Growth is exciting, until your operations start pushing back.

Many founders try to solve this by working harder, producing more, or expanding faster. But the brands that actually scale learn a different lesson: at some point, you have to stop forcing it and start building systems that work with your business, not against it.

In this Nombase podcast, Dirty Gut founder Daniel Berlin sits down with Jesse Barruch, co-founder of Whims, to get some advice on how to navigate that shift without breaking your business.

Find out:

• How to know when you're forcing growth instead of building real scale

• How to schedule smaller production runs early to save you from costly mistakes later

• How to approach co-manufacturer selection and avoid the wrong partners

• What to track when you have little to no data and how to build useful systems over time

• How to think about inventory, forecasting, and demand planning in the early stages

• The operational problems that only reveal themselves as you grow

• How to decide what to handle yourself and what to outsource as a founder

• The tradeoffs between control, cost, and efficiency in your operations

• How to structure your time around high impact work that actually drives growth

• Why your vision for the business should guide every operational decision you make