How to Go From Executive Assistant to Chief of Staff: The Move Nobody Promotes You Into
Being a better EA won't make you a Chief of Staff. The move runs on a different kind of authority, and you can start earning it before the title changes.
How to Hire a COO: The Job Description Founders Write, and the One They Should
Most COO job descriptions describe a very senior project manager. Here's the one that describes an owner, and the five questions that find one.
Chief of Staff vs. Executive Assistant vs. Operations Manager: Three Jobs Founders Keep Hiring Into the Same Seat
Hire an EA and expect a Chief of Staff, and you'll be disappointed. Hire a Chief of Staff and use them as an EA, and they'll be gone in a year. The difference isn't seniority.
Do You Need a COO Yet? What Breaks at 20, 50, and 80 People
Founders ask “do we need a COO?” at the wrong moment — usually after something broke. Here’s what breaks at 20, 50, and 80 people, and which of it means yes.
Fractional COO vs. Full-Time COO: When Renting Stops Making Sense
The question isn’t whether you can afford a full-time COO. It’s whether you have a full-time COO’s worth of decisions yet. Four questions that tell you.
Fractional Was the On-Ramp. Full-Time Is the Destination.
Why the operator role keeps getting rented — and why the smartest founders eventually buy.
The fractional operations wave was one of the healthiest things to happen to growing companies in years. It let founders who couldn't yet justify a full executive hire get real operational leadership on a schedule they could afford. It worked. I've done it, and I've watched it change how companies run.
But I want to say something that cuts against my own business model: for a lot of companies, fractional was never the destination. It was the on-ramp — the thing that finally showed them the role was load-bearing.