In an effort to get back to writing and publishing more and continuing to experiment I am freeing myself from publishing here and spending more time publishing on Substack: https://ericfriedman.substack.com/

There are very easy ways to write, record, and publish and I hope you will join me there.

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Today, I realized that ChatGPT now has memories across posts.

In April 2024 ChatGPT has this to say:

1. Persistent Memory: When you tell me something you’d like me to remember, I can store this information and recall it in future conversations. This helps in maintaining context and continuity, making our interactions more personalized and efficient.
2. Privacy and Control: You have control over this memory. You can ask me to forget certain things I’ve remembered or to review what I currently remember.
3. Dynamic Updating: As our conversations evolve, I can update or modify the memory based on new information you provide. This ensures that the memory remains accurate and relevant to your needs.
4. Contextual Usage: The information I remember is used to provide more tailored responses and suggestions based on your specific context and preferences.

I have been thinking about this concept for awhile and 2018 I described it Algorithmic Lock In as it related to Spotify. the more you use it, the better it becomes. Its very hard to migrate your taste profile once it has been established. The other is the Data Exhaust that similarly comes out of a service you use. My articulation of this from 2008 was “The more data left behind, that can be harvested, the better the underlying network.” This is not to say that the data left behind can’t be harvested for evil instead of good, it just means that the lock in effect is real.

This brings us to my point today, which is that ChatGPT is now building a user data moat. The more you use the OpenAI platform, the more data it ingests about you. You can control, edit, omit, and contour this information (as described above) as you see fit. This is a fascinating new way to think about the moat of a AI business. As AI companies are struggling to support the huge compute power necessary to run against smaller revenues than expected, the more “sticky” the platform the better chance they have of succeeding. In this NYTimes article it is described that startups in the space have little chance to succeed without the financial support and partnership of a large platform in the space – enter Microsoft, Meta, and others getting into the game. This David+Goliath match makes for a very deep pocketed, and now potentially deeper moat standard.

As ChatGPT continues to build and iterate, there is a high likelihood that my past actions and energy put into it will benefit me more – thus justifying the subscription even further. AI is getting smarter everyday, and the AI you use everyday is getting smarter for you to use.

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Sometimes this break can come in the form of time off or a vacation, while other times it means leaving the role completely. In my capacity as a fractional COO and a coach I see this all the time. The good news is that you are not alone, and the bad news is that nobody should feel this way.

The best description I have ever heard of burnout is “lack of control”. This means that you can actually be experiencing burnout without working 80 to 100 hour work weeks, but from a whiplash that happens without having control. You can even experience burnout working 40 hours a week (or 20!). Its not about the time worked its about the control you have.

So what does it mean to have burnin? It is the exact opposite of burnout.

So, what is the opposite of burnout? It’s a state that I like to call “burnin”. Burnin is that flow state that you get into when you are working somewhere and things are going well. You have the right balance and flow to get things done. You are in harmony with your team, and you have a clear objective and answers to the classic 1:1 meeting problems. You know what you are supposed to be doing. You know what your manager is doing. You know what your company is doing. To have this awareness, and be in this state of confidence and positive workflow is burnin.

As an investor with a keen eye for early stage companies and founders, I have seen the effects of burnout and its impact on teams and businesses. Burnout is a feeling that is all too familiar for many, and it can manifest in a number of ways, such as exhaustion, cynicism, or a feeling of being overwhelmed. It’s usually only after the fact that people realize they were “burnt out” and need a break. Sometimes this break can come in the form of time off or a vacation, while other times it means leaving the role completely.

The concept of burnin is about being in control of your work and feeling a sense of ownership and purpose. When you have this sense of control, you are more likely to be engaged and motivated, and less likely to experience burnout. Burnin is not just a state of mind; it’s a way of working that can be fostered and encouraged within a company.

To achieve burnin, it’s important to have clear objectives and expectations. This means having a clear understanding of what you are responsible for, and what is expected of you. It also means having a clear understanding of what your team is responsible for, and how your work fits into the broader objectives of the company.

This means having open and honest conversations with your manager, your team, and your colleagues. It means being transparent about your workload, your schedule, and your priorities. It also means being willing to ask for help when you need it, and being willing to offer help when others need it.

