Engagement, scope, and how we work together.
Fractional CRO engagements designed for technical founders ready to graduate from founder-led selling to a repeatable enterprise sales motion.
How a typical engagement is shaped.
Cadence
2–5 days per week, depending on stage and depth. Most engagements settle at 3 days/week after the first month.
Duration
3-month minimum. Most engagements run 4–6 months. After month six, we evaluate whether continued embedding makes sense or whether your in-house team is ready to run the playbook independently.
Compensation
Base monthly retainer plus equity participation. Equity is calibrated to your stage and the scope of the engagement — typically structured as restricted shares or advisor options with standard vesting.
Working arrangement
Embedded, not external. I attend your weekly leadership meetings, sit on Slack, and join customer calls as a full operator. I work from the Bay Area and travel to customer sites as needed.
Exclusivity
I take 1–2 active engagements at a time. This is intentional — fractional doesn't mean partial commitment. When I'm in your work, I'm in.
What the first three months actually look like.
Days 1–30: Discovery
Interviews with the last 20 buyers who said yes, the last 20 who said no, the last 20 who never answered. Win/loss analysis. Refined ICP, sharpened positioning, trigger-event mapping.
Days 31–60: Build
First repeatable outbound motion. Multi-threaded prospecting into CIO, CTO, Security, Procurement. First mutual action plans. Initial pipeline visible in CRM.
Days 61–90: Close
Personally carrying a bag on founding deals. POCs, security reviews, procurement, negotiation. Hand-off documentation and playbook v1 ready for the first AE hire.
What you get at the end of an engagement.
- Refined ICP document — primary segment, secondary segment, anti-patterns, with rationale grounded in win/loss data.
- Positioning and messaging framework — value proposition, three-line elevator pitch, pricing narrative, objection responses.
- Pipeline architecture — outbound motion, trigger events, multi-threading playbook, qualification framework (MEDDIC or adapted).
- Closed founding deals — typically 3–8 paid customers in the target ICP, with full documentation of how each was won.
- Hiring scorecards and playbook — for the first AE, CSM, or sales engineer hire, with interview rubric.
- CRM and forecast cadence — clean Salesforce or HubSpot setup, weekly deal review template, monthly board-ready revenue dashboard.
- Founder coaching log — the operating disciplines you'll continue running once I rotate out.
Writing worth your time.
The thinking behind the work — frameworks and field notes from 25+ years building enterprise revenue.
Framework
The Seven C’s of Selling
A deal-dynamics model for enterprise sales — the seven forces that decide whether a complex deal closes, and when. Read →
Essay
Founders Don’t Fail on Product
Why most Seed–Series B startups stall on the chasm between founder-led selling and a repeatable revenue motion. Read →
Want to talk through your stage?
Thirty minutes is enough to know whether we'd work well together. No deck, no pitch — just a conversation about where your revenue motion stands today.
Book a 30-min call →