For founder-led companies
Venture-backed or privately ownedI help founders find what's holding the product back, then build the product leadership the next stage needs, through to the day the right permanent leader is in the seat.
Founders ask me some version of the same question on almost every call: when do we hire our first PM?
The stage doesn't answer it. Your calendar does. When decisions wait two weeks instead of two days because they all need you, the company has outgrown founder-led product. A first product leader hired before that point has nothing real to decide. One hired long after it walks into a year and a half of decisions nobody made.
If you already have product leaders and still get pulled back in, the same thing is happening one level up.
A product org is a bottleneck diagnosis before it's a headcount plan. That's where I start.
The signs
You have product leaders, and the hard calls still land on your desk
The team ships every sprint, and the numbers that matter barely move
A senior product hire didn't work out, and you're not sure what to look for next
Investors or your board ask product questions you answer from memory instead of evidence
The roadmap changes after every big customer call
Engineering keeps asking what to build next, and the answer lives in your head
A new market or second product is on the plan, and nobody owns the bet
Everyone agrees AI matters and nobody can say what it should do in your product
Pricing was set at launch and nobody has touched it since
Every one of these traces back to the same thing: decisions that still need you.
How I help
A focused read on what's holding your product org back.
A senior product leader in your team, making real calls until it can run without me.
Coaching for your product team, so fewer calls land back on your desk.
Every engagement starts with a conversation, whether you know what you need or want help choosing.
Start a conversationTrack record
PointClickCare's EHR, its highest-revenue product, was built for skilled nursing. I led rebuilding it from the ground up for senior living, an adjacent market, unlocking 28% of total addressable market. It has since gone on to win industry awards.
As the product team at Acuity Insights grew, launches slowed down with it. I stood up a Product Ops function so the team could plan and ship without every call waiting on the same few people. Time to market got 25% faster as a result.
EBS was pre-launch, with no product strategy or go-to-market plan yet. I built both with the team, from positioning to roadmap and launch. Within six months they were in market with a clear direction and early revenue coming in.
I've worked inside founder-led companies at growth stage, including two preparing for an IPO, so I know how product decisions really get made when the founder still owns the company.
When the product decisions that matter are bigger than one part-time leader can own, and you have a product org worth leading. Part of every fractional engagement is getting you ready for that hire, and helping you make it.
Yes. I'll help you define the role, run the process and set the new PM up to own real decisions from their first month.
Yes. Often the work is levelling up the leaders you have, and helping you decide whether the next stage needs someone different.
Usually, if you're a B2B SaaS company that's venture-backed from Series A or privately owned and growing fast, with a product team and no senior product leader, or one the company has outgrown. Whether you've raised doesn't change the work, since growth outruns the product org either way. Seed-stage companies tend to start with the product assessment.
That depends on your stage and the work, and we'll agree on it before we start.
When the work calls for it. I work with a sitting CFO on pricing, fundraising models and the return on AI investment, and with a senior commercial operator on positioning, packaging and the sales motion. Anyone involved is named in the scope.
Start with a conversation about where decisions are getting stuck. If there's a fit, we'll scope the right engagement from there.
Everything you share stays confidential.