Finally, it’s important to have a culture of trust and support within a company. This means creating an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their concerns, and where they feel supported in their work. It means recognizing the value of work-life balance, and taking steps to ensure that employees have the time and resources they need to recharge and rejuvenate. As an investor, I look for companies and founders that embody this spirit of burnin, and I believe that those are the companies that will succeed in the long run.

By fostering a sense of control, purpose, and engagement within a company, we can create a culture where people thrive, and where burnout becomes a thing of the past.

The post Burnout vs Burnin appeared first on Eric Friedman.

The theme of becoming a better advisor has been a core principle of how I make decisions – from the people I choose to work with, companies I invest in, founders/execs I coach, and really what I do with my life. I wrote about what I am doing with my life and what I am optimizing for which is wealthy vs. rich, but I was lacking a platform in which I could do this at scale, until now. Now, when I get asked the question “how do I do fractional work like you?” I can give them my usual answer, but also invite them to share their skills with the world on GoFractional.com.

I haven’t talked about this publicly before, possibly because of embarrassment or shame, but I was one of the unlucky ones laid off in 2020. The pandemic had huge impacts on many, and at the time I didn’t feel comfortable sharing it openly as many do today. I struggled for a long time in how to wrap my head around it – “me?” “am I a failure?” “what could I have done differently?” and the questions haunted me. I realized soon after, that doing what I do best, was exactly what I should be doing; Fractional work with amazing people. I threw myself into Fractional COO work, executive coaching, and investing (where possible). The magic was that all three are intricately connected, but more on that later.

For the last 4 years I have been a Fractional COO – building a practice of business operating excellence for clients. I have carved out a niche, and pride myself on being someone others come too when they want to do the same. I would constantly have “coffee chats” and “can I pick your brain” time with friends and colleagues who saw what I was doing and wanted to do the same thing. Some wanted to do something similar in a different discipline. A handful of times I brought in outside help to turbo charge work done for a client. Then about two years ago, I reunited with one of the smartest CTOs I know and we began connecting our old engineer network with early stage companies that needed to ship faster.

I realized recently that I have been putting people into business my entire career. I am someone that people lean on when they are at critical junctions in their careers, are at a crossroad in their life, or are otherwise thinking about what is next. I have been lucky to work with and manage some incredible people, some who have managed to reach incredible professional heights. Obviously I am not saying that I am solely responsible for their successes, but I would like to think that I played a role and contributed to their foundations. Its been empowering, exhilarating, and humbling. Through this network I have grown my own practice, again operating, coaching, and investing in some of them.

Putting engineers into companies that need them is an incredible feeling. Its lucrative for the engineer, great for companies, and the part time work gives them time to build on the side – chasing their passion. This has led to some amazing outcomes – fundraises, full time jobs, and more.

At the same time, I became the go-to “fractional coo” guy that people wanted to talk too to launch their own consulting path. At the same time my partner at I started down the path of putting out a way for engineers to tell their story better, a platform to show off their skills. There is another story here about that pivot, but the realization that these two things were one in the same way clear. We had built an incredible platform for engineers to do fractional work. We had built a great tool to show vs. tell a professional work history story for talent. We had a great network of technical and non-technical tallent. Like most things, focus is critical and my partner John and I recently consolidated our efforts, putting more wood behind less arrows. So we consolidated all things together into this new platform. It leverages the incredible profile building machine that John built (ViewSource), with the talented engineering boutique firm we built (GottaGoFast.com) and the directory of operators (FractionalOperators.com) into one coherent platform; GoFractional.com

This is a personal post, and away from the typical hyperbole of a launch, minus the marketing speak and growth hack headlines to make you click.

GoFractional.com is the culmination of everything I have been doing personally and professionally until now. It serves 3 main goals;

• Put people into business – grow fractional talent for great companies
• Help more people – generate demand from great clients
• Make smarter investments – my “secret weapon” to do more diligence than anyone having someone embedded in an organization

If you are thinking about what might be next and want to explore consulting I would love to hear from you – we are growing an incredible community of “people like us”. This can also be a place for now, as its ok to work full time!

