CASE STUDY
Reinventing a high-touch social enterprise into a scalable concept
Summary
After over a decade in business, this social enterprise's leadership had ambitious plans—dominate the industry and become a major brand. But the harder they pushed, the clearer it became that effort wasn't the answer. The Founder was holding the company together. The team was burning out. Clients were paying premium prices and still dissatisfied. The infrastructure couldn't support growth. It could barely support the company’s existing operations.
I led the organization’s efforts to (1) improve existing services, resulting in a 39% revenue increase and (2) develop a scalable concept to make the organization more profitable and resilient.
My role
project lead, facilitation, research, problem formulation, collaborative ideation, prototyping, business concept, business model
What was true
The firm had no documented identity—no vision, mission, or values—leaving the team without a shared strategy or basis for decisions. Clients saw parts of the service as slow and unnecessary, even as they were paying 2-3x above market rates. The delivery team spent more than 20% of their time on activities that added no value for the client, operated without clear standards, and didn't feel safe raising concerns. Average employee tenure was less than one year. The vast majority of projects ended with the outcomes clients paid for, but many clients were still dissatisfied.
What worked
Research revealed two distinct problems that required two distinct tracks. We worked on both simultaneously.
To stabilize the business:
Established the firm's first identity framework—vision, mission, and values—giving the company an anchor for strategy and the team a foundation for alignment and decision-making
Standardized the core service with client-persona-driven adaptations and defined quality standards
Built a sales system with new materials and a revised pricing strategy
Redesigned part of service delivery to incorporate AI, reducing workload, improving consistency, and evening out how demand hit the team
To find the path forward:
We tested three prototype directions with real clients. Two didn't hold, which the prototyping process revealed quickly, protecting the firm from costly misdirection. The third surfaced capabilities the firm didn't know it had. It pointed to an entirely new business concept grounded in what the firm was already exceptional at.
Outcomes
Financial performance: Revenue grew 39% year over year.
Stakeholder experience: Clients moved faster and reported less friction. The service became something the team could deliver consistently, not heroically.
Operational alignment: The core business was stabilized. A new business concept, built on existing capabilities, showed early market promise. Zero regrettable attrition during the transformation—a meaningful shift for a firm that had struggled to retain people for years.
Leadership focus: Leadership was able to put their energy into developing the new business concept with less time spent managing the day-to-day. The founder stopped being the only thing holding the company together.