What is a Fractional COO?
A full-time COO may not make sense for your business, especially if you’re a startup. On a typical roadmap of hires, a COO often comes a lot later on, simply because it’s not seen as a priority.
I’m here to share with you why it absolutely is! BUT hiring someone for this role doesn’t have to be laborious, or expensive. This is where a Fractional COO (sometimes referred to as an Interim COO, Part-time COO, Outsourced COO, or Remote COO) comes in.
Fractional COO services give you access to experienced operational leadership without the full-time cost.
This person will help you bridge the gap between your vision and the execution of your vision.
What can this look like?
Turning high-level strategy into actionable priorities
Building and mentoring leadership teams
Improving accountability across departments
Cleaning up and documenting processes
Identifying bottlenecks and fixing inefficiencies
Planning for growth, exit, or transition
Some businesses need help to stabilise their operations. Others want to prep for a sale or need support to help a founder step back. Every engagement is different, because your business is unique and you have your own vision.
Why should hiring a COO (fractional, or otherwise) be a priority?
These people are the doers.
They’re the implementors, the executors, the go-getters.
They address one of the most common bottlenecks founders face: trying to do everything themselves.
Shifts the Founder Focus to Growth
As a founder, your highest value work is vision, strategy, product, and client relationships.
Without a COO, you spend too much time on admin, team management, and process issues.
A COO takes operational ownership, letting you focus on scaling the business rather than just running it day-to-day.
Brings Strategic Operational Expertise
You could hire an EA / VA or Founder Associate to help with your admin, but Fractional COOs come in with experience running systems, projects, and teams.
They can think like a CEO, yet are able to implement on the actions.
They can identify inefficiencies, implement processes, and optimise workflows that a founder might miss.
This leads to smoother operations, fewer mistakes, and faster decision-making.
Enables Scalability
Without operational leadership, growth is hard to manage: the business becomes dependent on the founder for every decision.
A COO creates repeatable systems and SOPs, meaning the business can scale without the founder being a bottleneck.
Improves Team Performance
A COO manages the people, processes, and projects, ensuring teams know priorities, deadlines, and responsibilities.
This reduces stress, confusion, and burnout across the business.
Provides Accountability & Structure
Founders can feel stretched and reactive; a COO ensures things actually get done.
They track metrics, set performance goals, and maintain operational rhythm, so growth isn’t just wishful thinking.
Cost-Effective Flexibility (Fractional Option)
A fractional COO offers all these benefits without the cost of a full-time executive.
You can start with part-time support and scale up as the business grows, keeping overhead manageable.
Mitigates Founder Burnout
Constantly juggling operations + strategy leads to stress and burnout.
Delegating operations to a COO frees the founder to work on high-impact decisions while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
Hiring a COO is less about “luxury” and more about unlocking the founder’s time and potential, building a scalable, efficient business, and ensuring that growth happens in a structured, predictable way.
Without this support, many startups plateau or founder burnout slows progress.
