Columbus, Ohio · Owner-operators only

An operating partner.
Not another consultant.

I don't hand you a plan and leave. I get inside your business and execute the plan with you. I've owned six businesses of my own over 24 years, and I hit the wall you're hitting, twice. Tandem exists because I needed it and it didn't.

Book a 20-minute call NO PITCH DECK. NO JUNIOR ASSOCIATES. JUST ME.

Sound familiar?

Year six. Still profitable. Still grinding. Flat.

−Revenue hasn't really moved in two years and you can't say why.

−The website is stale, the marketing is whatever you get to on Sunday night.

−Money is leaking somewhere. You can feel it. You can't find it.

−Your best ideas are ten years old, because that's when you last had time to think.

−And there is nobody to talk to who has actually done this.

That's not failure. That's the plateau, and it happens to almost every good owner-operator around year five or six. You don't need a coach. You need a second operator.

The difference

What you're getting. And what you're not.

Not this

✕A 40-page deck you'll never open again
✕A to-do list handed to an exhausted owner
✕Accountability calls and frameworks
✕A junior associate "on your account"
✕Advice from someone who never signed a lease

This

→A full diagnosis of the whole business, not one lane
→A plan we build together, sized to your reality
→Me, in your business, executing it with you
→The website, the menu, the pricing, the marketing rhythm: done
→Someone in the foxhole so you're not carrying it alone

How it works

Three steps. Priced in the open.

Every engagement starts small and earns the next step. Nobody skips ahead, because I only work long-term inside businesses I know cold.

WORK ORDER 01Start here

The Line Check

FULL-BUSINESS DIAGNOSTIC · 2 WEEKS

I walk the whole business the way I'd walk my own before service. Two weeks, most of it spent on your floor and in your numbers.

P&L walkthrough, line by line. Two years if you have it. I'm looking for the drift you stopped noticing: COGS creeping a point at a time, labor as a percentage by daypart, the vendor who raised prices two years ago and never mentioned it.
Mystery shop, done properly. I come in as a customer, on different days and different shifts. I also call, fill out your form, and try to book. One visit tells you nothing, so I don't do one visit.
Review and reputation mining. Every review, not the recent ten. I read specifically for the complaint that shows up inside your five-star reviews, because that's the one that's structural instead of somebody's bad night.

See the full scope · 3 more

The Front Door test. Hours, listings, phone numbers, forms, and every path a customer takes to reach you, tested end to end on a phone.
Competitor and pricing scan. What the businesses closest to you charge, what they're doing that you aren't, and what you're doing that nobody has noticed you do.
A working session, not a binder. Two hours at the end, in person. The three biggest leaks and the three highest-leverage moves, in plain language, with numbers attached to each one.

The findings are yours either way, even if we never talk again.

What I need from youAccess to the P&L, one hour up front, and two hours at the end. Nothing else. You keep running your business while I work.

$2,000FLAT, ONE TIME

WORK ORDER 02The core work

The Revival

90 DAYS, SIDE BY SIDE

We execute the plan together. Not advise. Execute. Ninety days, and I'm in your building every week of it.

The Front Door, rebuilt. A new website built by hand, listings corrected everywhere they're wrong, and every path a customer takes to buy from you tested and fixed. Included, not billed separately.
Pricing and mix, reworked. We cost out every item and find what's actually earning. The best seller is almost never the best earner, and the gap between those two is usually the first real money we find.
A marketing rhythm that runs without you. A real calendar somebody owns, with the posts, offers, and emails built far enough ahead that Sunday night stops being when marketing happens.

See the full scope · 4 more

The review engine, installed. A system that asks every happy customer at the moment they're happiest, plus a response process so nothing sits unanswered for a week.
The leak, found. Labor by daypart, waste, comps and voids, and vendor pricing nobody has renegotiated since you signed. This is usually where the engagement pays for itself.
Standards written down. The things living only in your head become a station map, an opening list, and a closing list your team can actually run without you standing there.
Weekly on-site working session. Same day, same time, all ninety days. On your floor, not on a call. We work the list together and I do my half.

Success metrics defined in writing on day one. We keep score.

What I need from youRoughly four hours a week, honest numbers, and the willingness to change something you've done the same way for years. This only works if you're in it with me.

$6,000/MO × 3 MONTHS

WORK ORDER 03Long haul

In Tandem

ONGOING OPERATING PARTNER

The plateau came from running it alone. This is the fix that lasts. Only offered after a Revival, because I don't advise businesses I haven't worked inside.

Monthly P&L review, together. Not a report I email you. We sit down, read the month against the one before it, and decide what changes before it repeats.
A standing weekly call. Thirty minutes on the calendar. Some weeks it takes five. It matters most on the weeks you'd have talked yourself out of calling.
Quarterly planning session. Half a day, in person. What's working, what's next, and what we're killing because it stopped earning.

See the full scope · 2 more

Everything we built, maintained. The site, the listings, the review engine, the marketing calendar. It stays current instead of quietly aging back into what it was before.
The call you make before the decision. New lease, new hire, second location, big equipment. You get a second operator on the phone who already knows your numbers and will tell you when it's a bad idea.

Month to month. Earning it every month is on me.

What I need from youKeep the numbers current. I can't help with a P&L that's four months behind, and neither can you.