If you are thinking about how to drive exponential impact in your team or company at a fractional of the price of a FTE, reach out as I would love to find you someone great from GoFractional.com

It would mean the world to me to help me spread the word, and more importantly help me put more people into business – hire one of them fractionally today!

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I now also run a Fractional Consulting platform for those looking to become fractional operators and those companies looking for fractional help. Putting out more content like this is a great way to help those consultants I work with on my platform, as well as future consultants who might want to start doing fractional work.

Why am I giving this away? I really believe in paying it forward to all the consultants and operators out there who might benefit from a template like this. It has everything you need to get started if you are just beginning your consulting journey, and it has advanced workflows and toggles for those who have been consulting for awhile. I break down section by section what is included below, and have callout guides marked in blue throughout the Notion Template.

Interestingly I choose to keep my proposal and agreed upon terms at the bottom of every template. This ensure that there is alignment on what is being done and what was agreed too every step of the way. It also introduces clients to my workflow very early on into the process which is helpful for those who are new to Notion or any other kind of project management system.

Title & Overview

Obviously you should name your document accordingly – most of mine are ClientName x Building The Machine or SpecialSituations – my two consulting entities.

This section is a Toggle for tracking todos – both for YOU the consultant, and the client. Ideally you have shared this document with all key stakeholders and can @ message them to they know you have tracked an item. This keeps everyone aligned on WHO is doing the task, WHEN it will be completed by and WHAT the details of the task are. Blocked on a task? There is a place for that. Delayed on a task? Everyone should know why. Not sure what to do with idle time? This is the place for you.

The Workstream is the heart of the template and work you do together. It is made up of 2 parts; Dates and Bullets. My personal preference is to call out Discussion Items, Blockers, and ToDos so that you can always add to an agenda through the week, in an asynchronous way. Most of the time spent in synchronous meetings is spent in the workstream. The Todos section is a duplicate of todos above and should be brought up to the top section for everyone each time there are items. They can be moved or copied so you already have a record.

Deliverables are the agreed upon items that when looking back in 1 month, 3 months or a year they can clearly see that they are complete. My rule of thumb is to underpromise and overdeliver. It sounds so simple, but its incredible how many people can’t align and deliver on what was promised. This is an integral part of the negotiation process and once completed, should be turned into a table like below. You can see the designations of each Deliverable in the Status column which are Red = not done/started, Yellow = in progress, and Green = Done. The dates show the last time this item was updated. The Detail outlines what the material details are for that project.

Collateral is where all the “stuff” goes and gets linked. If you think you will need it again, bookmark it here. Presentations, images, documents, video files, audio files, links to pages – really anything you need to reference. Over time I end up creating pages within this section that even link out to previous versions. Dropbox is a great repository for this info and you can link to the item and then link it in Notion. Sometimes teams like using Notion itself to house these files. This library of things becomes very helpful when you are looking on the fly for the latest version or file.

Proposal Overview is a living breathing part of the document through the sales process. I outline the steps, the timing, and even add and edit proposals as they evolve. This means that you could go into a sales call with a client and outline the things you heard, what needs to be done, and when, the create this summary. They may have a chance to read it, add their comments, and make changes – this then becomes your 2nd Proposal and so on. This allows you to really show an evolution of the project and what you heard through the time together.

Outline of Services Is a complete overview of what I offer. Its completely optional, but I find it helpful. There may be other stakeholders looking at this document. There may be other executives that need to sign off on this budget or projects. This allows someone who is coming in without a lot of context a chance to see who you are, what you are capable of, and what your services actually are. For me this is an exhaustive list that never gets every item in a proposal but its a great way to show off.

The Overview and Engagement are the critical piece of the puzzle that highlight what you will be doing, how long it will take, and a list of deliverables you will achieve. The Engagement portion clearly calls out the time of the contract, the details of the contract, and the price. In my case most engagements are monthly retainers. This is a excellent way to avoid talking past each other with a client and aligning on exactly what is happening, when, and for how much. It also lets your champion take this information to their boss or CEO and align on what this is. The key to many of these situations is making the person look great, showing that you are a key part of the puzzle to gain success, and to get alignment and sign off. I can’t tell you how many stories I hear about misalignment of deliverables or price – even after folks have been talking for months together.

