Operator first. Advisor second. Pilot. Author. We rid businesses of friction.
For more than 30 years, I've operated businesses. Aviation. Logistics. Real estate. M&A on both sides — buying, fixing, scaling, selling.
I led a FedEx logistics turnaround in Ohio, managing more than 100 drivers and trucks. I've logged over 9,500 hours in the cockpit as a commercial pilot. I've acquired aircraft. I've bought companies, restructured them, and sold them. Some of those deals went exactly to plan. Some taught me harder lessons. All of them sharpened the same instinct: every business has friction, and friction is what kills it slowly.
That instinct is why Friction LLC exists.
We're a consulting practice for first-generation founders and owner-operators of $2M–$50M businesses. The kind of operator who built the business themselves, who is still close to the work, who knows something is wrong but can't always name it. That's the founder we serve.
The framing is simple. Every business has friction: process drag — the same problem solved twice, three times, every week; people misalignment — the wrong person in the wrong seat, or the right person without the right tools; cash flow leakage — money slipping out in ways that don't show up on a P&L until it's too late; and technology that doesn't actually work — software bought, never integrated, never adopted.
Friction is the silent tax. We find it. We name it. We remove it.
I'm an operator first. I ran businesses for 30+ years before I started advising others. I'm multi-industry, not single-vertical — pattern recognition across sectors beats deep knowledge of one. I'm AI-native and operator-grounded: most AI consultants have never run a P&L, most turnaround operators are pre-AI thinkers; I'm both. I price on outcomes when the math works — success fees, EBITDA lift, cost savings, exit multiples. And I work bilingually in English and Spanish, US-based and Latin America–ready.
I'm also the author of Don't Be A Dick and Friction (forthcoming). Both books are part of the same conversation: how good operators treat people, and how good businesses get out of their own way.
Every engagement begins with a free 30-minute discovery call. No pitch. No obligation. A diagnosis of where your friction is and a recommendation on whether we're the right fit.
— Justin Smith, Managing Partner, Friction, LLC · jsmith@stopfriction.com