Question 1

What exactly does the engagement include?

Accepted Answer

A standard engagement is $8,000 a month for 25 hours: I embed part time as your product leader, own strategy and roadmap decisions with you, run the weekly cadence, and coach your existing PMs. The deliverable is a working product system, not a report.

Question 2

How fast can we start?

Accepted Answer

Typically within 2 to 3 weeks of the first call. The first weeks go to a diagnosis inside your real backlog and metrics, not to onboarding theatre.

Question 3

What is the minimum commitment?

Accepted Answer

Three months, then monthly. Product systems show their first measurable movement inside a quarter; anything shorter mostly measures noise.

Question 4

Do you offer anything smaller than the retainer?

Accepted Answer

Yes: a fixed-scope consulting day at $2,500, scoped up front, with no ongoing commitment. It fits a problem you can already name. If the problem is that nobody owns product, that is the retainer.

Question 5

How do we end an engagement?

Accepted Answer

After the three-month minimum it runs monthly. No exit clause beyond that, no equity, no onboarding fee.

Question 6

Who is this for?

Accepted Answer

Funded B2B SaaS companies between $2M and $15M ARR, usually Series A or B, where the founder is still the de facto head of product and decisions queue behind them.

Question 7

Who is it not for?

Accepted Answer

A company that needs someone in the office every day, or daily hands-on management of a large product organization. That is a full-time or interim seat, and I will say so on the first call.

Question 8

Chief Product Officer or Chief People Officer?

Accepted Answer

Chief Product Officer, the product executive. The HR role shares the acronym and search results mix the two freely. If you are hiring for people and culture, this is not that market.

Question 9

Does remote actually work for this?

Accepted Answer

The practice is remote-first from Lisbon and runs with teams across the US and EU. The work is direction: weekly sessions and written decisions. A one-to-two hour time-zone overlap is all it needs.

Question 10

What does a typical week look like?

Accepted Answer

Weekly strategy and roadmap sessions, written decisions between them, and async availability the rest of the time. All working sessions and written artefacts are included in the retainer.

Question 11

Do you replace my team?

Accepted Answer

No. Design and engineering delivery stay yours: I lead your team, I do not replace it.

Question 12

Who do you work with day to day?

Accepted Answer

The founder first, then the PMs and the engineering lead. The engagement is measured on activation, retention and ARR, so the loop always closes with whoever owns those numbers.

Question 13

What results has this produced?

Accepted Answer

Measured, on shipped work: net revenue retention from 102% to 112% at a $30M ARR Martech SaaS; mobile trial-to-paid from 8% to 30%; overall trial-to-paid from 35% to 49%; activation time from 3.5 days to 1.2. None of it is a projection.

Question 14

Can I verify any of this?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The case studies on this site carry the numbers, and the recommendations behind them are public on my LinkedIn profile.

Question 15

Why is the price published?

Accepted Answer

Because you should be able to rule me in or out in thirty seconds. The published market range for this work runs $5,000 to $15,000 a month; my standard engagement is $8,000 for 25 hours.

Question 16

How does this compare to a full-time CPO?

Accepted Answer

A full-time CPO runs $260K to $400K in base and cash, plus equity, and takes months to hire. The fractional seat is $96K a year, runs monthly after the first quarter, and starts in weeks.

Question 17

Do you take equity?

Accepted Answer

The standard engagement is cash only: no equity, no onboarding fee.

Question 18

Do you sell coaching?

Accepted Answer

Not on its own. Coaching your PMs is part of the engagement, part of how the system gets handed over. If standalone coaching is all you need, a dedicated coach is the better buy.

Question 19

What is the Fractional Rates Index?

Accepted Answer

An open dataset of published pricing for fractional executive services, maintained on this site and on GitHub under CC BY 4.0. Every market figure quoted on these pages traces back to it.

Question 20

Can I use the numbers?

Accepted Answer

Yes: quote them, chart them, republish them. Credit saasfractionalcpo.com/data and link back. That is the whole license.

Questions founders ask, answered in full

The engagement

Fit

How it works

Proof

Pricing

The data

Still carrying a question?

Questions founders ask, answered in full

The engagement

What exactly does the engagement include? +

How fast can we start? +

What is the minimum commitment? +

Do you offer anything smaller than the retainer? +

How do we end an engagement? +

Fit

Who is this for? +

Who is it not for? +

Chief Product Officer or Chief People Officer? +

Does remote actually work for this? +

How it works

What does a typical week look like? +

Do you replace my team? +

Who do you work with day to day? +

Proof

What results has this produced? +

Can I verify any of this? +

Pricing

Why is the price published? +

How does this compare to a full-time CPO? +

Do you take equity? +

Do you sell coaching? +

The data

What is the Fractional Rates Index? +

Can I use the numbers? +

Still carrying a question?