Real businesses. Real problems. Real results.

BACKGROUND

In 2007, when the U.S. Food & Drug Administration ruled that children’s cough syrups were unsafe for kids under the age of four, Dr. Zak Zarbock experienced first-hand the frustration that many of his patients expressed. As a father of four boys, he and his wife would do anything to help their children feel better but struggled with the available options. Zak discovered a compelling clinical trial showing dark honey was effective at calming coughs and sore throats in children and young adults. With help, he created a great-tasting, all-natural, vitamin-enhanced, safe, and very effective product, Zarbee’s All Natural Cough Syrup. Zarbee’s is now found in every major retailer in the country and includes therapies for the entire family.

CHALLENGE

As a startup with limited resources, Zarbee’s had an immediate need to clean up its financials and prepare for an initial outside investment.

SOLUTIONS

Ampleo helped Zarbee’s set up its first chart of accounts and trained their bookkeeper on how to provide solid and reliable financial information as Zarbee’s sought funding. Ampleo made introductions to investors and assisted the company in securing investment dollars as well as debt. As the company grew, Zarbee’s newly hired CEO recognized he would need additional information to present to interested private equity firms. Ampleo put together financial statements and due diligence information and presented it to a private equity group that invested over $6 million in growth capital. As the business requirements increased, Ampleo helped Zarbee’s hire a full-time CFO.

CONTINUED SUCCESS

Zarbee’s continues to expand distribution and offer the best natural drug-free cough remedies available.

How a Sparkling Water Company saved $100K+ and modernized HR with Ampleo

INTRODUCTION

This Sparkling Water company is a fast-growing beverage company known for its bold flavors and clean ingredients. When its only HR leader went on parental leave, the timing couldn’t have been worse. A bonus cycle, open enrollment, and an organizational reorg were all in motion at once. The company needed more than a placeholder. It needed someone who could step in, take ownership, and keep everything moving.

What started as interim coverage turned into something much bigger.

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CHALLENGE

This company was running lean on HR when its manager stepped away on parental leave. With no backup and several high-stakes initiatives already underway, the company faced a familiar but difficult situation: too much happening to pause, and no one to lead it.

At the same time, HR infrastructure had deeper problems. A fragmented, manual tech environment was creating inefficiencies across payroll, benefits administration, and reporting. Data visibility was limited, administrative burden was high, and the systems in place weren’t built to support a growing company.

They needed both immediate support and long-term solutions.

SOLUTION

Ampleo HR embedded a seasoned HR consultant directly into the sparkling water company’s team and got to work fast. Within days, she was operating like she had been there for years, taking full ownership of critical processes while also identifying opportunities to modernize the underlying infrastructure.

She handled:

RESULTS

CONCLUSION

The partnership with Ampleo HR is a reminder that the right fractional support can do far more than fill a gap. By embedding quickly, owning critical initiatives, and modernizing core HR infrastructure, Ampleo HR helped them come out of a challenging stretch stronger, leaner, and better equipped for what’s ahead.

BACKGROUND

Visit Park City is a chamber of commerce and convention visitors bureau, a 501c6 nonprofit organization. They currently have nearly 1000 members made up of tourism businesses, professional services, non-profit organizations, and event organizers located all-around Park City, Summit County, and the surrounding areas.

CHALLENGES

In October 2020, Jennifer Wesselhoff was hired as the new CEO of Visit Park City. She inherited a well-managed organization with established HR policies that she wanted to refresh and update. After reorganizing the organizational chart, she wished to provide training for a new Director of Operations and Culture who was just learning the HR components. Jennifer needed additional help not only training the new HR hire, but building out policy manuals, evaluating job descriptions, conducting a salary reassessment, and making sure they were following best practices while navigating some of the new issues related to COVID.

SOLUTION

In June of 2021, Visit Park City needed someone quickly. With Ampleo’s smooth onboarding process, the Ampleo consultant was able to get up to speed and start training and mentoring their new Director of Operations and Culture. Ampleo acted as Visit Park City’s contracted HR manager, which gave Visit Park City a lot of flexibility and credibility within and outside the company. Ampleo also helped with rewriting all of the job descriptions, updating the organizational chart, performing salary reassessments, and since Covid, making sure there were mental and physical wellness resources and policies around Covid and remote working. Jennifer said, “Bringing Ampleo on as a new set of fresh eyes has allowed Visit Park City to rethink all of its policies and procedures and make sure we are in alignment with the newest laws and the newest HR standards. As a CEO it was incredibly helpful to have someone outside of the organization who could serve as an unbiased representative to say, ‘Have you thought about this?’ and to help ensure that we were doing right by our employees.”

CONTINUED SUCCESS

With Ampleo’s help, Visit Park City plans on evaluating and recreating its entire employee handbook. Additionally, Ampleo will continue to provide one-on-one customized training to Visit Park City until they are confident they can manage all of the HR components. Ultimately, Visit Park City will be given all the tools necessary to be able to transition from Ampleo to their own in-house staff person.

Ampleo was hired by the distribution trustee formed by a Chapter 11 plan to administer the TER Distribution Trust. Responsibilities included administering all general unsecured claims of the Trump Entertainment Resort Ch 11 plan; evaluating avoidance actions that were brought by the Trustee and supporting the litigation of such and providing accounting and financial services and oversight for the Trust.

BACKGROUND

Since its humble start in Oregon in the 1990s, Traeger Wood Pellet Grills have been the outdoor cooking choice of food enthusiasts. For years, the grills were offered in limited quantities and geographic areas. However, as people began to taste the food cooked on a Traeger, word spread about the unique flavors only Traeger natural wood pellets can provide.

