See the numbers clearly first,
then get the judgment right.
I am the Principal Advisor of Erya Consulting, providing strategic finance advisory to growth-stage CEOs: business analysis, and long-term strategic support.
A hit product: in which month does the money come back
“Today’s market is one where the internal and external environment is intricate and complex. For a growth-stage CEO, there are often many forward-looking plans, and for a stretch of time there is no suitable person inside to push them forward. This is when you need a strategic partner who has strategic capability, and at the same time has multiple capability modules and can offer multi-dimensional perspectives.”
Strategic capability
Starting from today’s operating numbers, reasoning through to the direction three years out.
Multiple capability modules
Business analysis, financial models, industry research, AI tools, covered by one person.
Multi-dimensional perspectives
I have worked in marketing and in tech venture capital, and now work on-site alongside companies in their operations. The same matter can be seen from multiple angles: industry trends, brand, capital and operations.
You need numbers that are calculated right, and a judgment you dare to make
Growth-stage CEOs make decisions every week: should this new product get another batch of stock, is that channel still worth investing in, is the team’s budget this year being spent right. Most of the time, these decisions rely on gut feeling, because the numbers in hand are not on the same definitions, and the results calculated from them contradict each other. What I do is sit beside you and answer five questions.
Are we actually making money?
First, get the books reconciled. Revenue, costs, platform deductions, calculated all the way through on one definition, with platform settlements reconciled down to the single digit.
Where is the money stuck?
Look at the business through cash. How long the money put into each product takes to come back, which ones are generating cash, which ones are tying it up, clear at a glance.
Which products should we double down on, and which should we stop?
Each SKU has a clear status, matched to a clear action.
Is the money the team spends worth it?
Expenses are traced to departments, and budget rules are adjusted together with the product structure.
Where do we go next?
Starting from your own numbers, judge what growth relies on, and whether to enter a new category.
Look at the business through cash
What the growth stage fears most is running out of cash. Cash gross margin and payback period let you see what book profit cannot show.
Numbers lead straight to action
Every analysis ends in a verdict: clear the inventory, review the contract, control replenishment. What you get are conclusions you can execute directly.
Growing with the business
New product launches, channel changes: the models and rules are adjusted every period to follow. These five questions change every month, so this work has to be done continuously.
Figures come from year-over-year comparisons within the client’s operating report. Client information has been anonymized.
One foundation, 16 models
These models all grew out of real projects. The first 14 make up the operating data foundation, with each layer taking in the output of the layer before it; the last 2 are research methods, used to assess new categories and new sectors.
Defines how each number is attributed and calculated
Multi-dimensional revenue breakdown
Which market, which type of customer, which product and which platform every yuan of revenue comes from.
Platform fee matrix
Each platform’s commission, advertising and payment deductions, seen clearly in one table.
SKU full-cost allocation
8 direct costs, including R&D, manufacturing, promotion and fulfillment, allocated to each product.
Turns numbers into comparable metrics
Cash payback period
The money put into a product: in which month it comes back.
Cash gross margin
Gross margin calculated on actual cash paid out; products below the company benchmark are flagged automatically.
SKU cash-flow ROI
With all direct costs counted, whether each product still makes money.
Platform settlement reconciliation
Calculated all the way from GMV to withdrawal: how much the platform deducted, how much actually arrived.
Sales concentration
How the share of hit products and the number of products on sale change, to see clearly whether it is focus or over-reliance.
Expense ratio, year over year
Each department’s expense ratio compared with last year, with anomalies flagged.
Translates metrics into operating status
Operating status verdict
One status per product: clear inventory, normal sales, tied up in manufacturing, contract pending review.
Department budgets and overruns
Budgets are allocated by attributed revenue, overruns are traced to departments, and the rules adjust with new products.
Structural shift classification
Which products and channels are falling behind, and which are rising.
Answers what to do next
Price bands and product roles
Flagship, volume, traffic driver, accessory: what task each price band carries.
Growth multiplication model
Breaks growth into 7 multiplied factors and finds the shortest stave in the barrel.
Independent of operating data, used for new categories and new sectors
Competitor metrics matrix
Uses one unified set of metrics to compare the main players in a sector side by side.
Category opportunity funnel
From category maps and listed-company benchmarks to user needs, using elimination to screen out launch opportunities.
Doing consulting with AI, and also redoing consulting with AI
I treat my own workflow as the first testing ground. Of the projects below, some are already running in daily delivery, and some are still being built.
Cash flow review agent
In progressGenerates management accounting reports directly from raw bills.
Research harness agent
In progressUpfront quality control for research and content production. Every research report must pass data validation and multiple rounds of review; AI cannot deliver a first draft as the final version.
Virtual board agent
Brings in core MBB methodologies to run multi-perspective game simulations on business issues. Before a major decision, several different judgments first attack each other.
FDE industry observation
Research on the frontline delivery model for deploying AI in enterprises.
CEO-exclusive Muse
PlannedA dedicated, customized AI agent that works only for the CEO.
AI hardware investment briefing
Side projectPersonal side project
- Daily tools
- Claude CodeCodexPi agentPaseoWorkBuddyObsidianGitHubCloudflare
- Cloud deployment
- Oracle cloud serverRuns Claude Code, Pi agent and Paseo around the clock
- Private models
- faster-whisperSpeech transcription model running offline on my own machine
If you are leading a fast-growing company
and want someone to make the business solid together with you, let’s talk