Tactical Next Steps are critical to successfully going from proposal to signed contract. After reading through a lengthy proposal, its amazingly clear to have a set of next steps. These can outline the procurement procedures necessary with large companies, the accounting practices of a startup, or anything in between. For me this clearly spells out that the engagement will be governed by a MSA, the timing of the project, and how payment terms work. There might be things here that you thing are “obvious” or “we already know that” but that is hardly ever the case. Clients appreciate attention to detail and a clear set of next steps. Chances are they are busy, and this is a great chance to pick up the slack.

I hope this has been helpful – creating this Fractional Consulting Template was a work of love and a culmination of all my work for the past few years. It is 100% free, but there is a pay what you want option in case someone finds value and wants to buy me a cup of coffee

If you end up using this template or have suggestions I would love to hear from you – contact me at @ericfriedman

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In 2020, Marc Andreessen published a profound essay in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that became a rallying cry for startups called; It’s Time To Build. In it, he discusses the importance of building various businesses, from housing, education, manufacturing, and transportation — anything that might hasten the dream of entrepreneurship and construct a better world so that we can have a better tomorrow. Even though technology is getting better every day, he talks about why the modern world wasn’t ready for a disaster of this size.

A lot has changed since the middle of 2020, but much has remained the same. He outlines the areas to work on, what will happen with improvements, and a foundation to build upon. I wanted to take things a step further. If the time to build is now, and we all agree, how can we ship something over the line that makes a difference?

Let’s Get Building

Even though the world and markets are going through many changes now that the pandemic is over, momentum still needs to be improved. To build a stronger United States, people must overcome their inertia, drive, and will. A mission this exorbitant in size and scope is difficult to fulfill but critical to our country’s and society’s success.

Andreessen is open to suggestions about what needs to be built to solve the aftershocks of a post-pandemic world. However, the US building industry needs consistent funding, a laser-like focus, and organized efforts to get back on its feet. He recognizes that it is necessary to have patience when negotiating with institutions that are disadvantageous to builders, making the process of construction aggravating as hell.

I have a different mantra and a different question: I accept this call to action and would like to know if shipping is just as critical as building.

Why Shipping Is Important When Building

Shipping defines software engineering in a magical way that is challenging to understand. It’s the grace and elegance of building something, bringing it into the world, and seeing millions of people use it to benefit their quality of life. The appeal is that scaling a product to millions of users simply requires a focused team. This collective of quality team members fosters an environment conducive to creative resolutions.

Examples of this are the 30+ people that Craigslist employs, a platform accessed by millions, if not billions, of internet users every day. It’s evident in the rise of companies like WhatsApp and Instagram that employed a mere 20+ people before their acquisition. Each is a demonstration of the critical role that shipping plays in building. When executed correctly, it’s admirable. After all, the American dream is composed of the desire for financial stability while having a positive impact on the world and ultimately inspiring future generations.

In the fintech ecosystem, the development of a product could mean the transfer of billions of dollars per month, and consumer product creation and delivery can have an impact on a vast network. When you release a software service that solves a problem that many people have, your monthly revenue can grow exponentially.

So what exactly does shipping mean?

• Shipping means a product worth using.
• Shipping means producing something to be proud of.
• Shipping begets more shipping.
• Shipping means completion.
• Shipping is about a team coming together in concert to achieve a common goal.
• Shipping is movement.

The art of shipping something means that you have worked as a unit to put something out into the world that you can take pride in; a return on investment that helps others.

There has never been a better time to start working better together. By working with people who care about the craft of engineering and building their own products to simplify the lives of others, we can ship smarter.

The idea of shipping faster is about working in unison towards a common goal. Beyond the needs of a Kanban board or a list of tickets to be completed, there is a person with a problem that needs to be solved. Building for this person is critical to any software company’s success. Surrounding your team with people who have done it before, shipped incredible products to millions of people, and can level up the team around them is pivotal to a common goal.

Shipping Faster is About Caring About Your Product, Your Team, and Your Customer.

