Straight answers.

A 30-minute call, no deck and no pitch. You describe where you are and what is stuck, and the call ends with a recommendation, which is sometimes that none of these engagements is what you need right now. If there is a fit, a short written scope follows within a few days.

Primarily remote, which is how most of this work runs best. On-site time makes sense for specific moments: a facilitated strategy session, an early orientation week, or a board meeting. Those get scheduled deliberately rather than defaulted to.

Usually within two to three weeks, sometimes sooner for the smaller engagements. Because only a limited number of embedded engagements run at once, availability for the ongoing work varies. It is worth asking early if timing matters.

Andrew Warner does the work. Free Range Solutions is not a firm that sells senior time and staffs junior delivery. That is a real constraint on how many engagements can run concurrently, and it is the reason the answer above about availability is what it is.

Yes, routinely, and usually before the first substantive conversation if you prefer. For the health tech data work, note that the engagement operates at strategy level and no PHI changes hands, so a BAA is typically not required.

Candor and access. The specific numbers, the churn you cannot explain, the disagreement between founders, the thing that is not working. Engagements that underdeliver almost always do so because the real problem was kept out of the room for the first month.

Senior product leadership on a part-time, embedded basis, typically one to two days a week. Same accountability as the full-time role and a fraction of the time and cost. The four common titles it covers (CPO, head of product, VP of Product, advisor) each have real differences in scope, walked through on the fractional product leadership pages.

Diagnose what is failing rather than picking a title. Unclear company strategy points to CPO. No product function at all points to head of product. PMs in place with unpredictable delivery points to VP of Product. Sound judgment that wants checking points to advisor. Each of those pages includes a comparison table for the call.

No, and the difference is accountability rather than branding. A consultant is responsible for a deliverable and leaves when it ships. A fractional leader is responsible for whether product is going in the right direction, sits in the meetings where that is decided, and owns it when it goes wrong.

That is the intended ending. The engagement helps specify the role, review candidates, and sometimes run the search, then hands over context deliberately. An engagement that quietly becomes permanent has usually stopped building your team's capability, which is a failure rather than a renewal.

Pricing is quoted per engagement after the discovery call, because the same engagement name covers meaningfully different amounts of work depending on your stage, team size, and what already exists. Published rate cards tend to anchor the conversation on the wrong thing. Ask on the call and you will get a straight number.

The Product Teardown is fixed scope and fixed fee. The Product Strategy Sprint, AI audit, and data monetization engagements are fixed scope over a defined timeline. The advisor retainer and fractional leadership engagements are monthly. No hourly billing in any of them.

The advisor retainer has a three-month minimum, for a practical reason: month one is mostly context loading, so judging it on one session would be judging the wrong thing. Fractional engagements typically run three months minimum. The fixed-scope engagements have no commitment beyond their own scope.

Ongoing engagements run month to month after any minimum, with 30 days notice. There is no long lock-in, and an engagement that has stopped being useful should end rather than run out its term.

Occasionally, for advisory arrangements at the earliest stages where the fit is strong and the involvement is ongoing. It is a case-by-case conversation rather than a standing offer, and cash is the norm.