Scaling Shady Rays Through Operational Excellence and Clear, Visible Goals
Throughput Show Episode 11 featuring Dan Ratterman (originally aired 11/14/2025)
Today I’m joined by Dan Ratterman—co-founder of Shady Rays and the creator of a goal-setting system that’s helping leaders stay focused, aligned, and accountable. He took us into the real story behind Shady Rays: what it took to identify a real problem, scale slowly and persistently, and build a business that now employs more than 160 people.
1. Solving a Real Problem Is the Foundation of Growth
Shady Rays didn’t begin with a grand ecommerce strategy. It began with a simple, relatable problem: people lose and break sunglasses constantly, yet major brands offer no affordable or practical solution. Dan’s brother Chris spotted this frustration and built Shady Rays around high-quality sunglasses at a fraction of the price—with free replacements if lost or broken. That one promise resonated deeply with customers.
In the early days, Dan was a college student selling sunglasses out of a cardboard box while Chris was hacking his way through Facebook ads during the platform’s infancy. Growth was painfully slow—sometimes months with zero orders—but real customers loved the product and the mission, giving them the belief to keep going.
2. Operational Excellence Starts on Day One
Before Shady Rays had a fulfillment center, they had Dan’s family living room. Dan, studying industrial engineering, ran time studies on his dad packing orders and redesigned the workflow to improve efficiency by “300%”—even though they were only packing one or two orders a day.
That mindset of small daily improvements became part of the company’s DNA. What felt trivial in the early days now compounds across a million orders a year. As they grew, Shady Rays manually built their warehouse racks with a rubber mallet, borrowed a forklift from a neighboring business, and engineered their supply chain through COVID to produce one of their best years ever.
Every stage of growth required them to solve the next operational constraint. And along the way, they built a culture of continuous improvement—small wins every day that stack into big outcomes.
3. Product Innovation Comes from Listening, Not Guessing
Customers consistently told Shady Rays that they loved aviators but hated how the nose piece tangled in their hair. Instead of accepting that frustration as “just the way it is,” Dan and his team designed and patented a tangle-free nosepiece that took off immediately with their audience.
The most successful innovations weren’t brainstorms—they were responses to real customer pain.
4. Why Most People Fail at Goals—and How to Fix It
After years of leading teams, Dan noticed a universal pattern: people set goals, then forget about them. Daily distractions push even important goals out of sight.
So he created a visible, structured, 3×2 foot goal board with:
A small set of clear goals
A “why” section for each goal
Quarterly milestones
A simple on-track / off-track status view
This board later evolved into a tool used by individuals, leadership teams, and even nonprofits helping homeless individuals achieve long-term goals. The power of the system is visibility: leaders see their goals every day, making it harder for distraction to win.
Dan’s favorite line captures the philosophy:
“People don’t rise to the level of their motivation. They fall to the level of their systems.”
5. The Goal Is Not the Board—It’s the Clarity
Dan emphasized that leaders don’t need his exact board. Some use whiteboards. Some use spreadsheets. Some use EOS. What matters is having a clear map from long-term vision to quarterly execution steps.
Teams using his system often experience an immediate shift: ideas that lived in people's heads become visible, organized, and prioritized. Tension drops, alignment rises, and execution improves.
Key Takeaways / Best Practices
Growth comes from solving an actual, widely-felt customer problem.
Operational excellence begins long before scale—it begins with the first order.
Small improvements compound massively as volume increases.
Listen for recurring customer frustrations; they often reveal high-value innovation opportunities.
Visibility is the missing ingredient in most goal-setting systems.
Break goals down into milestones to prevent overwhelm and ensure momentum.
Systems—not motivation—determine long-term results.
Q&A From the Episode
Q1: How long did it take to move beyond one or two orders a day, and what kept you going?
A: It took years. Some months brought zero orders. But early customers validated the problem Shady Rays was solving, and their enthusiasm gave the team confidence to keep pushing. Once demand built, operations scaled with it.
Q2: How did customer feedback drive product development?
A: Customers constantly complained that aviators got tangled in their hair. Shady Rays developed and patented a tangle-free nosepiece that became a major success because it solved a real frustration customers already had.
Q3: How often should the goal board be reviewed and updated?
A: Dan reviews quarterly to mark milestones complete and adjust on-track/off-track status. He also updates status whenever a material change affects a goal. Daily updates aren’t required—the board is a high-level alignment tool.
Q4: What happens when people say “we already use EOS or another system”?
A: Dan positions his board as a tool, not a competing operating system. It complements existing frameworks by making goals visible and trackable, rather than replacing larger systems.