What is 'Profit First' and should I actually run my business that way?

Profit First flips the usual formula, instead of Sales minus Expenses equals Profit, you take your profit percentage off the top the moment money comes in (Sales minus Profit equals Expenses), forcing your spending to fit what's left rather than assuming profit is whatever's left over. In practice that means splitting incoming revenue across separate accounts for operating expenses, taxes, your own pay, and profit the day it lands, not at month-end. It's a genuinely useful discipline for a cash-strapped D2C brand where ad spend and inventory purchases can easily eat every rupee that comes in, worth adapting even if you don't follow the book's exact account structure.