Product strategy and narrative
One written strategy the exec team can repeat: who you're for, what you're betting on, what you're deliberately not doing, and how you'll know it's working.
Product Leadership practice
Fractional CPO for growth-stage B2B teams
Short answer
A fractional Chief Product Officer is embedded senior product leadership without a full-time hire. I own product strategy, the prioritization system, the discovery cadence, and the operating review — days per week, quarterly minimum — and I leave your team running it without me.
Who it's for
Product functions that outgrew their founder.
Growth-stage B2B software and technology-enabled services organizations, typically 20–500 people, where product decisions still route through the founder or where a PM team exists without a senior owner. The common thread is willingness to change how product runs — not just a wish for more delivery capacity.
Signals
Six signs you need product leadership, not more PMs.
- The roadmap is decided by whoever argued hardest in the last meeting.
- Discovery gets skipped because delivery pressure always wins.
- Releases ship without a measurement plan, so nobody can say what worked.
- You have PMs but no shared operating standard for how product work runs.
- The board or exec team wants product strategy that nobody currently owns.
- AI features are being added because competitors have them, not because they'll matter.
What I own
Six things I own when embedded.
Roadmap and prioritization system
A prioritization method the team can run without you — scored on impact, effort, dependency, and reversibility — replacing the loudest-voice default.
Discovery and validation cadence
A repeatable rhythm for customer evidence: who talks to customers, how often, what gets recorded, and how findings actually change the roadmap.
Product operating reviews
A monthly review where product performance, adoption, and retention signals get read together, and decisions come out of the meeting.
PM coaching and hiring
Raising the bar on your existing PMs, and defining the role, scorecard, and interview loop for the next hire — so you're building capability, not dependency.
AI-in-product decisions
Deciding which AI capabilities belong in the product, which belong in operations, and which are noise — with feasibility and risk read honestly.
First 30 days
What the first month actually looks like.
Week 1
Read the current state
Interviews with founders, exec peers, PMs, engineering, sales, and support. Review the current roadmap, recent releases, discovery artifacts, and whatever metrics exist. No recommendations yet.
Week 2
Name the constraint
Map how product decisions are actually made today and where they break. You get a written read of the two or three constraints costing the most — strategy clarity, prioritization, discovery, measurement, or team standard.
Week 3
Install the first system
Stand up the highest-leverage mechanism first — usually the prioritization method or the operating review — and run it live with the team rather than documenting it and hoping.
Week 4
Commit the 90-day plan
A written product operating plan: what changes in the next 90 days, who owns each piece, what we'll measure, and what I stop doing as the team takes it over.
How the retainer works
Days per week. Quarterly minimum. Named deliverables.
Shape
Embedded days per week
Term
Quarterly minimum
Investment
Discussed on the call
Every month has written deliverables agreed in advance, and every engagement is founder-led — no junior team, no offshore handoff. If a piece of work needs a specialist in design, data, or engineering, I bring in someone qualified and stay accountable for the outcome. If a fixed-scope start makes more sense than a retainer, begin with the Product Operating Review.
Scope discipline
What this is not.
- Build management or ticket triage — that's a delivery lead's job, not a CPO's.
- Agency-style feature delivery. No dev shop, no white-label build team.
- Writing a strategy deck and leaving. The work is installing systems that outlive the engagement.
- Replacing your PMs. The point is to make them stronger and to hire the permanent owner.
Questions executives ask first.
Is this advisory or interim leadership?
Embedded interim leadership, not advisory. I sit in your operating cadence — exec meetings, roadmap reviews, PM one-on-ones — and own named deliverables each month. Advisory calls without accountability don't change how a product org runs.
How much time do you actually give us?
A committed number of days per week, agreed before we start, with a quarterly minimum so the systems have time to hold. Scope and investment are discussed on the call rather than published, because the right allocation depends on the size of your product org.
We already have product managers. Does this conflict?
No — it's usually the best case. Your PMs get a senior owner to escalate to, a clear operating standard, and coaching. I work through them, not around them.
What happens to confidential product and customer information?
Covered by a mutual NDA before any material is shared. Client work is never named publicly, and no artifact from your engagement appears on this site.
How does the engagement end?
With an exit plan written at the start: the systems documented, the permanent product owner hired or promoted, and a handover period. If you still need me after that, something went wrong.
Who are you?
Aiden Wayne, founder of Fascia Labs, based in Vancouver. More than a decade across product management, SaaS, AI and machine learning, data, and workflow transformation, including confidential enterprise and public-sector environments. Engagements are founder-led, with qualified specialists added when the work requires them.
Not sure a fractional CPO is the answer?
Take the free Product Operating Score, or book the call and describe what's stuck. If the constraint is operations rather than product, I'll say so and point you at the other practice.