How I Cut Company Operational Costs by 47% in 5 Months — Without Firing Anyone

By Yana Levkovich, iGaming & Affiliate Expert | Ex-COO Islamic Coin | Founder of YIPPIE

Startups love to talk about growth.But no one talks enough about the cost of that growth—or what happens when it suddenly stops.

When I joined Haqq Network as COO, we scaled fast: from a lean crypto project to a blockchain company with over 80 employees, spanning across product, dev, marketing, operations, BD, finance, and community.

With fast growth came chaos.

And eventually… the need for cost control.

Let me walk you through a real case study:How I helped the company cut 47% of its operational costs in just five months — without layoffs, without killing productivity, and without sacrificing innovation.

The Problem: “Where is our money going?”

One of my key roles as COO was quarterly budget planning. At first, my focus was on headcount, campaign budgets, and product delivery. But when things stabilized and the team was rebuilt after a downtrend — I asked myself a hard question:

I turned to our finance team and asked for a full list of operational tools across the company. What I got was… chaos.

• 300+ services

• No clear owner per tool

• No tags for department or purpose

• Dozens of tools with overlapping functions

• Tools linked to employees’ private emails (!)

  
  

This was the turning point.

Step-by-Step: My Cost-Cutting Strategy

Here’s what I did — and what I recommend to every founder or COO dealing with bloated costs:

1. Categorize Every Tool by Department and Purpose

We sorted all 300+ tools by:

• Department (e.g., Marketing, Product, DevOps, BizDev)

• Use case (e.g., analytics, CRM, design, email, finance, storage)

• Owner/contact person (who’s using this?)

  
  

2. Identify Duplicates and Unused Tools

We found multiple cases of the same tool being purchased by different departments because teams didn’t communicate (classic example: 3 different Notion workspaces under different emails).

We also discovered tools no one touched in months.

3. Centralize Access and Ownership

I made it mandatory to:

• Use corporate emails for all services

• Store logins and access in a shared, secure repository

• Assign tool owners per department

  
  

4. Empower Teams to Cut Waste Themselves

I shared back the cleaned-up list with each department and gave clear instructions:

The Result?

• 60% of the tools were marked yellow or red.

• We cut tool-related expenses by nearly half in less than two quarters.

• Team productivity? Unchanged.

• Morale? Higher — because people saw transparency and logic in every decision.

  
  

What You Can Learn from This

If you’re leading a growing startup, especially in Web3 or iGaming where tools are endless and teams are often distributed — don’t wait until a “cost crisis” to act.

Start now:

• Audit everything

• Categorize with intention

• Eliminate waste

• Give your team ownership

• Repeat quarterly

  
  

And if you're not sure where to start — LY Group helps companies like yours audit, clean, and scale operations without burning cash or goodwill.

 Reach out — and let’s make your growth sustainable.