Guide library · Updated 2026

SaaS Founder Guides: Hiring, Product, and Growth

Thirty-seven guides for founders running B2B SaaS between $2M and $15M ARR, written by me as a working fractional CPO. Two kinds: hiring guides that price a product leadership decision against 2026 market data, and operating playbooks for strategy, growth, delivery and metrics. Every one states what to do, not why it matters.

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30 minutes with Sivan Kadosh. No pitch, no deck.

Cluster one

Hiring Guides

10 guides

Ten guides for the same decision in ten different shapes: who to put in charge of product, at what level, on what terms, and what it costs in 2026. Each one gives you the market range, the three realistic paths, and a checklist you can answer before you open a search.

Fractional CPO 8 min read $6,000 to $15,000 a month You will decide whether fractional, interim or a full-time CPO fits your stage, and what the wrong answer costs. Read the guide Interim CPO 8 min read You will decide whether you need cover for a departure or a raise, and how long the interim seat should stay filled. Read the guide Head of Product 8 min read $250,000 or more a year You will decide whether the role you are describing is a head of product or a first senior PM with a title attached. Read the guide Product Consultant 8 min read $150 to $400 an hour You will decide whether you are buying an opinion, a deliverable or someone who stays to run the work. Read the guide Product Management Consultant 8 min read $150 to $400 an hour You will decide whether the gap is process, people or priorities, because each one takes a different hire. Read the guide Product Strategy Consultant 8 min read $150 to $400 an hour You will decide whether you need a strategy written or a strategy enforced, which are not the same engagement. Read the guide B2B Product Manager 8 min read $110,000 to $170,000 US base You will decide what seniority the role actually needs, and which of your problems a PM cannot solve alone. Read the guide SaaS Product Manager 8 min read $110,000 to $170,000 base You will decide what to test for in interviews when the candidate has never run your motion or your pricing model. Read the guide Monetization Product Manager 8 min read $140,000 to $170,000 or more You will decide whether pricing belongs in product, in finance, or in a role you have not created yet. Read the guide Outsourced Product Management 8 min read $6,000 to $15,000 a month You will decide which parts of product can sit outside the company and which ones never should. Read the guide

Cost figures are the canonical phrasing from each guide and are repeated here word for word. Fractional and interim ranges are 2026 market rate cards, not a quote. Recruiter fees of 20 to 30 percent of first year base are excluded throughout.

A guide answers the general case.

If you want the answer for your product, your stage and the person you already have in the seat, that is one call rather than an afternoon of reading.

Book a Product Strategy Session

30 minutes with Sivan Kadosh. No pitch, no deck.

Cluster two

Product Leadership Explained

5 guides

Five guides defining the roles founders keep being sold. Read these before you write a job description, because most product leadership hires go wrong at the definition rather than the interview. Each one states what the role owns, when it is the right one, and what it is commonly confused with.

What a Fractional CPO Actually Does The scope, the hours and the decisions the role carries, as distinct from advising. 12 min read What a Fractional Product Manager Does Where a part-time PM helps and where the work needs someone in the room every day. 14 min read What a Chief Product Officer Owns The mandate, the metrics and the stage at which the title stops being premature. 15 min read What a Product Consultant Delivers What you get, what you do not, and how to scope the engagement so it ends cleanly. 10 min read The Product Management Consultant Guide How to brief, price and review a consulting engagement without losing control of the roadmap. 14 min read

Cluster three

Strategy and Roadmap

6 guides

Six playbooks for deciding what to build and defending that decision for a quarter. Start with the strategy guide if your roadmap is a list of customer requests, and with the operating model guide if the strategy exists on a slide but not in the sprint.

Write a Product Strategy That Survives the Quarter A one-page format that makes trade-offs explicit instead of listing ambitions. 15 min read Build a Roadmap Around Outcomes How to replace a feature list with commitments you can be measured against. 16 min read Set a Product Vision People Can Act On What a vision has to contain before it changes a single engineering decision. 15 min read Manage a Product Portfolio Without Starving It How to fund several product lines when only one of them is currently paying. 15 min read Run Product Discovery on a Small Team A framework that fits four people and still kills bad ideas before they are built. 16 min read The Product Operating Model for SaaS How strategy, planning and delivery connect so the roadmap is not rewritten monthly. 14 min read

Cluster four

Growth and Go-to-Market

6 guides

Six guides for the point where the product works and the growth curve does not. They cover launch motion, pricing pressure, churn and lead qualification, and each one assumes you already have customers rather than a hypothesis.

Choose a SaaS Go-to-Market Motion Self-serve, sales-led or hybrid, and what each one demands of the product. 14 min read Product Marketing for Founder-Led Teams Positioning, launch and messaging when nobody owns the function yet. 13 min read Reduce Churn in SaaS Where churn is actually decided, which is usually inside the first two weeks. 16 min read Product Qualified Leads, End to End How to define a PQL your sales team will actually call, and instrument it. 21 min read Write a SaaS Business Plan The version investors read and the version the team runs on, and how they differ. 11 min read Customer-Led Growth in Practice Turning support tickets and churn calls into a prioritised set of product decisions. 18 min read

Cluster five

Building and Shipping

5 guides

Five guides on getting software out of the door, including the two decisions founders regret most: what goes into the first release, and which parts of engineering to keep in house. Written for teams shipping with fewer than fifteen engineers.

SaaS Development, End to End The full path from idea to a product people renew, and where teams stall on it. 15 min read Create a SaaS Product From Scratch The sequence of decisions before the first line of code, in the order they matter. 16 min read Scope a SaaS MVP What belongs in a first release, and the test for cutting everything else. 16 min read Outsource SaaS Development Safely What to keep in house whatever the cost, and how to structure the rest. 16 min read Run SaaS Projects Without a PMO Planning and review rituals that hold up at twenty people and cost almost nothing. 15 min read

Cluster six

Metrics and Operations

5 guides

Five guides on measuring product work honestly. They cover which numbers a board actually asks for, how to run experiments at low traffic, and the operational plumbing that keeps reporting from becoming a second job for the product team.

The SaaS KPIs That Matter at Your Stage Which numbers to report monthly, and which ones are noise before Series B. 17 min read Product Management Metrics How to measure a product team without turning velocity into the goal. 14 min read Experimentation at Low Traffic Getting usable answers when you will never reach statistical significance. 22 min read Set Up Product Operations The reporting, tooling and rituals worth centralising, and the ones that are not. 20 min read Forecast SaaS Revenue With Product Data Connecting activation and retention data to a forecast finance will accept. 13 min read

Not sure which guide is yours?

Tell me the number that is not moving and I will point you at the two guides that apply, or tell you it is a conversation rather than a reading problem.

Book a Product Strategy Session

30 minutes with Sivan Kadosh. No pitch, no deck.

Book a Product Strategy Session

Thirty minutes with Sivan Kadosh. Bring the decision you are stuck on and I will give you the answer for your product, including when the answer is that you do not need me.

Book a Product Strategy Session

30 min, no pitch

Bring one product challenge

Book a Product Strategy Session