From co-founder litigation to 5 record sales years

Momentum Management, a novelty manufacturer and specialty retail distributor in California. Hui Newnham’s eight years as COO.

Momentum Management is a novelty manufacturing and specialty retail distribution business. Hui was hired as COO after the co-founders’ partnership ended in a messy dissolution and litigation.

The business had low morale, ineffective management, and product defects coming from cheap overseas molds. Over eight years as COO, Hui stabilized and scaled the company.

daily shipping capacity, with zero capital spend on new machinery

5 of 8

years were record sales years for the company

20%

net income as a share of sales

The Situation

What Hui was up against

A business traumatized by co-founder litigation, with problems in the team, the product and the warehouse.

A partnership dissolved in litigation

The co-founders’ partnership ended in a messy dissolution and litigation, leaving the business traumatized.

Low morale, ineffective management

Low morale across 15 disengaged employees, and management that was not working.

Defects built into the product

Product defect issues stemmed from cheap overseas molds.

A warehouse picking one box at a time

Orders were picked using an inefficient single-box workflow.

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The Approach

Turning around a traumatized business

Hui’s strategy for the turnaround covered three areas: improving team morale, optimizing warehouse operations, and scaling the infrastructure.

The early improvements used simple tools: the office dry-erase board, Excel and QuickBooks. The enterprise systems, NetSuite and Salesforce, came later.

The Execution

How the business was stabilized and scaled

Turned the in/out board into a game

The office dry-erase in/out board became a weekly team challenge, establishing presence tracking, accountability and team cohesion across 15 disengaged employees.

Rebuilt order picking

Single-box picking was replaced with an Excel picking and sequence model, linked via ODBC to QuickBooks. Daily shipping capacity tripled, with zero capital spend on new machinery.

Migrated from QuickBooks to NetSuite

NetSuite ERP brought paperless picking through its warehouse management system, plus EDI integrations.

Deployed Salesforce Enterprise

Case management, a knowledge base and warranty registration.

Added a custom PLM

A Salesforce-based product lifecycle management system, built for the business.

The Result

What eight years delivered

Five of Hui’s eight years as COO were record sales years for the company, with net income at 20% of sales.

Daily shipping capacity tripled without buying new machinery, the company migrated from QuickBooks to NetSuite ERP, and Salesforce Enterprise took on case management, the knowledge base and warranty registration.

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