CHALLENGE

Traeger’s financial reporting staff and systems needed upgrading during their headquarters move.

SOLUTION

Traeger hired Ampleo to mentor the finance team and engage them to implement a new ERP. The results were a seamless move to a new streamlined reporting system and a new finance team as they relocated headquarters from Portland to Utah.

CONTINUED SUCCESS

In 2021, Traeger went public.

BACKGROUND

Thrive Life is a provider of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. Its product categories include fruits, vegetables, dairy, meats and proteins, snacks, seasonings, beverages, and more.

CHALLENGE

Regular financial surprises and mistakes left Thrive Life feeling a bit blind, and they wanted a strategic partner to assist with decision-making.

SOLUTION

Ampleo stepped in as a part-time CFO to guide the cleanup process and assist in the hiring and training of a competent full-time finance team. The results were a streamlined close process with no material surprises, reliable and trusted financials and a capable team that grew into the full-time role.

Ampleo was appointed Receiver of Thiel Dairy, LLC, a dairy operator in Kuna, ID, on the recommendation to the Court by Rabo Agrifinance LLC, the plaintiff and secured lender (see case # CV14-18-13064). A large fire had burned down the milking parlor prior to the receiver’s appointment, and the plaintiff filed an immediate motion to install a receiver. The receiver accommodated a timely liquidation of remaining collateral and retained a real estate broker with expertise in dairies to list and sell the property. Ampleo resolved complex water rights issues, rights of redemption issues, and milk shipping rights deficiencies.

BACKGROUND

Stance’s founders saw a category – socks – had been ignored, taken for granted, and dismissed. By breathing life into something that had been overlooked, Stance has ignited a movement of art and self-expression that has drawn athletes, performers, and iconic cultural influencers to the brand – a group called the Punks & Poets. And by underpinning its creative roots with a relentless focus on technical innovation, Stance is now found in over 40 countries, worn by individuals who dare to be different.

CHALLENGE

Stance started and funded its startup business by recruiting a team of talented individuals, industry veterans, and committed investors. This group recognized early the need to have timely and accurate financials so that they could plan and manage growth with confidence. While they knew they needed additional financial expertise, they did not want to use their cash to hire a full-time CFO before they really needed one. As soon as Stance started shipping products, the challenges of consistently outperforming their sales forecasts became apparent. The meteoric growth meant Stance would need more cash, than expected, to fund inventory purchases and customer accounts receivable. Rapid growth also brought the need to better manage inventory purchases and distribution through demand planning and effective supply chain management.

SOLUTION

Stance’s senior team asked one of Ampleo’s partners with whom they had a long-standing relationship, to be their outsourced, part-time, strategic CFO. He supervised Stance’s accounting team, developed procedures and appropriate controls, and created a financial reporting deck to help the team manage cash, inventory, and receivables, and helped Stance recruit and train a full-time Controller and a Director of Operational & Business Intelligence with deep industry experience. In addition, the CFO worked with John Wilson, Stance’s President to secure a factoring line of credit with Wells Fargo Capital who provided not only much-needed working capital but credit reviews and underwriting of Stance’s customers to help mitigate collection risk.

Stance’s success and international recognition provided opportunities to expand distribution by opening more Stance retail stores, introducing new product lines such as performance socks and underwear, and improving its products through the addition of Stance Labs for research and development. These opportunities required more financial resources than Stance could generate from operations. As a result, Ampleo’s team helped Stance raise over $75M in equity capital in two financing rounds to finance these strategic initiatives at shareholder-friendly valuations and terms.

CONTINUED SUCCESS

As Stance executes its expansion initiatives and continues its rapid growth, it has established itself as the premier, global sock brand. Winning the NBA on-court sock contract and the grand opening of its flagship retail store in New York City has established Stance as a significant and influential player in the action sports and fashion industries.

EMBEDDED HR THAT ACCELERATES SCALE
SkyFi boosts hiring velocity and operational maturity with Ampleo HR

INTRODUCTION

SkyFi is an Earth intelligence company delivering satellite imagery and AI-driven geospatial analytics to government and commercial clients worldwide. As a fast-moving pre-Series A startup, SkyFi needed to scale rapidly—but without the overhead and delay of hiring a full-time HR team. That’s where Ampleo came in.

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CHALLENGE

As SkyFi approached a critical inflection point in its growth, CEO Luke was faced with a classic startup dilemma: hire a full-time HR team or stay lean and outsource to a trusted partner. The business needed structure, talent acquisition, and onboarding—fast—but without the overhead of full-time salaries, equity, and training.

The internal team didn’t yet know if they needed one person or five, but they knew they needed expert help right away.

SOLUTION

Ampleo HR embedded directly into SkyFi with Leslie, a hands-on HR expert who operated like a true team member from day one. She joined team Slack channels, integrated into day-to-day operations, and immediately earned trust.

Leslie handled:

• Candidate sourcing and interview coordination
• Job description development
• Onboarding and offboarding processes
• Structuring HR systems to support scale

She even introduced a structured onboarding experience across departments—helping elevate SkyFi’s people ops from early-stage chaos to a repeatable, professional experience.

RESULTS

Faster hiring: HR systems optimized to attract and onboard top talent
Stronger product velocity: Faster hiring led to faster delivery for customers
Team integration: Ampleo felt like part of the team, not an external resource
Capital efficiency: Expert support without the cost of full-time hires

CONCLUSION

For a startup scaling at speed, Ampleo HR delivered exactly what SkyFi needed: expertise, efficiency, and execution. By embedding directly into the team, Ampleo helped SkyFi stay lean, scale fast, and build the people infrastructure needed for long-term success.