−34%average lead time in nine months
Operations advisors since 2011
Steady direction for businesses that have outgrown the plan.
We work alongside owner-led and mid-market companies to fix how the work gets done: the structure, the numbers and the weekly routines that let a business grow without losing its footing.
Fifteen years of quiet, measurable work.
- engagements with owner-led and mid-market firms
- 140+
- typical length of a first engagement
- 12 wks
- clients come back for a second project
- 9 in 10
- median client revenue, from $5M to $250M
- $40M
Why Lodestar
Most growth problems are operating problems in disguise.
Revenue climbs, then margins thin, deadlines slip and the owner becomes the bottleneck. At Lodestar we find where the friction really sits and fix it with your team, so the business runs well when we have gone.
We work inside your business
Two days a week on site with the people doing the work, not a deck from a distance.
A partner on every engagement
The person you meet on the first call is the person who leads the work.
Fixed scope, fixed fee
Agreed in writing before we start. No hourly meter running in the background.
Services
Three ways we help, one way of working.
Each service is a fixed engagement with a clear end. Most clients start with a review, and about half go on to a second piece of work.
4 weeks
Operations review
A close look at how work, money and decisions move through the business, ending in a short, ranked list of what to fix first.
6 to 8 weeks
Planning and structure
A plan the whole leadership team can hold: clear owners, a sensible structure, and the few numbers that tell you it is working.
3 to 6 months
Change that sticks
We stay through the hard part: new routines, new systems and the habits that keep them, until your managers run them without us.
Industries
Where we know the ground.
We stay with sectors where we have done the work many times, so you are not paying for us to learn.
- Manufacturing1 case study
- Professional services1 case study
- Distribution and logistics1 case study
- Healthcare practices1 case study
- Consumer brands1 case study
- Construction and trades1 case study
- Software
- Nonprofits and foundations
Free guide
The Weekly Rhythm: a field guide for owner-led companies
The meetings, numbers and handoffs we install in almost every client, written up so you can start on Monday.
Case studies
Proof, in plain numbers.
Professional services
A 60-person firm that no longer runs on its founders' evenings
+11 ptsoperating margin over two years
$1.8Mcash released from slow-moving inventory
They didn't hand us a binder and leave. They sat in our Monday meetings until we could run them ourselves, and for the first time in years I took a real vacation.
The partners
The people you will work with.
About the firm
Small by design, senior by default.
Lodestar began in 2011 when two operations directors left industry to do the work they wished someone had done for them. We are still fourteen people, we take on six clients at a time, and every one of us has run a team.
- 2011, Chicago
- 14 people
- 6 clients
