Fractional product leadership
You have engineers. What you are missing is product leadership.
You have people who can build. What you do not have is someone at the intersection of product strategy, business outcomes, and engineering reality: someone who has done this before and can make the call when it matters.
A fractional CPO gives you executive-level product clarity without the full-time commitment.
The Role
What a fractional CPO actually does
Product strategy and roadmap
Deciding what to build and why, tied to your actual growth targets and not just what your loudest customers ask for. Every item on the roadmap earns its place by connecting to a business outcome.
Prioritization and sprint alignment
Making sure engineering always knows the highest-leverage thing to ship next. Eliminating the ambiguity that causes teams to slow down, re-estimate, and re-scope at the worst possible times.
Stakeholder communication
Translating product decisions for your board, investors, and sales team so that everyone is aligned and the engineering team can stay focused.
Team structure and hiring
Building the product function you will need at your next stage, not just the one you need today. Whether that means your first PM hire or structuring a team of five, the org design decisions made now compound fast.
User research and discovery
Staying close to real users so strategy does not drift from what the market actually wants. The best roadmaps are grounded in evidence, not intuition alone.
Signals
Signs you need this now
Not sure which applies? A Product Teardown is a one-to-two week fixed-scope engagement that surfaces exactly where the product is losing momentum and what a senior leader would address first.
Track record
The Free Range Solutions difference
Product leadership as an engineering discipline. Hypotheses made explicit. Success metrics set before work begins. Feedback loops short and measured.
91%
patient booking conversion rate from LLM-powered clinical workflows
75%
reduction in manual data processing after redesigning product and workflow
60k+
daily active users on a mobile consumer product, with 150% month-over-month engagement growth
30 to 9
billing cycle days after restructuring the product operating model around real-time data capture
The Engagement
How a fractional CPO engagement works
Most engagements run one to two days per week over a minimum of three to six months. That cadence gives enough continuity to see real product and business outcomes, without pulling Andrew into a full-time role.
For teams at an earlier stage, the Product Advisor Retainer is a lighter-touch monthly option. For teams who need a concentrated burst of strategic work, the Product Strategy Sprint is an eight-week focused engagement with a defined outcome. If the bottleneck is manual workflows rather than product direction, start with the AI & workflow modernization audit. See all engagement options on the services page.
FAQ
Common questions
How is a fractional CPO different from a product consultant?
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A consultant diagnoses and recommends. A fractional CPO is accountable to execution: attending your sprint reviews, making prioritization calls, communicating with your board, and showing up week over week until the product is moving in the right direction. The engagement ends when the outcomes are achieved or the team is ready to own the operating model internally.
What stage of company is this right for?
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Pre-seed through Series B. The sweet spot is seed-stage companies that are shipping but do not yet have senior product leadership, and Series A companies that need someone to build a scalable product operating model before the next round. At Series B and beyond, the engagement often transitions to building and mentoring an internal product team.
How long does a fractional CPO engagement typically last?
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Most engagements run three to six months with a monthly renewal option. Some clients extend for a year or more as they scale through multiple product stages. A minimum of three months is required to move from diagnosis to visible outcomes: anything shorter is a sprint, not a leadership engagement.
Do you work with teams outside Ohio?
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Yes. Free Range Solutions works with founders and product teams across the US. Many clients are fully distributed teams. For companies based in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati, or anywhere else in Ohio, in-person strategy sessions are also available.
What industries does this work for?
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Andrew's deepest experience is in health tech (clinical AI, EHR integrations, HIPAA-compliant workflows), B2B SaaS, and AI-native consumer products. He has also worked in genomics, enterprise data, and sports technology. The common thread is products where data, operations, and user behavior all have to align for the business to work.
Ready for senior product leadership without the full-time hire?
Book a 30-minute strategy call. We will talk through what is happening with your product, what stage you are at, and whether a fractional CPO engagement is the right fit.