Experienced Proven eCommerce Leadership
M38 Partners is an operating team for DTC, eCommerce and marketplace businesses. We take the seat at the level you would hire a Head of eCommerce, run the store, the marketplaces and the paid media as the team accountable for the number, and hand the business back running in three to twelve months.
You have a real digital business and nobody senior runs it. Shopify reports to one person. Amazon and Walmart report to another. Meta and Google report to an agency. The forecast is a guess, and every decision waits on someone who already has another job.
We take the seat at the level you would hire a Head of eCommerce. From as little as five hours a week, embedded in your Slack, your calls and your dashboards. We run the channels, we hire the agencies and replace them when they do not deliver, and we own the P&L line.
Then we hand it back working. Documented, staffed or vendored correctly, and forecastable. Three to twelve months, temporary on purpose. If you still need us in year two, we’d take the compliment.
An agency executes the scope you write. A consultant tells you what to do. We do the job.
The problem we get hired to fix
Every decision waits on someone who already has another job. The media agency reports ROAS, the email platform reports revenue share, and neither number reconciles to what the bank says.
We take the seat that runs your DTC, eCommerce and marketplace business. We come in at the level you would hire a Head of eCommerce, we run it for three to twelve months, and we leave it working.
First
Diagnose
The store, the listings, the channels and the P&L. What is actually wrong and what it is worth fixing.
Then
Run it
Embedded, from as little as 5 hours a week. We set the plan, control the spend, hold the vendors to numbers.
Finally
Hand it back
A business someone else can run. If you still need us in year two, we’d take the compliment.
What we do
Anyone can leave you a plan. We leave you a business.
We run Shopify, Amazon, Walmart and Instacart, plus paid media on Meta and Google and the email and SMS program. Hands on the controls, not a slide about the controls.
We hire the agencies, write the briefs, hold them to the numbers, and replace them when they do not deliver. You stop translating between four vendors who each have an explanation.
One P&L line, one team answering for it. We report contribution margin, not a ROAS that flatters the report.
If there is no foundation we build it. If there is, we scale it. Positioning, pricing and pack architecture get settled before we spend a dollar amplifying them.
In three to twelve months you get a business that is documented, staffed or vendored correctly, and forecastable. Someone else can run it. That is the point.
What we cover
Storefront, marketplace, demand, AI discoverability and unit economics are one job. Hiring for it is five job descriptions and five salaries. We run it as one business with one person accountable for whether it grew.
We build, launch and replatform on Shopify, then run CRO, merchandising, site conversion and subscription. Including the retention program that decides whether acquisition pays back.
We run Amazon 1P and 3P, Walmart, TikTok Shop and Instacart: listings, content, PPC, retail media and operations. Run as part of the same business, not one competing with your site.
We run paid media across Meta, Google, TikTok and Amazon, managed to contribution margin and payback rather than a ROAS screenshot. CRM, email and SMS, retention and lifecycle. Demand you create and demand you capture, priced as one budget.
Answer engine optimization (AEO), generative engine optimization (GEO) and AI chat discoverability. When a customer asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity what to buy, we make sure your brand is in the answer. Most brands cannot tell you whether they show up today.
We own the P&L line: contribution margin, pricing and pack architecture, forecasting, and agency and vendor management. These are the decisions that connect the other four.
Who hires us
You built it. You should not still be the one creating and approving every campaign, in the weeds on merchandising, pricing, promo and sales channel optimization, and you shouldn’t be reading every agency deck.
Owning real revenue, real channels, real customers, and a P&L reporting line that shouldn’t be another employee’s after thought. If it’s an after thought internally, it’s an after thought for customers.
Your acquisition channels have dried up. Your eCommerce business is sinking. You have no true experts internally running this business line to ensure the channel scaled and continued to be profitable.
You are a Retail first brand and it’s time to expand. DTC and eCommerce is not as simple as launching a site and the customers magically appear. DTC is a different business with different economics. Without an experience Operator, you have failed before day 1.
How it works
Senior partner on every engagement. No pitch deck, no junior account manager. The work is led by operators with 20+ years of P&L ownership inside consumer brands: Shopify DTC, Amazon and Walmart, and eight-figure paid media budgets.
Embedded. In your Slack, on your calls, in your dashboards. Contract or consulting.
We are temporary on purpose. If you still need us in year two, we’d take the compliment.
We set the plan, control the spend inside an agreed budget, make the pricing and promo calls, and report the result without a filter. If every decision still needs your sign-off, you do not need an operator. You need a vendor, and not a strategic partner like us.
Documented, staffed or vendored correctly, and forecastable. Handed back to someone who can run it.
What that has been worth
How to engage
Scope up when it is working, scope down when it is done. Useful in week one: no search, no offer letter, no ninety-day ramp.
The name
1938
We build the way our family has built since 1938, where your name was the only collateral and reputation you had, and a bad job followed you forever.
Foundations first, made to be handed on, and built so the business keeps working when we are gone. Nearly a century later, the first things they built are still standing.
Contact
Your business is leaking and under performing while you decide whether to send this. In a few days you’ll know where it is leaking, what it is costing you and how fast M38 Partners can correct it for you.
