Services
Product and technical leadership without the full-time commitment. Strategic guidance, hands-on execution, and 25 years of building experience.
You need senior product or technical leadership, but you're not ready for (or don't need) a full-time executive hire. Maybe you're a technical founder who needs product perspective. Maybe you're a non-technical founder who needs someone to wrangle engineering. Maybe you just need a thinking partner who's been through the gauntlet.
Fractional leadership gives you the experience without the overhead. Strategic guidance when you need it. Hands-on execution when you need that instead. Someone who can zoom out to the 10-year vision and zoom in to the next sprint.
Twenty-five years of building startups, running consultancies, and advising companies from solo entrepreneurs to organizations with thousands of employees. I've raised investment capital, watched sales cycles outlast funding runways, and learned what happens when you try to scale a business in a market that moves slower than your burn rate.
I've been the founder in the arena. I know what it's like to make payroll, to miss payroll, to wonder if you're building the right thing, to ship something that finally clicks. That context shapes every conversation.
Typically a retained engagement: a set number of hours per week or month, with flexibility to surge when needed. We'll define the scope together based on where you need the most help right now.
The goal isn't to create dependency. It's to give you the leadership capacity you need while you grow into having it full-time—or to be the long-term partner who stays in your corner as you scale.
What Makes This Different
Most fractional COOs manage your existing operations. We design better ones. Using the Deliberate Work methodology — Operation Mapping, workflow design, the 5×5 Method — we build operational systems that don't depend on any one person, including us.
The goal isn't to become indispensable. It's to design operations so well that your team can run them without heroics — and then step back to the strategic work that actually needs senior leadership.
Already Have an EOS Implementer?
Your EOS Implementer handles Vision, People, Data, Issues, and Traction. That leaves the one component Gino Wickman calls "the most neglected": Process. We focus specifically on the operational design that makes your documented core processes actually work — step by step, handoff by handoff.
Think of it as fractional leadership specifically for your operational layer.
Common Questions
A fractional COO is a senior operations leader who works with your company part-time — typically 8-20 hours per week on retainer. You get executive-level operational leadership without the cost of a full-time hire. It's ideal for growing companies that need operational design and leadership but aren't ready for (or don't need) a $250K+ full-time executive.
A consultant diagnoses and recommends. A fractional COO embeds with your team and executes. We don't hand you a report and leave — we design workflows, implement them in your actual tools, coach your team through the transition, and stay involved to iterate. It's the difference between advice and partnership.
EOS Implementers help you build the leadership operating system — Vision/Traction Organizer, accountability charts, Rocks, scorecard. That's the strategic layer. We focus on the operational layer underneath: designing the workflows, handoffs, and step-level processes that make your documented core processes actually executable. Your Implementer builds the system; we build the operations inside it.
Typically 8-20 hours per week, depending on the complexity of your operations and where you are in the design process. Early in an engagement — when we're building Operation Maps and designing workflows — the hours tend to be higher. Once systems are in place and the team is running them, the engagement often shifts to fewer hours focused on governance, iteration, and strategic guidance.
Fractional COO engagements are typically structured as monthly retainers based on the agreed-upon hours and scope. The cost is a fraction of a full-time COO salary and benefits package, which can run $200K-$350K+ annually. The exact investment depends on hours per week, scope of work, and duration. Reach out and we'll scope it together.
Self-Serve Option
The methodology is available as self-serve software at okhenry.ai. OkHenry is the self-serve product built on The Deliberate Company's methodology.
Try OkHenryLet's talk about where you need support and how we can work together.