Operations Strategist for established founder-led businesses
Your team is capable.
So why does everything still come back to you?
I help established founders stop being the person everyone needs for answers, approvals, context and next steps - by building the operating structure their team can actually run.
20 minutes. Free.
For established coaching and education companies with a proven offer and a capable team.
- 22 years in operations
- Complex launches
- Team systems
- Project architecture
- SOPs
- Workflow design
You hired a team. But somehow, you’re still the hub.
They’re smart. They’re capable.
And yet you’re still answering:
“Where is that?”
“Who owns this?”
“What did we decide?”
“What happens next?”
Your team isn’t the problem.
The business still depends on what you know.
Hiring more people won’t fix a business that still runs through you.
What if your team knew what to do without coming back to you first?
- They know where to look.
- They know what they own.
- They know what happens next.
- You can see what needs attention without asking.
- When you step away, the business keeps moving.
You stay the leader. You stop being the operating system.
“Everything was disorganized and a bit wild until Lacey came on board. She’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me - she just seems magical, able to get everything done. I recommend her to everyone I know.”
The Operations Audit
I find every place your business still runs through you.
$2,500. Two weeks.
I interview you and up to five people on your team, go through your tools, and map what still depends on you. Then I hand you a plan to change it.
What you get
- Your Founder Dependency Map: every decision, approval and answer that still routes through you, listed by area of the business
- An ownership chart: who owns what today, and where nobody does
- A review of your project management setup: what your team uses, what they ignore and what's duplicated
- Your five highest-priority fixes, ranked, with the first one written so your team can start it right away
- A 90-day build plan showing each step and who on your team does it
- A 60-minute walkthrough with you, recorded so your team can watch it
How it works
- 01Book a fit call. 20 minutes, free. We decide if the audit fits.
- 02I interview you and your team and review your tools.
- 03You get the map, the plan and the walkthrough at the end of week two.
What happens after
The plan is yours. Hand it to your team, hire someone else to build it, or ask me for a build quote.
“But we already have a project manager.”
Good.
A project manager manages work inside the system.
I look at whether the system itself is working.
Then I rebuild the structure your existing team can actually run.
You don’t need more systems.
You need fewer things depending on you.
If a process doesn’t make the business clearer, easier to run or less founder-dependent, we don’t need it.
This is for the founder who already built the hard part.
- The offer works.
- The customers are happy.
- The team is capable.
- The business has momentum.
The problem is that too much still depends on you.
Your Operations Strategist
I’ve spent 22 years making complicated work easier to run.
I’m Lacey Updegraff. I’ve spent 22 years in operations, running complex projects, building systems and coordinating teams.
I’ve built more than 25 client workspaces in ClickUp over 7 years, and I’ll still tell you when you need fewer systems.
I don’t want to become the new person everything depends on. I want to build the structure that means it doesn’t have to depend on any one person.
In their words
“A true professional in all she does. Every project was done extremely well, with great attention to detail, and on time. I would highly recommend her.”
You already built the business. Now let’s make it less dependent on you.
If you are tired of being the person everyone needs to keep the business moving, let’s find out what is keeping you in the middle.
20 minutes, free. We’ll look at what still depends on you and whether the audit is the right next step.