in Consulting; past $1M ARR it is Advisory.

04 · GRADUATE

Hand off

It ends when your team makes the call without me, not when the contract runs out.

05/ Why me

I helped build the ecosystem you're selling into.

I joined Shopify early to help build and scale the Partner Program, which gave me a view most people in this space don't have: the infrastructure from the inside, the builders selling into it, and the merchants growing on top of it. From there I 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.

Consumer commerce and commerce software each run on a small set of problems, and I've watched the same ones land at $5M and at $500M. That repetition is the case for buying judgment from someone who has already worked through your problem, whichever side of the ecosystem you sit on. More in what DTC operators know and the full background.

06/ Common questions

Five questions I get before the call.

QWhat does a Shopify growth consultant do?
A Shopify growth consultant helps a brand or app find and clear the constraint stalling its growth: the channel mix, unit economics, retention, retail expansion, or go-to-market. As a fractional advisor I bring senior operator judgment to the few decisions that move the business, then stay on to hold you to the plan after the deck is written.
QHow much does a Shopify growth advisor cost?
A fractional Shopify advisor runs at a fraction of a full-time executive. Industry data puts a comparable full-time leader at $25,000 to $35,000 a month fully loaded. Taylor Sicard Consulting's tiers are published: Consulting from $6,000 a month, Advisory from $10,000, Partner from $20,000. Every engagement starts with The Read, a fixed-fee diagnostic at $5,000 to $15,000 that is credited back if you sign a tier within 30 days. Full details at taylorsicard.com/engagements.
QWho do you work with?
Mostly two groups: DTC and consumer brands between roughly $5M and $100M-plus in revenue, and Shopify-ecosystem SaaS and app founders from six-figure ARR up. In both, the business is at an inflection point where the old playbook has stopped working and the next decision matters.
QHow is an advisor different from an agency?
An agency executes a defined scope, often with a junior team running the day-to-day. An advisor owns the judgment: what to do, why, and in what order, then stays accountable to the outcome. Use an advisor for the strategy and the big calls, an agency for production capacity once the plan is set. Many of the brands I work with use both.
QHow are you different from a Shopify Expert or Shopify's own Growth Advisors?
Shopify's Growth Advisors and the Shopify Experts Marketplace are useful for scoped setup, design, and CRO work, usually delivered by a partner agency's team. I'm an independent advisor who was an early Shopify employee and has since operated consumer brands to nine figures and built and sold software inside the ecosystem. You're buying senior judgment on strategy and the big calls, not implementation hours. Many founders use both: me for the direction, a partner or their in-house team for execution. If your business is more brand than platform, see DTC growth consulting, or the Advisory tier.
QWhat if it isn't working?
Say so on the next call. Every tier carries sixty days' written notice either side once the minimum has run, and stepping down a tier is always an option before stopping outright. The Read exists to make this rare: about a third of Reads end at the readout, before any retainer starts.

Tell me where you're stuck.

Take the free 30 minutes and tell me whether you sell on Shopify or into it, and what stopped moving. I'll say so if I'm the wrong person for it. If you'd rather see a read before you talk, the free Store Audit scores your storefront from the URL.