Volume VII · The Margin File
A paid weekly memo
for operators who would
rather read than scroll.
Every Thursday, one memo from the desk of A.S. Vaughn — roughly 900 words on a single operating problem. No roundups, no links to other people’s thinking, no “five trends to watch.” Just one argument, fully assembled, with the receipts attached.
Subscriber economics
A small list, paid, and unusually attentive.
The numbers below are not a vanity sheet. They are the closest thing this practice has to a market test: do real operators, who pay to be in the room, keep opening the door?
The four most recent issues
Recent dispatches.
Not a curated best-of. These are the last four memos that landed in inboxes — published as a table of contents so you can judge the writing by its actual subject matter before you pay for a subscription.
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No. 184
The case against the second product line.
Why a $14M ARR SaaS was wrong to chase the adjacent market — and what the same board would have asked if they had read the unit economics twice.
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No. 183
Pricing is a strategy document, not a setting.
A field guide to the four pricing moves that actually move revenue, written for founders who have been told “raise prices” one too many times by people who have never raised prices.
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No. 182
When to fire your best customer.
A specialty manufacturer’s quiet $2.1M account was costing them $3.4M a year. The math, the call, and the Monday-morning script for ending it cleanly.
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No. 181
Hiring your first COO is not a promotion.
On the difference between installing a chief operating officer and installing a chief obstacle officer — and the five questions that surface which one you are about to hire.
A taste, not a summary
Read one paragraph before you decide.
The most common pricing mistake I see in mid-market companies is not leaving money on the table — it is leaving a strategy on the table. Founders reach for the lever because a consultant told them to, or because a competitor raised, or because a board member mentioned it once at dinner. They move the number. They do not move the thinking. Six months later they have a new list price and the same broken motion underneath it: the same prospects, the same objections, the same AE quoting inconsistently, the same customers anchoring on a price set three years ago for a product that no longer exists. The number moved. The strategy did not. A price change without an accompanying change in segment, motion, packaging, or who is allowed to discount is not a pricing decision. It is a haircut. And like most haircuts, it grows back.
— A.S. Vaughn, Brooklyn, March 2025
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