02 · FRACTIONAL CPO
The engineering was never going to be your problem.
I embed with technical founders building agentic AI as a fractional CPO. Autonomy design, evaluation, unit economics, and the product answers enterprise buyers ask for. Two days a week, and I will tell you in the first conversation if you do not need me yet.
Not sure where your product's stuck? Run my free 20-minute Founder Teardown →
Who this is for
I work with funded startups building agentic AI that need senior product judgment now, not in six months once they can afford a full-time hire.
Good fit
- Funded (pre-seed to Series B) and building an agentic AI product
- Technical founders who need product rigor without giving up a co-founder seat
- Need to hire a first PM but aren't sure what "good" looks like yet
Not a fit
- Looking for a permanent replacement for a full-time product leader
- Pre-product, idea-stage, without a working prototype yet
The problem, in the words founders use
Technical founders building agentic AI are usually excellent at the hard engineering problem and under-equipped for the product decisions wrapped around it. Not because they lack judgement, but because nobody in the building has sat on the buyer's side of an enterprise AI purchase.
Three ways to engage
Start with the free teardown. What follows depends on whether you need an answer, a product leader, or a hire.
Founder Teardown
Twenty minutes on your product, free. An honest read on where it is stuck and what I would look at first. No deck, no follow-up sequence. If the answer is that you are fine, that is the answer you get.
Founder Product Diagnostic
2 weeks · fixed fee · written findings
- Autonomy map: what your product decides alone, recommends, or must never touch
- Evaluation approach that holds when the label is delayed or contested
- Unit economics per outcome, and which capabilities get more expensive as you grow
- The questions your next enterprise buyer and your next investor will ask
Fractional Product Leadership
Two days a week · three-month minimum
- Own roadmap, autonomy design, evaluation, pricing and packaging
- Work alongside your existing team rather than replacing anyone
- Sit in front of enterprise buyers where a product answer closes the deal
- Thirty days' notice either side, so it never becomes a permanent cost
Your First Product Hire
4–6 weeks · fixed fee · ends with a handoff
- Write the role and the level honestly, against the ambiguity they will absorb
- Design an interview loop a confident but unqualified candidate would fail
- Sit in the loop with you and calibrate on real candidates
- Hand over roadmap, decisions and context so they start with a running product
Why AIAUTOMIC
"I've been the founder in the room, not just the advisor outside it."
I founded and ran Healthouts, pivoting to a B2B white-label model and securing partnerships with Boston Children's Hospital and the Joslin Diabetes Center, architecting the AWS infrastructure myself and building the go-to-market from zero. Before that, as VP at Way2SMS, I took a cross-platform messaging app from whiteboard to launch and mentored seed-stage startups on product-market fit inside its accelerator. Since then I have shipped three products recognised by Gartner and Forrester: Luma, an AI chatbot platform I took to Leader in The Forrester Wave at Serviceaide, driving nearly $2M in new ARR across 20+ enterprise brands; GAVel, an AIOps platform launched on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace at Neurealm; and Now Assist at ServiceNow, where I was Principal Product Manager for Generative AI. That's the combination a fractional CPO engagement needs: founder empathy plus enterprise-grade product execution.
Track record
Two decades building products, and teaching them.
Product leadership & guest lectures across
Engagement model
Everything starts with the free teardown, because you should see how I think before anything is scoped. Diagnostics and hiring engagements are fixed fee; the retainer is monthly with thirty days' notice on either side. Fees are quoted per engagement and depend on your stage and market, so ask and I will give you a number on the call rather than a range on a page.
Common questions
Is this a full-time commitment?
No. This is fractional, typically a few structured hours a week plus async availability. It's built to give you senior leadership without a full-time hire's cost or equity.
What happens after the engagement ends?
Every engagement is built toward a clean handoff, either to your first full-time product hire (which I'll help you find) or to your own team, with a roadmap and process that doesn't depend on me staying.
Should we hire a fractional CPO, a consultancy, or a full-time CPO?
They are good at different things. A consultancy produces a recommendation, a fractional CPO takes decisions, a full-time CPO leads an organisation. We have written the comparison out in full, including the cases where a fractional arrangement is the wrong answer: fractional CPO vs consultancy vs full-time hire.
Do you take equity?
That's decided case by case depending on stage and scope. Bring it up on the call.
Building an agentic AI product and missing a product co-pilot?
One call. Bring your current roadmap and we'll tell you plainly where the gaps are, founder to founder.
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