Frontier delivers across a value chain. Each stage has friction that software could remove, and work that could be done with more leverage if we built the right infrastructure.
| Stage | What it is |
|---|---|
| Discover | Find the leverage point. Understand what’s really going on inside a business. |
| Strategize | Frame the bet. Decide what to build, in what order, and why. |
| Build | Ship working software into production. Weeks, not quarters. |
| Operate | Run the systems we shipped. Tune, evaluate, expand. Keep the work useful. |
| Compound | Make the next engagement easier than the last. Make every customer’s system smarter the longer it runs. |
Holly & Pine Co. is a privately held manufacturer of premium artificial Christmas trees, wreaths, and garlands, headquartered in Charlotte, NC. Founded in 1987 by Jim and Margaret Holloway, it's run today by their daughter, Anne Holloway, who became CEO in 2019. Revenue last year was $148M. About 70% of that comes through wholesale (Home Depot, Costco, regional garden center chains, Williams Sonoma), 22% direct-to-consumer through their own site, and the rest through Amazon and a small commercial division that does hotel lobbies and corporate installs.
Manufacturing is split between two factories in Guangdong they've worked with for over twenty years and a smaller facility in Tijuana that handles their high-end "Heritage" line. They carry about 340 active SKUs across heights, needle types, pre-lit configurations, and styles. 88% of annual revenue lands between August and December.
Anne is the second-generation owner. Her older brother runs operations. Her mother is still on the board. The company has never taken outside capital and Anne intends to keep it that way.
Anne reached out to Substantial through a mutual friend. She framed it like this:
"We've had a great run. We doubled revenue between 2014 and 2022 on the back of the pre-lit category and one really good Costco relationship. Since then we've been flat, and the last two seasons have been harder than the numbers show. We're spending more on Meta to hold the same DTC revenue. Our buyer at Home Depot turned over and the new one wants different things. We had a quality issue on a pre-lit SKU last November that ate six points of margin and almost cost us the Costco line. Our forecasting is held together by three spreadsheets and Doug, who's been here twenty-six years and is talking about retiring.
I have the sense that everything we know how to do is in people's heads. My dad knew the trees. Doug knows the factories. Sarah knows the buyers. I know the brand. None of it is anywhere. We're growing slower than we should, and when something goes wrong it's because someone who knew the answer wasn't in the room.
I don't want a transformation. I want to keep the things that make us who we are and stop losing ground on the things we should be good at. I'm open to AI, but I'm skeptical of buying software that doesn't know my business."
Design what you would recommend for Holly & Pine, if they were your client. Pick one or more stages of the value chain — Discover, Strategize, Build, Operate, Compound — and show us the systems, tools, or workflows you'd ship to solve the most critical problem that you see in the brief. The systems should serve Holly & Pine, and they should make Substantial’s next engagement easier than this one.
You don't have to address everything in Anne's note. Pick the leverage point you'd push on first and build out from there. We want to see your thinking on: