MALOOKA
Phoenix, AZ rick.perry@malooka.com

Rick Perry · Operations

Founders build.
I operate.

Eleven years as President & COO of a private equity ecommerce group. Five employees to more than a hundred. Ninety million a year in sales. Sold at roughly 7x EBITDA. My job was running the company day to day so the founder could keep building. It’s the work I like best.

rick.perry@malooka.com

5 → 100+ Headcount grown
$90M/yr Sales at peak
~7x EBITDA Exit multiple
+40% Sales growth in one year
30 yrs Operating career

The work

Somebody has to ask how the idea makes money, what it costs, and who runs it on a Tuesday in February.
Then somebody has to go run it.

Founders should be in love with the idea. I’m in love with it working. When those two disagree, you want that conversation early, in private, with numbers on the table.

Track record

2011–2022

Private equity ecommerce group President & COO

A private equity holding company that built ecommerce brands. I joined near the start and ran it through the asset sale.

  • Grew the company from five employees to more than a hundred, with a global supply and manufacturing chain behind a dozen brands and thousands of products.
  • Over $90 million a year in sales across Amazon, Walmart, and our own DTC sites, with top-performing products in their categories.
  • Added $20 million in annual sales in a single year, a 40 percent jump, through automation, better monitoring, and tighter vendor SLAs.
  • Built the reports, dashboards, and automated alerting that watched millions of transactions: sales velocity, payments, fulfillment, customer support.
  • Worked with the CFO on weekly, monthly, and annual reporting to ownership and equity holders. Led the exit at roughly 7x EBITDA.
2008–2011

Consumer app startup VP, Operations

A technology startup building consumer apps. I built the software organization from 3 people to more than 50.

  • Stood up a 24/7 network operations center with proactive, automated reporting.
  • Automated testing across landers, billing, advertising, and content systems to keep a high-availability environment honest.
  • Set response-time SLAs and built the ticketing and root-cause discipline to enforce them.
2004–2008

Scientific imaging manufacturer Software Manager

Managed the software group, built the formal QA department, and owned release management and configuration control.

1997–2004

Telecom equipment manufacturer Lead Staff Engineer, Test Development

Requirements analysis, feature definition, and test development on telecom systems.

B.S. Nuclear Engineering, University of Arizona. Company names, full resume, and references on request.

Since then

Since 2022 I’ve been embedded in a software company’s commerce and fulfillment operation: vendor networks, order-to-cash, margin work, and the reporting that keeps everyone honest. The specifics stay with the client. Yours would get the same treatment.

I also ship production software with AI agents every day. Planning, build, test, and review pipelines, with a human at the gates that matter. I adopted this early, I measure what every run costs, and I can tell you honestly where it works and where it doesn’t.

How I work

What I take on

Operating leadership

Fractional COO or operating partner for founder-led and owner-led companies. I take operations, vendors, fulfillment, the finance plumbing, and the metrics layer, so the people setting direction can stay on direction. I’ve run this machine at scale on Amazon, Walmart, and DTC, from the seller’s side of the table.

An honest second opinion

For owners, boards, and investors who want an independent read from someone who has run the machine. When I disagree, you’ll hear it once, clearly, with reasons. Then we run with your call.

Operational buildout

Vendor management and SLAs, order-to-cash, reconciliation, monitoring and alerting. The unglamorous machinery that decides your margin.

Exit readiness

I’ve sat on the operator’s side of private equity diligence and an asset sale. If that’s where you’re headed, I know what buyers ask and what the answers need to look like.