Tools, Tariffs & Trump

Well after a week of tariff nightmares -  I’ve finally independently decided that President Donald T. seemingly is NOT prioritizing the short term unit economics of small to medium sized men’s apparel businesses. Which is BULLSHIT. 

Nobody is talking about it, but it needs to be said. So here I am. Man of the people.

Just so we’re all on the same page - this is indeed satire but also real feelings (that of course do not reflect that of my workplace obviously). I’m not being political here. I am just a dude trying to sell other dudes stretchy jeans.

ChatGPT made me this thumbnail for the newsletter today. Need Altman to turn back on the good shit ASAP.

Anyway, between that and “the flaming mess with a Slack thread attached” vibes that is life in ecomm lately, I found myself sitting here asking a very simple question: “Wait… what is actually working right now when it comes to the biz?” You know the feeling - as you check in on your 15 different dashboards. 

One says revenue was up. 
Another says AOV dropped. 
Northbeam says Meta drove it. 
Triple Whale says it was email. 
Your gut says it was God’s will… or maybe your Shark Tank episode re-aired… or maybe a Mommy influencer mentioned you in a TikTok…

And finance? They’re off in a Google Sheet, making forecasts based on vibes and an end-of-month close that still hasn’t closed.

That’s when it hits you: 
You’re not running a data-driven brand. 
You’re running a vibes-driven brand.

At Mugsy, we’ve been lucky. We move fast. We don’t overbuild. But even for us, the seams start to rip under pressure.

Marketing launches a promo. 
Inventory scrambles to catch up. 
Finance tries to forecast cash flow like it’s an astrology reading. 
Everyone’s working hard — just not always together in tandem.

And the real kicker? 
It’s not because we’re dumb. 
It’s because the tech stack is dumb.

We’ve all been sold this myth that more tools = more intelligence. 
But really? More tools just means more tabs, more logins, more confusion. 
More late-night spirals wondering why your LTV chart suddenly has a 47% margin of error.

Now layer in the economic weirdness of the moment — 
Tariffs hitting margins 
Acquisition costs spiking again 
Consumers getting cagey

The “Panican” party controlling the narrative.

I mean c’mon.

There’s no room for guesswork right now. You can’t afford to run your business off a gut feeling and six half-broken dashboards. You need signal. Clarity. One version of the truth.

That’s where Saras comes in.

FWIW, I haven’t used Saras yet — but I’ve been circling them like a hawk.

Because every founder I trust keeps saying the same thing:

“We ripped out Northbeam, Lifetimely, Triple Whale — all of it — and replaced it with Saras. Now everyone’s looking at the same data. We’re not wasting $3K/month on dashboard bloat.”

And that’s the part that clicks.

Saras isn’t another analytics tool. 
They’re a full-stack data partner. 
Part consultant. Part infrastructure. Part “oh wow, this makes sense.”

They help you: 
- Build (or manage) a proper cloud data warehouse 
- Plug in 200+ sources — Shopify, Amazon, Meta, Klaviyo, you name it 
- Layer on Saras Pulse — pre-built dashboards that unify marketing, ops, finance, and inventory 
- Replace 3–4 tools in one go, without sacrificing insight

So instead of:

“Who pulled this report?” 
“Why doesn’t this match GA?” 
“Did Shopify count that one-day sale as two days?” 

You get:

“Cool. Here’s what actually happened. Here’s how it impacted LTV, margin, and inventory. Here’s what to do next.” What a concept.

I don’t know if we’ll move our whole stack to Saras tomorrow. 
But I do know this scattershot setup most of us are using? 
It’s not built for what’s coming. If you don’t understand the depths of your data, you’re NGMI. Plain and simple.

If you’re under $50M and serious about scaling with clarity (instead of chaos), Saras might be worth a look.

They’re not flashy. They’re not peddling pixel magic. 
They just want to get your whole team speaking the same data language — and honestly, that’s the sexiest pitch I’ve heard all year.

Brands using Saras? True Classic, Hexclad, Faherty & many more. That’s enough for me.

Check them out here: https://sarasanalytics.com 
Or reply or DM me & I’ll intro you to the founder.

If you take a call- you know the drill - free Trust Fun Baby hat.

See you in the dashboards. Hang tight. Be strong.