Operations and strategy work for small businesses that have outgrown how they were set up.
We set up the systems your business runs on, document how things actually work, and help you take yourself out of the loop. Fixed-price sprints or monthly retainers, depending on what you need.
Build the systems. Document the work. Step into the harder calls.
What we actually do.
Four kinds of work, more or less. Most engagements are one of these, sometimes two.
Build the systems
Pick the CRM, set it up the way your team works, wire the integrations, write the automations. We use your tools, in your accounts. You own everything when we leave. No proprietary stack to learn, no monthly licence fee paid to us.
Defined sprint. Fixed scope, fixed price.
Document the processes
The things that live in your head. The onboarding sequence you've never written down. The way you actually run a quarter. We sit with you, ask the right questions, write it up so someone else can run it.
Structured interviews + written playbooks.
Be your fractional COO
Standing weekly call plus async availability. We help you make the harder calls, prep for board meetings, write the difficult email, sequence the next few quarters. For founders who don't need a full-time hire but want someone in the room who's done this before.
Monthly retainer. Three-month minimum.
Run point on a transition
A merger, a pivot, a leadership change, a turnaround. We embed alongside your team for the duration — running the operational integration, sequencing the decisions, holding the calendar accountable while you handle the human side.
Block fee. Scoped after the first call.
When people call us.
The same handful of situations come up over and over. If one of these sounds like you, we should talk.
"I'm the bottleneck on everything."
You know it. The team knows it. The business can't grow until things you do can be done by someone else.
"I want to hand things off but no one knows how I actually do it."
The processes live in your head. Hiring isn't the problem — you can hire. The problem is what you'd hand them once they start.
"The spreadsheet has started to break."
It runs the business but it's getting fragile. You're not ready for a six-month CRM implementation, but you can't stay where you are either.
"I need a sounding board who's seen this before."
You don't want a full-time COO yet, but the bigger decisions could use a second brain in the room. Someone who isn't part of your team politics.
"Something is changing and I need someone steady in the room."
Merger, pivot, leadership change, turnaround. Restructures tend to work when someone is quietly sequencing the operating decisions in the background.
Some recent work.
Industries, names, and sizes disguised. The work intact.
Replaced four subscriptions with one CRM.
A small coaching practice running off four overlapping tools. We picked the CRM, migrated the data, wired the automations, trained the team. They cut their monthly SaaS bill, stopped losing client notes between tools, and got a system the founder actually checks now.
Documented the onboarding before the new hire started.
An agency about to hire its first operations person. We sat with the founder for three weeks, wrote up the client lifecycle from first contact to project wrap, built a playbook the hire could run from day one. They were running quarter-end reviews by month two instead of month six.
Standing weekly call, still going four years later.
A holdings business with a founder who wanted a sounding board for the harder calls. Decision prep, board prep, the difficult email sitting in drafts, the operating questions that didn't fit anyone else's role. Started as a 6-month engagement.
Merged two consultancies into one operating team.
Two acquired firms with overlapping tooling, doubled-up roles, and confused clients. We ran the operational integration: combined the CRMs, consolidated tools, redesigned the org chart, rewrote the client communications. Inside three months: one team, one stack, both founder groups still talking.
Common questions.
Depends on the work. After the first call we send a written proposal with the shape, the timeline, and a fixed fee. You know the total before you sign anything — no hourly billing, no scope creep.
Most people don't on the first call. That's what the first call is for. Half an hour of you describing the situation, us asking questions. If we're not the right fit we'll say so on the call and usually point at someone who is.
Sprints are fixed-fee. Retainers are monthly. Embedded transitions are quoted by the block. Whichever shape, you know what you're paying upfront.
The people you talk to on the first call. No junior associates, no offshoring, no bait-and-switch. The same applies for ongoing engagements.
Sprints: usually within two weeks of the first call. Retainers and embedded work: we take on a handful of new engagements per quarter, so there's sometimes a few weeks of wait.
Yes. Send it through with your intake or before the first call. We treat the substance of engagements as confidential by default regardless.
Recognise yourself in any of this?
Tell us about your business. Five minutes on the intake form.
Let's talk