Senior operational leadership for the business you're trying to build.
A Fractional COO engagement gives your company the leadership layer it usually only gets after a major hire, without the full-time cost or risk.
Ricardo steps into the operational leadership seat directly, working alongside you on the decisions, cadence, and accountability the business needs as it grows past what one founder can hold alone.
The founder is still the answer to every meaningful operational question. The team is capable, but there's no operating system underneath them, no clear cadence, no shared decision rules, no one besides the founder connecting the dots. Growth isn't stalling because of demand. It's stalling because of internal drag that only a dedicated operational leader can actually remove.
This engagement fits you if…
- Founder-led service businesses, roughly 10 to 50 employees, with revenue growing faster than the operating system underneath it
- Founders ready to hand off real operational ownership, not just individual tasks
- Teams that have grown past what founder-only coordination can support
- Businesses where the next hire isn't the answer, because the gap is leadership, not headcount
Deliverables
- A weekly operating cadence and leadership rhythm installed across the team
- Accountability and decision frameworks so the team can act without founder sign-off on everything
- A bottleneck removal roadmap across 90, 180, and 365 days
- Hiring, role design, and team structure guidance as the business scales
- KPI and reporting installation, reviewed on a set schedule
- Retention and performance reviewed against metrics defined in the engagement contract
The process
Embed & diagnose
The first weeks are spent inside the operation directly: shadowing how decisions actually get made, mapping where the founder is still the bottleneck, and identifying the real constraints underneath the visible symptoms.
Install the operating system
Cadence, ownership, KPIs, and decision rights get installed where they're missing, starting with the highest-cost gaps first.
Lead, remove, repeat
Ongoing leadership continues from there: removing the next bottleneck, developing the team's capability to operate without the founder, and reviewing progress against the metrics set at the start of the engagement.
What changes after this engagement
- The founder is no longer the default answer to every operational question
- The team owns its outcomes without daily founder intervention
- Reporting and cadence surface problems while they're still small
- The business can add headcount and revenue without a proportional increase in founder load
Scope & investment
- Engagement length
- Ongoing, with an initial minimum term set in the engagement contract
- Format
- Retainer, scope and metrics confirmed in advance
- Investment
- Confirmed during a discovery call, based on scope
FAQ
How is a Fractional COO different from a consultant or coach?+
A consultant diagnoses and recommends. A coach asks questions and leaves the answers to you. A Fractional COO owns operational outcomes directly, alongside you: cadence, accountability, hiring decisions, system installs, and removing bottlenecks as they appear, with retention tied to metrics reviewed on a set schedule in the engagement contract.
How much time per week or month does this involve?+
Time commitment is set during scoping and confirmed in the engagement contract, based on the size of the operation and what the role actually requires. It's structured as an ongoing, embedded presence, not a fixed number of hours disconnected from the work.
Who is this not for?+
This isn't the right fit for pre-revenue startups still finding their model, businesses unwilling to change how decisions get made, or founders looking only for a tool recommendation. If the need is a single fix rather than ongoing leadership, the Founder Capacity Recovery Sprint or the Automation & Optimization Retainer is the better starting point.
How long is the typical engagement?+
Engagements begin with an initial minimum term, set in the engagement contract, with continuation based on the metrics reviewed at each scheduled checkpoint.
Not sure if this is the right starting point?
Take the Growth Capacity Assessment first. It tells you where the real bottleneck is and which engagement fits.
Start the Assessment