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Richie Mashiko is the CEO of She's Birdie and the Head of Beacon, a division of Iris Financial that does fractional financial consulting for DTC brands. Email Richie at richie@irisfinance.co.
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A brutally transparent turnaround story. Richie Mashiko walks through how he took She’s Birdie from a $3M loss and $6.5M in obligations to an operationally disciplined business paying down debt—without Meta ads.
We break down the debt stack, negotiation order, cash-flow forecasting, and the exact operating changes that created free cash to service creditors.
What you’ll learn fast:
- Debt triage that works: Prioritizing bank lines with personal guarantees, restructuring MCAs, sequencing suppliers and vendors, and why lawsuits are rarely the optimal path for counterparties.
- Cash-flow clarity: How a weekly cash-flow model drives decisions and sets realistic paydown schedules.
- Opex rightsizing: Cutting bloat from ~$500K/month to ~$75K, what to cut first, and how to preserve core capabilities.
- Ad spend discipline: Turning off losing channels, operating with Amazon ads only, and rebuilding profitability before scale.
- Unit economics that fund the plan: 90% landed margin before fulfillment, ~30% all-in cost of delivery, and why high margin + favorable terms enable rapid debt reduction.
- Supplier terms that matter: 25% deposit, 75% net-120 after cargo-ready—how to negotiate (and keep) terms through a downturn.
- Operator mindset: Replace vanity growth with durable free cash flow; define “winning” as consistent distributions, not fantasy exits.
If you’re feeling margin pressure, stuck in growth-at-all-costs habits, or unclear on your balance sheet, this episode gives you a concrete operating playbook you can adapt immediately.
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CHAPTER TITLES:
00:02:10 - The Rescue Mission Of She’s Birdie
00:05:06 - Initial Growing Pains Post Covid (Product Development)
00:11:49 - How We Almost Got Bought By Amazon
00:16:55 - Breaking Down The Balance Sheet
00:22:46 - Keeping The Bank From Freezing Assets
00:24:05 - Operational Vs. Finance Challenges
00:31:17 - Bad Ad Dollars
00:35:20 - Manufacturing Terms
00:40:19 - The Secret Sauce
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