Dunbar discovered that the number grows and decreases according to a precise formula, roughly a "rule of three."

The next step down, fifty, is the number of people we call close friends—perhaps the people you’d invite to a group dinner. You see them often, but not so much that you consider them to be true intimates.

Then there’s the circle of fifteen: the friends that you can turn to for sympathy when you need it, the ones you can confide in about most things.

The most intimate Dunbar number, five, is your close support group. These are your best friends (and often family members).

On the flipside, groups can extend to five hundred, the acquaintance level, and to fifteen hundred, the absolute limit—the people for whom you can put a name to a face. While the group sizes are relatively stable, their composition can be fluid.

We compared key stats between different business types and competitive advantages and the winner was startling obvious: manufacturing as a model and branding/storytelling as a competitive advantage stole the show in nearly every metric.

Operational efficiency had just as large of an impact. Top brands in the growing and profitable group had half as many people on their payroll, were 25% more likely to outsource warehouse operations and 25% less reliant on paid traffic.

Taylor Holiday from Common Thread Collective tweeted something that illustrates the point perfectly. He said: "You don’t have a ROAS problem. You have a margin problem."

For many brands, he’s spot on. You can just as easily replace ‘margin problem’ with ‘too many employees problem’, ‘business model problem’ or ‘paid traffic addiction problem’.