Fractional COO support that only gets paid when you grow

You have built something - revenue is coming in and you have the start of your infrastructure. And yet most of it still runs through you. There are only so many hours in your day, so you’ll be capped out until you address it.

A fractional COO gives you senior operations leadership without a full-time salary. At the HumanFirst Accelerator, it comes without a retainer too. We work on a profit-share model, which means we only make money when you make more.

Tell us about your business or see how our clients have grown 5x on average in a year.

What a fractional COO actually does

A fractional COO is an experienced operations leader who runs the day-to-day engine of your business on a part-time basis. They own all things operations - the systems, the numbers, the hiring, and much more. Essentially, they own the follow-through that a founder rarely has the time for. Their job is to turn your vision into processes and metrics that make growth scalable, so the business can grow to run without you.

The difference between a fractional COO and a consultant comes down to ownership. A consultant hands you a plan and moves on. A fractional COO stays and executes that plan alongside you, and is accountable for whether it works.

In practice, the role usually covers:

• Operations and systems. Documenting how the business runs, removing the steps that break, and building processes your team can follow without you.

• Financial clarity. Getting clean numbers in front of you so pricing, spending, and hiring decisions are grounded in what the business can actually support.

• Team and hiring. Structuring roles, hiring the right next person, and building the accountability that lets you delegate with confidence.

• Tools and automation. Replacing manual, time-eating tasks with systems that quietly run in the background.

Signs you have outgrown running operations yourself

Most founders wait too long to get operations help. A few signals that the time has come:

• You are the bottleneck. Work stalls when you are unavailable.

• Growth has plateaued and you suspect the limit is capacity or delivery quality.

• Your numbers are a question mark. You are not fully sure which services or months are actually profitable, or you can’t quote your key numbers offhand at all.

• You are working more hours for a business that feels more stuck or difficult to run than it did before.

• You keep meaning to build systems, and that work keeps getting pushed so you can focus on the urgent thing in front of you.

If any these feel familiar, you are ready for operations leadership. The question is which form of it best fits your needs.

The four MAIN options

When founders go looking for operational supoprt, they usually run into the same four choices, and each has a catch.

Generic cohort and accelerator programs give you a curriculum and a group chat. They rarely account for the specifics of your business, and no one there is responsible for the outcome.

High-priced advisors bring real experience and a polished strategy deck. Then they leave, and the execution lands back on you, which was the problem in the first place.

A stack of fractional leaders billing hourly can plug individual gaps. That said, no single person is accountable for the whole engine, and the billing meter is always running whether or not anything improves.

Bringing on a partner solves the accountability question. It also means giving up equity and a permanent share of everything you’ve built.

All four put the financial risk on you before you have seen any return. We built the HumanFirst Accelerator to change that.

How the Human First model works differently

We combine strategy and execution under one roof, and we price it on profit-share. There is no retainer, no hourly billing, and no equity handed over. We set a baseline from your current profit, and we earn a share only of the growth above it. When you grow, we grow. If you don’t, we do not get paid.

That structure changes the alignment completely. It makes us incentive-aligned in a very unique way, giving us real skin in the game, so we are in the details with you. And it lets you access co-founder-level support without taking on more financial risk to get it.

We built this because we have run businesses ourselves, and the existing options above never sat right with us.

What we take off your plate

Because we work across the whole business, you get one accountable team instead of a patchwork of contractors. Makena leads operations and finance, building the systems, financial visibility, and hiring structure underneath your growth. Olivia leads marketing and sales, aligning your demand engine so more of the right customers come in and convert. Between us, that spans operations, finance, marketing, sales, brand, automations, and hiring, all coordinated and done with you.

Between us we bring more than 25 years of combined business advisory experience and almost 1000 businesses supported. Our clients have grown 5x per year on average while working with us. Those results come from staying in the work day-to-day and from a pricing model that only rewards us when you get results. You can read the case studies here.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a fractional COO cost? Traditional fractional COOs charge either an hourly rate or a monthly retainer, often several thousand dollars a month or $100-500/hour regardless of results. The HumanFirst Accelerator works differently. We charge a share of your profit growth above a set baseline, so the cost scales with the results and there is no fixed monthly bill.

Fractional COO vs full-time COO, what is the difference? A full-time COO is a senior salaried hire, often well into six figures even before including benefits and equity. A fractional COO gives you that same caliber of leadership on a part-time basis for a fraction of the cost, which suits businesses that need the expertise before they need (or can justify) the full-time seat.

How is this different from a management consultant or agency? Consultants and most agencies deliver a strategy or a specific service and hand it back to you to run. A fractional COO owns execution across the business and is accountable for the outcome. Our profit-share model takes that accountability one step further, because we are only paid when your profit grows.

How quickly will I see results? Early wins often show up within the first weeks. Meaningful profit growth typically builds over the following months as the results compound. Because we are paid on that growth, we are motivated to reach it as quickly as the business realistically can.

What does profit-share actually mean here? We set a baseline from your current profit, then earn a share only of the growth beyond it.

Ready when you are

If you are tired of shouldering the stress of running your whole business yourself and want a partner who is genuinely on the hook for your growth, we would love to talk.

Tell us about your business and book time with us directly.