Confirmed orders should trigger a capacity decision only when the cash behind them can carry the commitment. Until then, protect fulfilment with a smaller operating plan, tighter customer terms and a clear threshold for signing the next warehouse.
At 8:12 on a Monday morning, Kojo was standing beside a stack of taped cartons in a warehouse in Accra, refreshing the order sheet on his phone. His small team had spent the weekend confirming deliveries. The total had crossed the point where their current space could handle the week without late dispatches, misplaced stock or drivers waiting while someone searched for one missing package.
The second warehouse was available. The landlord wanted a commitment. Kojo had enough confirmed orders to make the expansion feel obvious.
He did not have enough certainty to make it safe.
Several customers had confirmed by message but had not paid. A large order came through an intermediary, with payment expected after delivery. Another customer wanted stock held while they completed their own internal approval. On the spreadsheet, the week looked strong. In the bank account, it looked like a gamble.
If Kojo signed the second space and those payments slipped, payroll and supplier payments would compete with rent. If he stayed put and tried to force more volume through one warehouse, customers who had trusted him with their orders could receive them late. Either path could damage the business. The question was not whether demand existed. The question was which demand could pay for capacity before capacity became a fixed cost.
Confirmed demand has different levels of certainty
Founders often group orders together because the commercial signal feels the same: someone wants the product. Operations cannot afford that simplification.
A paid order with stock allocated is different from a purchase order awaiting approval. A recurring customer who has paid reliably is different from a first-time buyer asking for a longer payment window. An order placed through a partner may be real, but the money can still be several decisions away.
Kojo split the week’s orders into three columns. The first contained money already received. The second contained customers with a clear payment date and a track record. The third contained everything that depended on a further conversation, approval or delivery event.
Only the first two columns counted toward a warehouse decision.
That distinction can feel overly cautious when demand is finally arriving. Growth has its own emotional pressure. A founder who has spent months worrying about empty order sheets can see every confirmed order as proof that the hard part is over. But demand and cash timing are separate operating facts. A business can be busy enough to break its current process while still being too exposed to take on a new fixed obligation.
The freight and logistics market in West Africa is projected to grow in the years ahead. That can create real opportunity for founders building distribution businesses. It can also make expansion feel inevitable before the working capital is ready.
The temporary plan has to protect the customer promise
Kojo did not turn down the orders. He changed the promise around them.
For the next few weeks, the team set a daily cut-off for dispatches and capped the volume they would accept for the fastest delivery option. They moved slower-moving stock out of the main picking area. Kojo personally called the customers whose orders were most likely to create a crush at the warehouse, explained the available delivery windows, and asked for payment confirmation before reserving additional capacity.
This is where a temporary operating plan earns its keep. It gives the founder room to learn whether the spike is a new baseline or a short-lived burst, without pretending the current setup can carry unlimited demand.
The plan needs to be concrete. “We will manage it for now” is not a plan. A useful one names the constraint and the trigger:
- Which orders receive priority when the warehouse is full.
- Which customers need payment before stock is reserved.
- What service level the team can honestly maintain.
- What cash balance or paid order volume unlocks the next commitment.
Kojo’s team had to make a few uncomfortable calls that week. One customer could not have every item dispatched on the same day. Another had to choose between a revised delivery window and paying earlier to secure stock. Those conversations were better than silence after a missed promise.
The same discipline appears in product work. A customer request can look like obvious growth until it creates a second roadmap that the team cannot support. The decision in Daniel’s customer request became a second product. His roadmap was at risk. follows a similar pattern: protect the core system before adding a commitment that changes the business underneath it.
Make the expansion decision before the pressure arrives
The useful time to set a warehouse threshold is before the order sheet becomes exciting.
For Kojo, that meant defining the point at which a second space would be funded by paid and dependable demand, rather than by hope that the week’s invoices would clear. He also checked the less visible costs: more stock movement, another person to coordinate receiving, the risk of inventory splitting across locations, and the attention he would lose to daily operational issues.
Rent was only the visible line item.
A second warehouse changes the shape of the company. It can improve fulfilment and make room for more orders. It can also lock a small team into higher costs before its payment cycle can support them. The correct decision may still be to sign. The point is to make that decision with a number you can defend when the optimistic version of the week does not happen.
By Thursday afternoon, enough of Kojo’s high-certainty orders had paid for him to revisit the option. He still had not signed. The cartons were moving out on schedule, the team knew which orders came first, and the spreadsheet no longer treated every promise as cash.
That was progress. The warehouse could wait until the business could carry it.
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