Most struggling businesses have more than one problem
Sales are down, cash is tight, and the partners are arguing. It's tempting to blame one thing: the economy, the rent, the new competitor down the street.
Usually it's a mix. A people problem hiding behind a numbers problem. An owner who can't let go, a price that quietly slipped below cost, a product line that grew to 60 items when 10 of them pay the bills.
A good turnaround expert works like a family doctor. Before ordering tests, they watch how you walk in and ask how you have been sleeping. Then they check the numbers to confirm a hunch, not to find one. TurnAround Coach works the same way.
Why I built this
I've always loved watching The Profit. Marcus Lemonis walks into a failing business and, within an hour, he knows what's wrong. I wanted to know how he does it, so I studied more than 80 episodes and over 120 businesses.
I boiled it down to patterns: what he looks at first, the questions he asks, the numbers he checks, the fixes he makes, the simple math he uses to justify them, and, just as useful, what went wrong afterwards. Then I gave all of that to an AI coach so you can use it on your own business. The coaching runs on Claude, Anthropic's AI.
To be clear, this isn't connected to Marcus Lemonis, CNBC or the show. It's what I learned from studying it.
How the coach works
- Tell it what's going on. What you sell, roughly what you make or lose, and what keeps you up at night. Rough answers are fine.
- It digs, one question at a time. What does one unit cost you to make? Who opens and closes? Who decides on the menu? Not knowing an answer is a finding too.
- It gives you a diagnosis. The 2 to 4 biggest problems, the fix for each with the math, the order to do them in, and a real business that faced the same thing.
- It warns you. Most fixes don't fail on paper. They fail when old habits creep back. The coach tells you what usually goes wrong and how to guard against it.
What a session looks like
In my own testing I played a bakery owner: $40K a month in sales, losing money, running it with a brother I argue with. The coach went straight to the numbers and asked what one loaf costs to make.
When I admitted I didn't know, it said that was a finding in itself, flagged the 60-product menu as a second warning sign, and walked me through costing one batch of sourdough against a target of about $2.10 a loaf.
What 120+ turnarounds taught me
People decide almost every case. In nearly every first visit, the owner had a control or ego problem, and most owners didn't know their own numbers.
Physical fixes stick. Habit fixes fade. Cleaning up, cutting dead stock and renovating almost always worked. Changes that needed an owner to behave differently worked far less often.
Hiding a problem is worse than the problem. Deals rarely died over bad numbers. They died when someone hid something.
The coach knows all of this, and it will tell you straight.
Why I ask for your email
Two reasons. First, the coach saves every conversation so you can pick it up later, on your phone or another computer. Your email is how it knows which conversations are yours, and the 6-digit code keeps anyone else from opening them.
Second, I might send you a note now and then about other free tools I build. I will never sell or give your email to anyone else.
Questions people ask
Is it really free?
Yes. There's a limit of 100 messages per person per day so nobody runs up the bill, and your work is always saved.
Is this Marcus Lemonis?
No. I built the coach by studying episodes of The Profit. It isn't affiliated with Marcus Lemonis, CNBC or the show.
What if I don't know my numbers?
That's very common, and the coach will help you work them out. Knowing what one unit really costs you is often the first fix.
Is this legal or financial advice?
No. It's general business coaching. For legal, tax, accounting or investment questions, talk to a qualified professional.
What happens to what I type?
Your messages go to Anthropic's Claude AI to write the replies, and your conversations are stored so you can come back to them. Delete a topic and it's gone for good.
Do I need to install anything?
No. It runs in your browser on a computer or phone.