Case Study

How FP&A Support Scaled a Viral Skincare Brand

Clean Skin Club is a fast-growing, direct-to-consumer skincare brand known for its innovative, hygiene-focused products—most notably its single-use Clean Towels. The company emphasizes clean ingredients, dermatologist-approved solutions, and sustainable materials, making it a standout brand at the intersection of skincare and hygiene.

Challenge

Cash-flow stress, inventory chaos, and lack of real-time data despite booming sales

Industry

Direct-to-consumer skincare brand

Services

• Accounting
• Financial Planning & Analysis
• HR
• Tax

Cash-flow stress, inventory chaos, and lack of real-time data despite booming sales

A direct-to-consumer skincare brand went viral, driven by influencer content, TikTok trends, and major retail interest. While top-line revenue skyrocketed, the internal financial infrastructure couldn’t keep pace.

The client faced:

• A mismatch between orders and incoming cash, leading to working‐capital strain.
• Inventory dilemmas: too much stock tying up cash vs. too little risk of losing momentum.
• Lack of real-time performance dashboards and cross-functional visibility, making it difficult for marketing/operations/finance to act rapidly during viral moments.
• Heavy marketing spend across Meta, TikTok, influencer channels — but without unit economics aligned to contribution margin and long-term profitability.

Despite explosive growth, the brand lacked a repeatable financial operating rhythm. The surging orders created pressure on vendor payments, manufacturing lead times and fulfillment. Inventory decisions were being made ad hoc rather than data-driven. Marketing campaigns were generating revenue but available cash and margins were opaque.

Strategic FP&A & Operational Finance Backbone

We delivered full-scale FP&A scope including cash-flow modeling, inventory-turn analytics, and real‐time operational dashboards. Specifically:

• Built a rolling 13-week cash-flow forecast to anticipate gaps between revenue and payables, supporting vendor and credit-line conversations. 
• Partnered with the operations team to model inventory levels using real-time sales velocity, vendor lead times, and promotional calendars — enabling dynamic inventory planning. 
• Developed real-time dashboards tracking key KPIs (contribution margin by SKU, ROAS, daily inventory velocity, fulfillment cost trends) so leadership could act in the moment. 
• Anchored marketing spend to unit economics by measuring true CAC, forecasting LTV by cohort/channel, and aligning spend to contribution margin instead of top-line lifts. 
  

Excellent Experience with GrowthLab and Controller Robin Brown

We’ve been working with Robin Brown, Controller at GrowthLab, for Clean Skin LLC, and we couldn’t be happier with her services. Robin is one of the best controllers I’ve ever worked with — highly organized, detail-oriented, and a great problem solver. Every report she prepares is clear, accurate, and fully supported, which shows her strong accounting expertise.

She’s also a thoughtful mentor and an outstanding leader. Together with her amazing team — Angie Lawler and Kata Strong — she’s made a huge positive difference in our company’s financial operations.

I highly recommend Robin Brown and the GrowthLab team to any business looking for dependable and professional financial management support.

From viral hype to sustainable growth engine.

The brand established a clear weekly cash-flow plan that allowed leadership to anticipate and bridge liquidity gaps during periods of peak demand. This improved visibility helped the team manage working capital more effectively and maintain financial stability even as order volume surged. At the same time, inventory performance improved significantly. By aligning purchasing decisions with real-time sales velocity and demand forecasts, the company avoided over-capitalizing on slow-moving stock while also preventing stockout during critical viral moments.

The brand also shifted its marketing approach from pursuing top-line growth at all costs to a more disciplined, profitability-driven strategy. By grounding spend decisions in LTV and margin data, the team reduced ineffective ad spend and reallocated budget to the channels that delivered the strongest contribution margin. These improvements, combined with new shared dashboards, created stronger cross-functional alignment. Marketing, operations, and finance were finally working from the same metrics, enabling faster, more collaborative decision-making throughout high-growth cycles.

Final Thoughts

This skincare brand came to GrowthLab with a viral opportunity and a structural finance gap. What they got was more than FP&A support, they gained a finance partner that helped turn a rapid-growth moment into a framework for sustainable, profitable scale.