Fractional COO · Operations Catalyst

Operational leadership
built in the
games industry.

Senior operational leadership embedded in your team. For companies that have outgrown what a founder can manage alone, or that are preparing for something the current structure can't support.

Let's talk about your company → How it works

Fractional COO · Engagement Terms

Minimum time

1 day per week

Typical duration

3 to 12 months

Rate

Negotiated to engagement

Starts with

Operations Audit (30 days)

Format

Embedded · Remote or Hybrid

Is This the Right Engagement?

Some problems need an operator, not a report.

Advisory is right when you need perspective and direction. Fractional COO is right when you need someone to own the work.

📉

Founder is the bottleneck

You're making every operational decision, reviewing every contract, and approving every hire. The company is waiting on you. You know it, and you can't fix it by working harder.

📈

Preparing for a round

Series A, B, or a strategic investment. Investors will look at your P&L, your team structure, and your ability to execute at the next scale. OpsCat builds the story by building the systems behind it.

🏗

Systems don't exist yet

Reporting, forecasting, reporting cadences, hiring processes, vendor management. You're running on founder intuition and it's starting to break. You need systems, not just better habits.

🚀

Achieving operational scale

Launching a new product, entering a new market, making a key hire, or signing a major publishing or distribution deal. Events that require more operational capacity than you currently have.

🔄

M&A or exit preparation

Cleaning up the business before an acquisition or strategic exit. P&L normalization, documentation, key-person risk reduction, and operational due diligence readiness.

🎮

Needs games industry context

Not every operational challenge is games-specific, but many are. Milestone-based production cycles, live service economics, publisher relationships, platform dynamics. These change how you structure the business.

Why Games-Specific Matters

Operational leadership in games is different from operational leadership in SaaS. The details matter.

Game production cycles look like software sprints, but they aren't just that. Funding in games doesn't look like B2B enterprise. Live service economics, platform holder relationships, milestone-based development, and the cost structure of a shipped title are all specific enough that a generalist COO has to learn the hard way. I've already been there.

Production rhythms Milestone-based development, Alpha/Beta/EA/Launch gates, and the ops work that sits between them.
Funding realities Publisher advances, grants, angel, seed, and platform investment programs. The right structure for each.
Live service economics P&L for titles before and after revenue. When to invest, when to maintain, when to wind down.
Platform and publisher dynamics What first-party relationships actually require operationally.
Studio scaling patterns How studios grow from 5 to 50 to 150, what breaks at each stage, and how to build for the next one.
Ecosystem and partnerships Cloud, Unity, Epic, middleware, co-dev. How to structure and manage relationships that are also business development.

How a Fractional COO Engagement Works

Four phases. Real accountability throughout.

Every engagement starts with an audit so we both know exactly what we're solving. Structure evolves from there.

Phase 01

First 30 days

Operations Audit

A structured diagnostic across P&L, team, systems, and operations. Produces a priority map and a clear picture of what the company actually needs.

P&L and financial operations review
Team structure and capacity assessment
Process and systems gap analysis
Stakeholder and board alignment

Phase 02

Months 1 to 3

Prioritize and Plan

Set the operational agenda. Define the 3 to 5 things that matter most, sequence them, and build the plan for executing them.

90-day operating plan
Objectives and Key Outcomes
Hiring priorities
Vendor and partner structure

Phase 03

Months 2 to 12

Execute and Lead

Embedded operational leadership. P&L ownership, team management, stakeholder reporting, and execution of the operational agenda.

Weekly operational cadence
Board and investor reporting
Hire and onboard key roles
Build and run the systems

Phase 04

End of engagement

Transition or Extend

Handoff to a full-time hire, continuation at reduced scope, or formal conclusion. Designed from the start to leave the company stronger without me.

Successor identification and hire
Knowledge transfer and documentation
Ongoing advisory option

Scope of Work

What a Fractional COO engagement covers.

Scope is defined at engagement start and refined during the audit phase. Not everything below is always in scope; the right scope is what the company actually needs.

P&L and Financial Operations

Budget ownership, financial reporting, cash flow management, and financial model maintenance. Works alongside your finance lead or handles it directly if that role doesn't exist yet.

Systems and Process Build-Out

OKR and reporting cadence, project management systems, vendor management, and the operational infrastructure that lets a company run without founder-as-bottleneck.

Team Structure and Org Design

Hiring priorities, org structure, management development, and the team architecture that supports the next stage of growth. Includes running key hiring processes.

Board and Investor Operations

Board reporting, investor communication, board meeting prep, and the governance work that institutional investors require. Critical for pre-round and post-round companies.

Production and Delivery

Milestone planning, cross-team coordination, delivery risk management, and the production operations that sit between creative leadership and financial outcomes.

Fundraising Support (Selective)

Building networks, systems, and coaching founders through the fundraising process from someone who has sat on both sides of the investment table multiple times. Games-industry context included.

Engagement Terms

Structured to fit. Not to overcommit.

Fractional COO engagements are structured around what the company actually needs. Terms are set at the start of the engagement based on the audit findings.