$2,000/MO, ONGOING

SMALLER FIRST STEPNot ready for the full diagnostic? Start with the Lead Leak Test: I test what happens when a customer tries to buy from you, across every channel you have.$1,750

Why prices are published: because you've been burned by "call for a quote." If the Line Check number makes you flinch, we're probably not a fit yet, and I'd rather you know that from your couch than in a meeting.

Inside the Revival

Your front door is online now.

Long before anyone walks in, they've already met your business. They found you on a phone, checked the hours, looked at the menu, and decided. That whole path is part of your operation, and for most owners nobody has walked it in years.

Here is what I actually find when I test it. Hours that are right on the website and wrong on Google. Two different phone numbers in circulation. An events page that doesn't exist even though the event room is the highest-margin thing in the building. A contact form that was pasted in once, has never worked, and has been quietly eating inquiries ever since. Nobody knows, because a broken form doesn't ring.

None of that is a design problem. It's lost revenue that never shows up on the P&L, because you can't count the people who tried to reach you and gave up.

So the Front Door is a workstream, not an add-on. I walk the entire path from wanting you to reaching you, fix every break in it, and rebuild the site as part of the engagement.

01Listing integrity. Google, Apple Maps, Yelp, the aggregators. One phone number, one set of hours, one menu, everywhere.
02Path completion. Reserve, order, book the room, ask a question. Every path tested end to end, on a phone, the way a customer does it.
03The menu as a live document. What's published is what you're held to. It should be current, and it should be yours, not a scraper's.
04Inquiry capture. Events, catering, private dining. Where do those land, and who answers them?
05The site itself. Rebuilt, fast, and owned by you.

The build is done in-house through Marquee & Co., the web studio I own. You are not getting an agency and you are not getting a subcontractor, and it isn't a separate invoice. It's included.

Why Tandem exists

I built Tandem because I needed Tandem.

2004.I opened the Pet Athletic Club with everything I had, and it grew fast. Five years in it was a grind, and I was alone with all of it.

2013.I did it again with The Brass Tap, then a second location in 2016. By 2019 I was exhausted and losing. In 2020 I sold both.

Nobody showed up in either of those valleys. Not a consultant with a deck. Not a coach with a worksheet. What I needed was another operator: someone who had lived it, who could see what I couldn't, and who would grab an oar instead of pointing at the water.

That's the whole company. Twenty-four years, seven businesses, two plateaus of my own, one exit I understood and one I still think about. I know exactly which year it stops being fun, and I know the way back.

I also own Marquee & Co., a small web studio here in Columbus that builds hand-coded sites for local businesses. It runs on its own, with its own clients. But it's the reason I can say I'll fix your digital presence and mean it literally. Most people who promise that hire it out. I walk down the hall.

Mic Foster, founder of Tandem Operating Co., seated at a wood bar top — MIC FOSTER · FOUNDER · BEXLEY, OHIO

The full timeline · both businesses

Pet Athletic Club

2004 – Sold · The first plateau

'04Launched with everything I had. Fast growth.
'09The grind. Flat revenue, stale marketing, invisible leaks.
'14Still grinding, now brutal. Nobody to call who'd lived it.
LaterSold. The business taught me what the valley looks like from inside.

The Brass Tap

2013 – 2020 · The second plateau

'13Location one. Electric. The launch energy every owner remembers.
'16Location two. Even better. Growth felt permanent.
'19Exhausted. Losing. Needed help that didn't exist.
'20Sold both. I know the pain because I paid for the lesson.

The record

Seven businesses. Seven industries. 24 years.

Pet Athletic ClubPET SERVICES · FOUNDED 2004 · SOLD

The Brass Tap × 2HOSPITALITY · 2013–2020 · SOLD

Northview Signing ServicesNATIONWIDE NOTARY SIGNING

iMPACT PickleballCUSTOM PADDLE MANUFACTURING

K9 Pro LiveVIRTUAL TRAINING & PROTECTION DOGS

No Gifts Please, Inc.CONSUMER PLATFORM · CURRENT

Marquee & Co.WEB STUDIO · CURRENT

Bars, restaurants, pet services, e-commerce manufacturing, professional services, and software. The industries change. The plateau doesn't.

Qualification runs both ways

Who this is for. And who it isn't.

I take a small number of clients because I do the work personally. So we should both qualify each other early.

A fit

→Owner-operator who still signs the checks
→Roughly $400K to $3M in revenue
→Profitable or close, but flat and tired
→Or brand new, funded, and trying to get it right the first time
→Willing to work the plan with me, not watch me work it
→Restaurants, bars, fitness, retail, services, practices

Not a fit

✕Pre-revenue with no capital. You need runway, not a partner yet.
✕Businesses in freefall. Turnarounds are a different trade.
✕Owners looking to hand it all off and check out
✕Anyone who wants a deck instead of a result

Next step

Twenty minutes. Just the truth about where it stands.

Tell me what's flat, what's leaking, and what it felt like when the business was fun. I'll tell you honestly whether a Line Check would pay for itself. If it wouldn't, I'll say so on the call.

Book the 20 minutes

PHONE: (513) 315-8002 EMAIL: mic@tandemoperatingco.com MIC FOSTER · FOUNDER · BEXLEY, OHIO

An operating partner.Not another consultant.