The work is not one problem called social.
Connor is paying reload cost across too many operating modes.
Instagram, TikTok/WatchTok, Whatnot, events, Shopify, DMs, holiday sales, shipping, inventory, new designs, and internal ops each ask for a different kind of judgment. The retreat should separate the modes, then choose one near-term sprint.
Today has four lanes: event readiness for LA and Philadelphia, capacity planning for Whatnot and shipping, a release/logistics gate for new watches, and a clean six-month-ish data read Garen can bring into the room.
Leave with decisions, not vibes.
What Garen can bring today.
Read-only pulls were refreshed on May 26, 2026. Use them as a contour map, not an attribution machine. Shopify order activity in the current 180-day pull starts March 31; GSC covers November 26, 2025 through May 25, 2026.
madman store variants.Use the products as operating evidence.
| Product | Recent movement | Current stock | Room use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broken Time | 53 units, $12.7K gross line value; 301 GSC page clicks. | 31 units. | Anchor product. Protect inventory truth before LA and Whatnot pushes. |
| CD Watch | 27 units, $5.8K gross line value; cd watch has 20,521 impressions and 423 clicks. |
149 units. | Best search-learning object. Use it to define release-page and product-story standards. |
| Eddie Watch | 38 units, $7.4K gross line value; highest abandoned checkout pressure in the pulse. | 0 units. | Do not accidentally promote a dead promise. Decide restock, waitlist, or quiet state. |
| Marshall / Miami | 24 combined units; about $4.8K gross line value; both show abandoned pressure. | 43 / 57 units. | Useful event and bundle/support candidates if the team wants breadth without overcomplicating story. |
| Dogma | Low current search/click movement relative to stock. | 263 units. | Needs a story, event test, or channel-specific plan before it becomes a big push. |
LA is Sprint 0's anchor.
Immediate need
They are traveling to LA in a couple weeks, then Philadelphia later. Do not wait for a perfect annual event strategy. Build the first reusable event operating sheet around LA and let Philadelphia inherit the pattern.
Why it matters
POS is 48 of 137 recent orders. The public events page has 1 click on 1,160 impressions. The business already has in-person demand; the web layer is not yet catching it.
- Confirm facts.Dates, city, venue, role, travel window, table/booth needs, what is confirmed versus assumed.
- Name the event goal.Sales, wholesale/partner proof, collector contacts, product feedback, content capture, or morale.
- Choose featured products.Use stock truth: Broken Time is strong but limited; CD has search pull and stock; Eddie needs a no-promise decision.
- Write the role card.Lead operator, sales/POS, product story, contact capture, photo/proof, follow-up owner.
- Prepare follow-up.Event page fields, email/SMS consent boundary, proof ledger, 5-minute post-event debrief.
Capacity planning starts with task separation.
Do not start with hiring.
Connor's concern about getting the right people is valid. First split the work into judgment, trusted ops, mechanical packing, and customer-support response.
Whatnot needs numbers.
Ask for weekly orders, livestream reports, and ledger exports. Until then, use manual show counts: shows/week, hours/show, products listed, orders/show, ship-by workload.
Shipping needs a promise map.
Define handling windows, packing station needs, batch days, exception owner, and what cannot be promised during event travel weeks.
Question to put in the room: what can someone else carry without deciding taste, voice, money, or relationship risk?
Make release speed safer with an intake gate.
They have exciting designs coming. The goal is not to slow them down. The goal is to prevent each new watch from becoming a fresh context-switching explosion across product data, SEO, inventory, photos, events, Whatnot, email, and shipping.
| Gate | Minimum before launch | Why it exists |
|---|---|---|
| Product truth | Name, artist/designer, specs, price, inventory, status, variant/SKU, availability promise. | Prevents Shopify, event, Whatnot, and shipping from telling different stories. |
| Story truth | One paragraph on what relationship with time the watch changes; 3 product proof points. | Keeps Mad Hudson out of generic luxury-watch language. |
| Page truth | SEO title/meta, image alt, creator/entity fields, collection links, review/proof slot. | The CD Watch page proves product search can matter a lot. |
| Channel truth | Website role, event role, Whatnot role, email role, DM support answers. | Stops every channel from inventing its own launch logic. |
| Ops truth | Packaging, handling time, shipping constraints, who can answer exceptions. | Turns launch excitement into customer promises the team can keep. |
Offer these as Garen support.
For the room
- One-page product demand matrix from Shopify + GSC.
- Event readiness sheet for LA, then Philadelphia.
- Product focus list: push, protect, restock, ignore, or test.
- Abandoned checkout pressure by product.
- Search capture gaps: events page, watches collection, product pages.
After Connor/Mad provide files
- Whatnot weekly orders summary.
- Livestream capacity and product movement summary.
- Ledger/payout/friction summary.
- Shipping workload estimate by show/event week.
- Release intake sheet for each new watch.
Sprint 0: LA Event Readiness + Capacity Map.
This is the cleanest first sprint because it uses an urgent real deadline, touches the two support areas Connor named, and creates a reusable pattern for Philadelphia and new-watch launches.
- LA readiness sheet.Facts, goals, product focus, role card, contact capture, proof capture, debrief time.
- Philadelphia runway.Known facts, unknowns, deadline to decide products and travel/logistics constraints.
- Whatnot capacity model.Show cadence, prep time, live roles, post-show shipping load, export list needed from Connor.
- Shipping support map.Safe tasks, risky tasks, customer-info boundary, exception owner, travel-week constraints.
- New-watch intake checklist.Product truth, story truth, page truth, channel truth, ops truth.
- Garen-owned outputs.Draft the sheets, summarize data, make templates, keep public claims and final taste decisions with Connor/Mad.
Keep the room practical.
"The point today is not to solve every channel. The point is to make the next few weeks easier to run. I am going to separate the work into events, Whatnot and shipping capacity, new-watch release logistics, and data support. By the end, we should know what Sprint 0 is, who owns what, and what we are deliberately not solving today."
Source backbone
Fresh pulls: api-access/reports/shopify/products-snapshot-2026-05-26.csv, orders-line-items-last-180-days-2026-05-26.csv, order-signals-last-180-days-2026-05-26.csv, abandoned-checkouts-last-180-days-2026-05-26.csv, api-access/reports/gsc/2026-05-25-last-180-days/, and ops-pulse/mad-hudson-ops-pulse-2026-05-26.md.
Local strategy files: 03-commerce-channels/CHANNEL-STRATEGY.md, 03-commerce-channels/EVENT-PAGE-SYSTEM.md, 05-operations/CONNOR-CONTEXT-SWITCHING-MAP.md, 06-business-systems/DATA-WIRING-ROADMAP-2026-05-09.md, and the retreat packet in this folder.
What is still missing
Exact LA and Philadelphia event dates, roles, travel constraints, table/booth needs, current Whatnot export files, shipping station constraints, and new-watch release details are not in the local data. They should be asked in the room and added to Sprint 0.