GottaGoFast.com is home to an amazing group of engineers who all want to make their own products and contribute to intellectually interesting things. We fulfill their goal of completing meaningful consulting work that pays the bills while allowing the time and energy required to bring an idea to fruition. We believe that we need more builders, more founders, and more shippers. Startup experience at the highest levels of engineering is very hard to come by, making recruiting difficult when looking for people who can increase the shipping speed and efficiency of a team. Gotta Go Fast increases shipping speed and quality in tandem by bringing on engineers who want to build on a fractional basis while also working individually on their own projects.

Shipping faster doesn’t mean burnout.

One of the most common questions we get around engineering time is why they are not full-time or “working” in a full-time capacity. To answer this question, it’s best to first realize that no engineer is actually coding 40 hours a week, even as a full-time employee.

To understand the time and energy spent, simply talk to any founder-level or staff engineer – they will share how they get into the flow state of coding, how they approach their days, and what great output looks like. This shows their worth, productivity, and shipping expertise are not measured by hours or lines of code.

By working on their projects and companies, engineers have the creative and mental energy to dive into a team’s startup with ease. Long gone are the days of worrying whether your top engineer is feeling burnt out. Instead, we know that they are driven to be creative by their business ventures. By hiring an engineer through Gotta Go Fast, you help them afford to pursue their dreams by having them spend the majority of their time working on your startup’s difficulties and encouraging their passion on the side.

Solving Client Shipping Challenges And Combatting Their Own.

At their core, startups need people who ship, so we exclusively work with shippers that have a proven track record. That’s how difficult and easy it is. Finding people who have done it before at venture-scale startups ensures that clients are working with amazing developers.

Great engineers want to work with great engineers, and that is exactly what they get with Gotta Go Fast. A group of like-minded founder-level builders, all working on venture-scale startups that want to ship faster. They can build and ship, combining their passion projects with paying their bills. They can bootstrap what they want to see in the world in a way that makes more sense for them.

In a perfect world, you have the team you need when you need it for the price you prefer. In the meantime, GottaGoFast.com can assist you in locating the candidate your company needs to fill in the gaps. We have provided fundamental engineering support for scaling startups, instrumented team hiring procedures for venture companies, and built alongside the top startups in the country. Reach out if you’re interested in having these or other engineering issues fixed.

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“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

Bill Gates

This is a fun quote to start things off with because I began this journey with my 2020 predictions. I think I certainly overestimated by year end happenings for sure, but wonder if I will be wrong about the next few to round out the decade. As always I am publicly posted my predictions in this spreadsheet for accountability.

2022 Predictions Legend = -1 = -.75 = .5 = .75 = 1
1/ Ownership of game assets becomes normal switching between games, and platforms. The underlying technology is here and in game progress should be transferrable. This makes for “taking” a game community easier, and introduces new complexity for big game studios I talked about this a bit on the Deep End from On Deck.	-1: Obviously this is not happen at scale. There were a few arguments about this online but it did not become the norm.
2/ There is no “breakout” Metaverse in 2022. This doesn’t mean there will not be in the future, but we do not find ourselves with a billion people in a leading metaverse platform.	1: Nailed it. I think this one was obvious, but with Facebook rebranding to Meta it was a necessary prediction
3/ Apple acquires Peloton. Far fetched, but with a balance sheet that is gigantic and the Peloton stock around $38 ($12bln market cap) at the time of this writing, I could see this making a lot of sense.	-1: Failed it. Didn’t happen.
4/ the war for the living room is won and the winner is your phone. No cable box, entertainment system or device like chrome cast or fire stick wins – it’s just your phone. Smart casting and dumb TVs become the norm. This is the sun Microsystems future we were promised but our phones are the gateway.	.5: I think this one became true for me this year. We are still in the middle of the streaming wars, but its clear that casting to screens is becoming normal in our house
5/ the US power grid becomes a focus point for conversation from a major disruption due to an attack.	1: I really hate being right about this one.
6/ Apple consolidates operating systems into Apple OS across phone, tablets, desktops, and cars. A unified approach means cross platform comparability, easier subscription support, and better customer experience.	-1: Failed it.
7/ Authentication as an Experience – whether it’s a crypto wallet, physical key, or other auth method, websites and entire platform experiences are determined by a login. Much like the promise of sun Microsystems in years past, we will have dumb terminals and smart logins. Your entire experience and process will be governed by a authentication. Identities can be real or not, but if if you don’t have an auth you don’t have an experience.	-1: Failed it. I still want this to happen, but as I love to tell founders Hope isn’t a strategy.
8/ Liquid Community – communities create and transact with both security and utility tokens they use to reward, incentivize, and govern their groups. If communities are a moat, now they are even more important to protect. The ebb and flow of how communities can rise (and fall) will be fascinating to watch. Game mechanics within communities will be fascinating to watch.	.5: I hated being right about this one too because the community I was the biggest part of (OnDeck) really went through a massive ebb and flow this year
9/ Oxygen levels in the atmosphere will decrease by a amount that is noticeable to people. This one comes directly from a conversation I had with my father-in-law (a true scientist – professor – and more) about how global warming will continue, but this will be the first time people notice – due to the % of oxygen change.	-1: Failed it. Phew!
10/ If the great resignation is upon us, where is everyone going? They are going to work for themselves. Believing in yourself has never had a higher ROI and the past year has shown me personally that this is a good investment. There is no issue with working for someone else, but the idea that you can invest in something on your own – leveling up, learning, getting certified, or other personal investment will have high returns. Thats it for now – join me on Twitter for the conversation to continue.	-.75: I wanted this to be true at scale, but it only happened by small amounts.

