Head of Operations

Overview

The Barb Shop is a modern beauty brand built around short hair. We combine a specialty short-hair studio in San Francisco with a growing haircare product line sold direct-to-consumer, on Amazon, and through professional salon partners.

We are a ~$3M revenue business with four distinct channels: DTC (Shopify), Amazon, professional/wholesale, and a physical retail salon. We recently closed a funding round and are pivoting from a model emphasizing growth to one that emphasizes profitability, capital efficiency, and sustainable organic growth.

We are hiring a Head of Operations to partner with the Founder to build the financial and operational infrastructure that gets this company to breakeven and positions it for long-term, self-funded growth.

What This Role Actually Is

This is not a corporate operations role. You will not be managing a large team or overseeing functions from a distance. For the first 6–12 months, this is a hands-on, individual-contributor-heavy position where you are building the systems, models, and processes yourself or in collaboration with the Founder.

You will be the person who builds the new financial operating model. You will refine and monitor channel-level P&Ls. You will negotiate with suppliers, restructure shipping costs, and tell the Founder that a marketing campaign doesn’t work in this model.

If that sounds like the job you want, keep reading:)

Priority 1: Build Financial Visibility and Get to Breakeven

• Build a monthly P&L, cash flow forecast, and unit economics model by channel (DTC, Amazon, wholesale, salon). This exists today but it needs to transition from a fundraising model to a day-to-day operating model.
• Own the company P&L and drive the business to operating cash-flow breakeven within 12–18 months.
• Build a weekly financial dashboard that the founder and team can use to make real-time decisions. Key metrics include revenue by channel, gross margin by channel, marketing spend as a percentage of revenue, ROAS, contribution margin, cash runway, and inventory weeks of supply.
• Maintain a rolling 12-month cash flow forecast. Cash management is absolutely critical.

Priority 2: Define the Marketing/Profitability Equation for the next stage of The Barb Shop

• Marketing spend has historically consumed the vast majority of our gross profit. That model is Over.
• Enforce a marketing spend ceiling of ~35% of trailing twelve-month revenue. Build the reporting and governance to hold this line and still drive profitable growth.
• Build ROAS reporting by channel and campaign type. Define minimum acceptable ROAS target and cut anything not within the target.
• Partner with the Founder (who leads brand and marketing) to reallocate spend toward higher-return activities across the full funnel: email/SMS to existing customers, organic content, and retention-focused initiatives. Specifically, leverage the asset that is the physical salon to create breakthrough content with high ROAS locally and nationally.
• Own the relationship between marketing investment and financial outcomes. You have the authority and the obligation to say no.

Priority 3: Prove or Kill the Amazon Channel

• Amazon adds revenue but its true margin contribution and incrementality are as yet unproven.
• Within 180 days, build a complete Amazon P&L including all fees, advertising costs, shipping, returns, and allocated overhead.
• Determine what share of Amazon sales are incremental vs. cannibalized from DTC.
• Make a clear recommendation: scale, maintain, restructure, or exit the channel.

Priority 4: Make the Salon a Self-Sustaining Business Unit

• The San Francisco retail location opened in Fall 2025. It needs its own P&L discipline.
• Build a standalone salon P&L with clear breakeven targets.
• Identify the role the salon plays in the broader business: is it a brand-building asset, a product sales channel, a content engine, or all three? Quantify each.
• Ensure the salon is not a cash drain that consumes resources needed for the core product business.

Priority 5: Inventory, Supply Chain, and Working Capital

• Own inventory planning, purchasing, and forecasting across all channels.
• Improve inventory turns. Build weeks-of-supply reporting by SKU. Ensure no more stockouts.
• Manage supplier relationships and negotiate terms that ensure quality control and improve working capital (quality assurance, extended payment terms, volume pricing, etc.).
• Restructure shipping and fulfillment economics. Shipping has been a material cost center; bring it to breakeven at minimum.

Priority 6: Channel Strategy and Growth

• Define and execute channel strategy across DTC, Amazon, wholesale/professional, and retail.
• Evaluate growth opportunities based on ROI and operational feasibility, not revenue alone.
• Manage Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, and wholesale operations. Improve conversion, AOV, and contribution margin across all channels.

What Success Looks Like

At 90 days:

• Functioning monthly P&L and weekly financial dashboard are in place.
• Channel-level unit economics are documented and shared with the founder.
• Amazon P&L is complete with an incrementality assessment and a recommendation.
• Salon P&L and breakeven analysis are complete.
• ROAS metrics are in place and aligned with Founder.

At 6 months:

• Marketing spend is at or below 30% of revenue with ROAS consistently above 3x.
• Shipping economics are restructured to at least breakeven.
• Rolling 12-month cash flow forecast is maintained and updated weekly.
• Quality processes are in place to ensure no more issues.
• Inventory turns have measurably improved; weeks-of-supply targets are set and tracked by SKU.

At 12–18 months:

• The business is at or meaningfully approaching operating cash-flow breakeven.
• Contribution margins have improved by at least 10 percentage points across DTC and Amazon.
• Scalable operational systems are in place across inventory, fulfillment, and financial reporting.
• The founder can focus primarily on brand, product, and community because operations run reliably.

Who You Are

Background and experience:

• 5–10 years of experience in operations, finance, or general management at a consumer brand.
• You have worked at a company in the $3–15M revenue range and ideally lived through a profitability pivot or a transition from growth-mode to capital-efficient mode.
• Direct experience with DTC ecommerce (Shopify) and ideally Amazon Seller Central.
• Hands-on P&L ownership, not just reporting on someone else’s P&L.
• CPG, beauty, or consumer products experience is strongly preferred.

Profile and working style:

• You are a builder and doer.
• You are financially rigorous. You think in unit economics, contribution margins, and payback periods.
• You are comfortable being the person who says “we can’t afford that” in a founder-led company. You do it with respect and data, but you do it.
• You thrive in ambiguity and limited resources. You have operated without a big team, a big budget, or perfect data.
• You communicate directly and clearly. The founder needs a thought partner, not a yes-person.
• You lead with the kindness, inclusivity and respect that The Barb Shop and the Founder embody.

Where we expect to find you:

• Head of Ops, VP Ops, or Director of Ops at a DTC or CPG brand in the $5–15M range.
• A #2 or senior operator at a small multi-channel consumer brand that went through its own growth-to-profitability transition.
• An Amazon channel lead or brand manager at a small CPG company who broadened into full operations.
• A strong operator from a startup accelerator portfolio or someone who has done fractional COO work across several small consumer brands.

Compensation

• Base salary: $140,000 – $165,000, depending on experience.
• Performance bonus: Quarterly or semi-annual cash bonus of up to $15,000–$25,000 annually, tied to specific milestones including achievement of breakeven, margin improvement targets, and channel profitability.
• Equity: Initial grant to be discussed, with additional equity tied to achieving key company milestones including profitability, contribution margin improvement, and revenue growth targets. We will be transparent about valuation, vesting, and the realistic path to liquidity.

Why This Role Matters

The Barb Shop is at an inflection point. We have a differentiated brand, real consumer demand and love, and a Founder who has built something beautiful from nothing. What we don’t have yet is the operational and financial infrastructure to make this a durable, profitable business. That’s the job.

If you want to build something real and different, with genuine ownership and the ability to point at a P&L and say “I built that,” this is the role for you.