Built

Stray Bullet LLC

Managed and designed custom upholstery work across automotive interiors, boat covers, garments, and technical sewn products while helping grow a three person shop from under $40K annual revenue to $180K, then past $250K.

Built

Manager and designer / Custom upholstery shop

What this proves

I can step into a small physical product business, manage real customer work, design what needs to be made, and improve the commercial engine without being the founder.

Why this mattered

Small custom shops live or die by whether design, quoting, production, customer communication, and delivery work as one operating loop. At Stray Bullet, the work ranged from creative custom upholstery to technically demanding research lab products.

Why it mattered commercially

Custom upholstery is not a simple craft business when the work spans cars, boats, garments, and technical sewn products. Growth depended on better quoting, better design translation, tighter production flow, and the confidence to take on more complex projects.

Current status

Historical operating and design work. Revenue figures are Gordon's first person record of the shop's growth and are presented as approximate.

What Gordon did

Managed and designed custom upholstery projects, translating customer needs into patterns, materials, production plans, and finished products.

Helped run work across a three person shop where sales, design, production, and delivery had to stay tightly connected.

Worked on specialty technical products, including Faraday cage style builds using silver doped fabric and conductive thread for testing equipment and research lab use cases.

Advised on pricing, operations, customer communication, and how to move the shop toward larger, higher value work.

What was hard

Every project was custom, so the work could not rely on a repeatable SKU or fixed production process.

The team was small, which meant operational mistakes showed up immediately in margin, schedule, and customer trust.

The technical projects required materials judgment, sewing execution, and enough systems thinking to make the output useful beyond normal upholstery work.

Proof at a glance

<$40K -> $180K

First year growth

Helped move the shop from under $40K annual revenue to roughly $180K in the first year.

$250K+

Second year revenue

Helped the business break past $250K the following year.

3 people

Small team execution

Managed and designed inside a small shop where every role touched delivery.

Faraday builds

Technical sewn products

Worked on silver doped fabric and conductive thread products for research and testing use cases.

Helped grow the shop from under $40K per year to roughly $180K the first year, then past $250K the second year.
Expanded the work beyond standard upholstery into custom automotive interiors, boat covers, garments, and technical products for company research labs.
Built early operating proof across design, production, customer management, pricing, and hands on delivery inside a three person business.

Project record reviewed August 30, 2026. Where no public source is listed, the page identifies first person or internal evidence explicitly instead of implying independent verification.