Onwards to another predictions set.

1/ Year of the launch : This is a battle cry for myself to launch more things in 2023 but I hope others do too. I want to see more launches, more experiments, and embracing the word F.A.I.L. as the acronym First Attempt In Learning.

2/ AI has its moment in 2023 and beyond. ChatGPT and GPT4 will grow and have huge adoption. There will be a surge in new AI funds, hackathons, and all writing apps, todo apps, and productivity apps will integrate with one or more of the AI platforms. More than 100m people will use these API endpoints and not even realize it.

3/ A new document sharing app will emerge. (think a new DocSend) with AI to make content suggestions. “X% time was spent on your team slide – think about elaborating on it” and “person X has come back to this materials 7x – think about following up with them. This will encourage new content creation and be supportive and changes not just informative with analytics.

4/ There is a breakout video game that uses components of Web3 – nobody knows or cares that there are cryptographic handshakes under the hood. Selfishly I hope this is Wolf.game and the price of $wool soars. I found this game about a year ago, am heavily biased into its success, and jumped in to understand the mechanics of a on and off chain game ecosystem.

5/ Zero Knowledge Proofs have a killer app moment – probably reserves for exchanges and banks. Without disclosing the amounts, institutions can show they have enough assets to back withdrawals. If you haven’t heard of them before here is a great primer. The biggest win here will be that people will use this technology without knowing (or caring) what is happening under the hood.

6/ Peloton is bought by Nike. PTON is down 77% YTD and I was wrong last year about Apple picking them up so this year I’ll go with Nike. I am still a huge fan of this co and use mine (mainly for the screen!) all the time.

7/ Micro PE firms have their year to execute. Funds that raised to M&A struggling SaaS startups take advantage of the lack of fundraising that occurs and they execute on deals they set out to do. Consolidation of ARR companies that are doing $5-$10m happens.

8/ There is a cohort of companies started in 2023 that rivals the vintage of 2008. This one will be hard to measure in 12 months, but I really believe this is a unique moment in time to build something world changing.

9/ Self hosted cloud storage booms. Articles like this one from the NYTimes articulate why and how our data hoarding on someone else’s cloud service might not be so great. Self sovereign data storage becomes normal. Someone running their own VPS or seedbox becomes normalized.

10/ People and companies continue to invest in startups vs. firms and funds – they use platforms like Sydecar to invest without having to raise a traditional vehicles. If the 10 year fund crawled so that rolling funds could walk, the SPV is now in a full blown run. I am biased here because I handle these Special Situations. There has been incredible software, legal constructs, and acceptance of unique investment vehicles allowing new entrants to invest through convenience. The focus on audience, distribution, operational expertise, and vertical understanding matter – startups get funded by “non traditional” leads and this is a good thing.

I really wanted to write that we enter a recession as a prediction (which may be true) but wanted to stick to a glass half full outline for my top 10 predictions so ill include this here “N/ We enter a recession. Not the most prescient, but after reading lots of macro economic outputs over the past few months and watching inflation and GDP this feels like a given.”

