02 / Fractional COO & Operations

Fractional COO for Founder-Led Companies in the UK.

The process, systems and cadence that let a company run on something other than the founder's attention.

In one line

A fractional COO is operational leadership without the full-time cost: someone who turns how you currently work into something written down, measurable and run by the team rather than by you.

The problem

The company grew faster than the way it is run. Process lives in a founder's head, the numbers live in four tools that disagree, and every decision above a certain size still routes through one person. It does not feel like a crisis, which is why it gets left. It shows up as a founder who cannot take a week off, a team that waits to be told, and a board pack assembled by hand every month.

What you get
  • The operating cadence: what gets reviewed, by whom, how often, and what happens when a number moves the wrong way
  • Process written down and handed over, so the team runs it without you in the room
  • One set of numbers. Ad spend, acquisition and conversion in a single view the leadership team reads without asking anyone to pull it
  • Tooling decisions made on cost and fit, including building in-house where a licence is buying you less than it charges
  • A straight answer on which part of the business is actually the constraint, rather than the part making the most noise
Who it's for

Founder-led companies where the operating load has outgrown the founder but a full-time COO is not the right cheque yet. Usually a team between ten and fifty, with revenue, and a founder who is the bottleneck in more meetings than they would like to admit.

What this is not. Not a finance or legal remit. I do not run your books, sign your contracts or act as a company officer. This is the operating layer: process, systems, measurement and cadence. Where the work touches finance or legal, it stops at making sure the right person has the right information at the right time.

Where I've done it

P&D Group, Sweden
Built the business development motion and the sales process behind it, then the wider sales and marketing operation around them. Built an AI monitoring program across ad spend, user acquisition and sales conversion, and an in-house dashboard that put it in front of the CEO and CMO in real time, replacing the CRM licence they were paying for, and managed the migration onto it. Lead generation up more than 25%, retention and customer ratings both up, and a documented process the team runs itself. See the case study →

Conscious Engine
Shaped the product delivery plan so what was being built had a form someone could sell, and built the outreach motion from nothing through to real companies agreeing to run first pilots. That motion is the one the team still runs. See the case study →

How it starts

Start with the scorecard. It's free, it takes five minutes, and it means I've read where you're leaking before we speak. Send the result over and I'll come back within two working days.

The first twenty minutes are free and always will be. That's how we both work out whether this is a fit.

If it is, the usual next step is the Growth Diagnostic: two weeks going through your data, your funnel, your spend and your positioning, or your launch plan if you're not live yet. It ends in a written analysis and a 90-day plan with channels, budgets and milestones attached. We walk it through live, and you keep the plan either way. £750, invoiced after the call, credited toward your first month if we go further.

From there it's shaped around the problem, whether that's a single launch, a raise, or an ongoing fractional role.

Related reading

AI won't fix a broken sales engine →

Fractional CMO, the growth side of the same job →

02
of seven. They're all the same job from different angles.
25%+
lead generation lift at P&D Group
Questions
What is a fractional COO?
Operational leadership without the full-time cost. Someone who turns how a company currently works into process that is written down, measured and run by the team, for the share of their time the stage actually needs, without the salary or the notice period.
How is a fractional COO different from a fractional CMO?
The CMO work owns how you acquire and keep customers. The COO work owns how the company runs: process, systems, measurement and the operating cadence. They overlap at the numbers, which is why the same person doing both tends to produce one set of figures everyone agrees on rather than two.
Do you take on finance or legal responsibility?
No. This is not a finance or legal remit and I do not act as a company officer. The work is the operating layer: process, systems, measurement and cadence. Where it touches finance or legal, it stops at making sure the right person has the right information at the right time.
How much does a fractional COO cost in the UK?
Fractionus puts UK fractional COO retainers at roughly £6,000 to £14,000 a month, against a full-time COO base of £130,000 to £210,000 before on-costs. Where you land depends on days a month and how much is hands-on. Figures from Fractionus.
When does a startup need a fractional COO?
When the founder is the bottleneck in most decisions, process lives in one head, and the numbers disagree between tools. Usually a team of ten to fifty with revenue. Before that, a founder can still hold it; well past it, a full-time COO starts to make sense.

Not sure this is the one you need?

Most projects don't need seven vendors, they need to know which of the four dimensions is actually leaking. The scorecard tells you in five minutes, free, and I'll have read it before we speak.

Request a call → Score your growth readiness →