Startup Consulting
Startup consulting gives an early-stage B2B SaaS founder a senior product executive who decides what to build and why, validates it against real demand, and turns that into a lean roadmap. The work is measured on evidence of product-market fit, not output. A standard engagement is $8,000 a month for 20 to 25 hours, with a 3 month minimum in 2026.
This engagement fits a pre-seed to Series A B2B SaaS company in the zero-to-one phase, where product decisions have the highest leverage and mistakes are most costly. If three of the four lines below describe your quarter, the fit is strong.
Stage
Pre-seed through Series A, with a technical team and no product executive.
Revenue
Pre-revenue to early ARR, or revenue without product-market fit.
Symptom
You are shipping fast and learning slowly, and each new customer wants a different product.
Decision
You are weighing the first product hire after a raise and are not sure the role is defined.
Not for you if you want an agency to build the product for you, need a co-founder rather than an adviser, or are looking for introductions to investors rather than a product that earns them.
Every figure below is from shipped, measured work in engagements led by Sivan Kadosh as Fractional CPO. None of it is a projection.
Sivan is an excellent product manager, product leader and team member. He cares passionately about delighting customers and is highly capable at all levels from strategic direction to writing detailed documents. I would recommend him 10/10 to any company.
Sivan Kadosh
Fractional CPO. 18+ years leading product in B2B SaaS, real-estate tech and fintech. You work with me, not a bench.
Startup consulting is senior product judgment applied at the stage where you have the least data and the most at stake. In practice it is a fractional advisor for early-stage startups: the product executive you cannot yet hire, answering what to build and why before engineering capacity is committed. Background reading: the startup consulting guide and how to create a SaaS product.
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| Startup consulting | MVP development | |
|---|---|---|
| What it answers | What to build and why | How to build it |
| Typical cost | $8,000 a month, 20 to 25 hours | Scoped per build |
| Commitment | 3 month minimum, then monthly | Per project |
| Best for | Direction and validation before spend | A validated scope ready to build |
At zero to one the expensive mistake is not building the wrong feature, it is building the right feature for a customer who was never going to pay. I would rather spend the first month proving demand is real than the next six months shipping against an assumption nobody tested.
If the direction is already validated and you need the thing built, read about product development consulting.
You get one senior product executive alongside the founding team for 20 to 25 hours a month, accountable for evidence rather than documents. That covers validation, the roadmap that follows from it, and the narrative that raises the next round.
Adjacent engagements: product development consulting, product strategy consulting and fractional CPO.
$8,000 / month
20 to 25 hours a month · 3 month minimum, then monthly
Market rates for this work run $3,000 to $15,000 a month. Wider scope or more days a week moves the number, and I tell you which before you book.
Included
Not included
Design and engineering delivery capacity. I lead your team, I do not replace it.
01
Thirty minutes on your riskiest assumption. You leave with the highest-leverage next move whether or not we work together.
02
Customer conversations and market evidence first, then a roadmap scoped to what the evidence supports.
03
Build against a named metric, review on a fixed cadence, and change direction on evidence rather than opinion.
Bring your roadmap and your retention numbers. You get a senior product read on both.
Typical improvement after two to three quarters of engagement. Your result depends on your starting point, team maturity and scope. The delivery figures follow the DORA four key metrics.
Sivan is an excellent product manager, product leader and team member. He cares passionately about delighting customers and is highly capable at all levels from strategic direction to writing detailed documents. I would recommend him 10/10 to any company.
Sivan is an excellent product manager and I wholeheartedly recommend him. He has created value in a variety of ways, from top-down vision, mission and goal work alongside the senior leadership team, to taking on complex business analysis and wireframing tasks.
Sivan played two major roles at the same time as a CEO and VP Product at Naxex. As part of his role as VP Product, he identified creative ideas, developed sharp strategies and built the road map while focusing on customer experience and business needs. Any company would be lucky to have Sivan.
These and further recommendations are verifiable on my LinkedIn profile, and all 18 are listed on the references page.
Still comparing options? Read the startup consulting guide or what to do about revenue without product-market fit.
Thirty minutes with Sivan Kadosh. Bring your riskiest assumption. If you go ahead it is $8,000 a month for 20 to 25 hours, with a 3 month minimum.
Book a Product Strategy Session 18+ years leading product as CPO and VP Product across SaaS, real-estate tech and fintech. I help Series A and B founders turn product work into ARR, activation and retention without the cost of a full-time CPO.
About Sivan →Stuck on a product decision?
30 min, no pitch, no deck