That is all for now! Thanks for reading this far and if you agree (or disagree) please let me know. I learn by writing publicly and it is always humbling to put my predictions out there.

Happy 2023

The post 2023 Predictions appeared first on Eric Friedman.

The month of December is a strange month for VCs and Founders. 2022 is no different and I have always found the discussions and chatter around it to be extremely confusing. On the one hand there are a number of things happening, deals getting done, M&A, capital being deployed and general fury of activity. On the other hand you can’t have a coffee catch up in NY or SF with a founder and not hear the constant references to “pencils down” and “everyone is done until next year” and “things aren’t happening right now”. I call this general period Schrödinger’s Fundraise.

I think the same window is commonly accepted at the end of the summer – lets call it August – where people reference things happening that while true, aren’t always the norm. The “hurry up and wait” mentality that a lot of people experience right now is very real. Every year is different than the next, but 2022 feels especially guilty of having this dead month cast upon us.

I was talking with a company I work with earlier in the week who is going through a fundraise now and summarizing the advice they have gotten. About half the people have said close on the capital you can now – get the money in the bank – and recognize that nobody is going to be doing anything for the duration of the year. The other half have said stay the course, continue to fundraise, and get back to building once you have closed your target goal.

My view is that people are in fact active. The ebb and flow of fears in the local markets and the macro markets will always continue. There are fund vintages to deploy. There are deals to be made. There are email inboxes to be zeroed out and work to be done. I think that taking advantage of this so called slowdown is in order, embracing this period, and keeping people accountable to the task at hand.

A few examples to keep the inboxes flowing

Everyone assumes things aren’t happening right now, which means I could be one of the few emails in your inbox right now.

Others believe that investors aren’t deploying capital right now, but I believe that good deals get done in any climate and any month.

My assumption is that things are quiet for you right now which is what its a great time to share…

my personal favorite the NNTR I have been heads down working on the following and wanted to share it – no need to reply as I am sure you are busy through the new year but I wanted to put it on your radar

Defaulting to action has served me well. This mentality has kept me and clients share and I wanted to weigh in here. Of course some people are totally checked out and thinking about what is next – but that will be the case throughout life. In the meantime lets keep the cat alive and assume positive outcomes for fundraising, hiring, and operational work.

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Introducing FractionalOperators.com – Operational experts who offer part time help for companies that need them. You can easily get an idea of what someone could offer, their operational expertise and work history, as well as get an idea of how they think through their Fractional Operator profile. If theres a need at your company, you can reach out directly and get in touch.

Need an embedded operator to help with your operational needs? Checkout these amazing Fractional Operator profiles:

For the past few years I have been working as a Fractional COO – a part time operator who can come into an early stage startup and help drive things forward. Sometimes I refer to this as pushing rocks up hills because its a Sisyphean endeavor, but I love every minute of it.

Many consultants and operators have been reaching to to me asking questions like;

How do I become a Fractional COO?

How do I do part time consulting for startups while looking for another job?

How much should I charge as a consultant?

What kind of contract do I need to start doing fractional work?

How does equity play a role?

What if I have never consulted for a startup before?

Questions I often hear from fractional operators.

This and many other questions has led me to some very interesting conversations. The advisor in me wants to take every call and answer every question. The entrepreneur in me wants to turn this demand into a business. What you see is the culmination of those questions, my attempt to answer them publicly. They say if you are not embarrassed by v1.0 you didn’t launch early enough – that feeling pretty much sums it up nicely.

After a few of these interviews I realized that I can help these consultants frame themselves as Fractional Operators and provide them a platform to articulate themselves. By doing short interviews with each operators I get an idea of who they are and what they want to be doing, their operational strengths and superpowers, as well as their work history. This provides a simple to navigate and digest overview of each person for someone to read and watch. Those looking for a consultant across a broad set of topics can reach out directly to a person.

I also found an incredible side effect of bringing everyone together – a community of fractional operators! We converse in slack and commiserate about what we do (and celebrate) and I couldn’t be happier to be surrounded by such smart people.

I wanted to get out of my own way and launch this platform as many of the consultants have been excited to share their profiles.

Watch this space and excited to continue to learn as I build.

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