We're not built to stay. We're built to solve.
Some people advise. We get under the hood.
Ian Schwartz — Founder
Operator first. Merchant by trade. I built Solos Studio because most businesses don't have a strategy problem — they have a clarity problem. And the only way to fix it is to get inside the business and understand what's actually there.
My career has taken me through retail, wholesale, and e-commerce — from building merchandising foundations to stepping into broken businesses. Each one a restructure. Each one needing the same thing: someone willing to actually understand what was there before making decisions on top of it.
What I kept seeing was the same pattern: messy data, bloated assortments, misaligned planning, and teams making decisions off metrics nobody actually trusted. New platforms got evaluated. Consultants got hired. Decks got made. And the underlying problems stayed exactly where they were.
Solos was always the plan. Everything before it was proof.
THE SOLOS PRINCIPLES
Fix the inputs. Everything else follows.
If you don't trust the data, nothing downstream matters.
Bad inputs produce bad outputs — garbage in, garbage out. No matter how good the system on top. We fix the source before anyone builds on it.
Measure twice. Cut once.
Understand the problem completely before touching anything. The work that looks slow at the start saves you from doing it twice.
Execution over theory.
Frameworks don't fix businesses. Getting inside the business and doing it does.
Solve it once. Solve it right.
We're not built to stay forever. We fix it properly so you don't need us again — and we don't leave until it holds.
" Most of what I believe about this work I learned before I ever stepped into a boardroom.
My father ran his own business and had a few rules he lived by: measure twice, cut once. Don't cut corners. Do it right the first time. And — the one I come back to most — different jobs require different tools. Find the right one before you start. I've never found better advice. "
— Ian Schwartz, Founder