Almost every brand with its own online store has the same contract with its agency or tech team: a monthly bucket of hours, sometimes called BAU (business as usual) or support. The name sounds harmless. It isn’t.
When the work is called “support”, it’s measured by hours, negotiated on hourly rate and cut when money gets tight. That leaves the team that knows the store best as a reactive vendor closing tickets. And the store stops evolving.
Run & Grow is the model we use at Balloon to change that conversation. Here’s the why and the how.
The problem with a bucket of hours
In a typical bucket of hours, this happens:
- Urgent eats important. Incidents, banner changes and catalog uploads consume the month. Conversion projects wait “until there are hours left”.
- Nobody knows which part of the spend grew the business. The monthly report says “we used 118 of 120 hours”, not “these 40 hours lifted checkout conversion”.
- The budget sits in the wrong place. Seen as support, it lands in the IT or operations budget, which has every incentive to cut it.
The 4 layers of Run & Grow
Run & Grow organizes monthly capacity into four layers, and every task is classified into one of them from the moment it’s created:
| Layer | What it includes | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| RUN | Keeping the business running | Incidents, monitoring, catalog uploads, content changes, day-to-day management |
| OPTIMIZE | Improving what already exists | Site speed, on-site search tuning, A/B tests, listing improvements |
| EVOLVE | Building new capabilities | New features, integrations, apps, checkout changes |
| GROW | Opening new revenue sources | New channels or marketplaces, new markets, repeat-purchase programs, retail media |
An illustrative mix for a mature store is 30% RUN, 25% OPTIMIZE, 30% EVOLVE and 15% GROW. The exact numbers depend on where the business is. What matters is that the mix is decided, measured and discussed every month.
How it works in practice
1. Classified from day one. Every task is born with its layer assigned in the ticketing system. The classification lives on the task, not on each time entry, so it doesn’t depend on anyone’s memory.
2. A backlog with estimated value. OPTIMIZE, EVOLVE and GROW tasks are prioritized by expected business impact (conversion, average order value, repeat purchase, new channels), not by order of arrival.
3. A monthly value report. The report crosses hours by layer with channel metrics. The conversation we’re after is this: “70% of the effort was evolution work and eCommerce grew X% this quarter”.
4. A rule for small things. Minor tasks, below a small threshold of the monthly fee, are executed without prior approval and reconciled in the report. That way a five-minute change doesn’t wait a week for approvals.
5. Monthly and quarterly reviews. Every month the mix and backlog are reviewed; every quarter, the cumulative impact and the next plan.
How to justify it to procurement and finance
The key is separating two things that are mixed up today:
- Cost to Run: what it costs to keep the store working. It goes to the technology or operations budget, and that’s where it gets optimized.
- Investment to Grow: capacity dedicated to improving the store and opening revenue. It goes to the digital, product or marketing budget, and it’s measured by return.
With that split, the conversation with procurement stops being “why is the hourly rate so high?” and becomes “what return did the growth capacity deliver this quarter?”.
Signs you need to change models
- Your monthly report talks about hours used, not results.
- You’ve had a list of pending improvements for more than six months.
- Every peak season (Hot Sale, Buen Fin, Black Friday) is prepared with unplanned overtime.
- Nobody at the company can say which part of last year’s store spend generated growth.
The role of AI agents
AI amplifies Run & Grow in two ways. First, agents that read store and marketplace data every day (stock, prices, conversion, reviews) and propose tasks to the backlog with their estimated impact. Second, automation of repetitive RUN tasks, which frees up capacity for the layers that grow the business.
In short
Your own store doesn’t need support; it needs continuous capacity with a business goal. Run & Grow organizes that capacity in four layers, measures it against results and defends it in the language of finance.
If you want to know how much of your current spend is operations and how much is growth, we calculate it in your store assessment. Request it here.
FAQ
What's the difference between Run & Grow and a bucket of hours?
A bucket of hours measures how much time was used. Run & Grow classifies every task from the start (run, optimize, evolve or grow), sets a target mix and reports which part of the effort moved business metrics.
How big is a pod?
It's sized by monthly capacity. Typical setups range from 80 to 160 hours a month, depending on the store's complexity and the pace of evolution the business needs.
How do I justify it to procurement or finance?
By separating the cost of operating (technology and operations budget) from the investment to grow (digital, product or marketing budget), and showing every month how evolution work relates to channel results.