Fractional Chief Product Officer (CPO)

Build, Optimize, and Scale your Product with Christos

20 Years of Hands-On Experience with 12+ Startups

During my career, I have served as a fractional leader for more than a dozen companies, formulating and executing product and growth strategies while leading multidisciplinary implementation teams. I know firsthand how challenging it can be to remain relevant in the fast-moving tech world while joggling the conflicting priorities and ever-changing needs of a startup.

Whether you are building an innovative product or scaling your product organization, you will find hands-on leadership and support in my expertise and desire to help!

40+ Product Launch and Growth Projects · $20M+ Early Funding Raised

Goals and Outcomes

Product Strategy and Roadmap

Understand your audience. Validate ideas. Define a powerful vision. Fine tune and prioritize your roadmap. Communicate clearly with cross-functional teams. Establish a mission-driven organization.

Product Management

Define business model and product functionality. Prototype and validate features. Fine-tune customer experience. Create a comprehensive Go-to-Market strategy. Manage diverse stakeholders. Build and launch your product.

Market Fit and Product-Led Growth

Create your product-market fit roadmap. Define metrics/KPIs and experiments across your AARRR funnel. Implement data-driven growth strategies. Set up customer-oriented product operations. Build a product-led organization.

Operation of the Product Organization

Establish Agile product dev processes. Hire and lead multidisciplinary teams. Facilitate accountability, communication and collaboration. Keep people engaged, motivated, and productive. Scale the product organization.

Success Stories

Givsum

Work: Defined product-market-fit strategy, streamlined activation, improved customer support effectiveness
Outcome: Record months with 80K MAU and $2M annual GMV. Raised $1M seed

Chapa

Work: Focused on market traction, improved acquisition and activation for the newly launched product
Outcome: 50x revenue growth in 6 months crossing $100K MRR

Jumba

Work: Defined KPIs and growth experiments, improved customer experience, increased retention and revenue
Outcome: $700K in monthly GMV with 70% increase in profit margins. Raised $4.5M

Relay on Demand

Work: Focused on customer journey, identified data patterns, improved acquisition, reduced churn
Outcome: 3x revenue growth in one year. Raised $500K crowdfunding

Contact Us To Learn More

PLEASE COMPLETE ALL FIELDS

Engagement Process

Step 1: Warm up with a short-term pilot assignment
Step 2: Confirm shared vision, chemistry, and team fit
Step 3: Align on longer-term objectives, deliverables, and timeline
Step 4: Get results with Christos' deep expertise!

Pricing

Fractional CPO engagements are billed at fixed monthly rate helping you plan expenses while saving thousands off the full-time cost!

Hear from Founders Who Worked with Us

“It was such a pleasure having Christos as my EIR at the WE4A Programme powered by Seedstars for Safeem. He helped me in particular reframe the outlook of my startup. To add, he is very knowledgeable about his role in guidance of major metrics required to support entrepreneurial strides.”

Princess Adeyinka Tekenah, Founder/CEO, Happy Coffee (Nigeria)

“Christos was able to add tremendous value to our efforts in trying to grow our edtech startup as we focused on mobile learning for learners around the world. Christos brought his expertise and skills to help us manage internal projects more effectively and streamlined our sales process by identifying gaps where we could improve.”

Samer Bawab, Cofounder, eFlow (UAE)

“My few weeks with Christos were highly educational, opening my eyes to what a real product development process looks like, saving us a ton of time and cash. His approach to his work is like a proud craftsman, really taking the time to understand the issues and objectives, and putting his whole heart and soul into helping us deliver true value to our clients. Forever grateful!”

Alex Tanti, Cofounder/CEO, Racecheck (UK)

“Christos and I worked together during my mentorship program with Seedstars. He played a vital role in our business growth, coached us on product development and sales, and helped us to create robust operational processes. He has good analytical skills and was very instrumental in helping our business thrive. I highly recommend his expertise.”

Inonge Imasiku, Founder/CEO, Mangwee Payment Systems (Zambia)

About Christos

Startup Builder | Product Leader | Dreamer

I have more than two decades in entrepreneurship as a (co)founder, business consultant, and mentor, helping startups launch products, gain market traction and raise capital. My goal is to support companies that combine market success with social good. I also help the founder be a better entrepreneur and evolve as the company grows. I look forward to working with you!

US SBDC, EIR

LabEight, EIR

SeedStars, Mentor

ADEI, Program Manager

Venture Garden, Mentor

Faster Capital, Mentor

I help tech entrepreneurs build & scale effective product organizations and impactful products

Clients

Why Hire a Fractional CPO

A Fractional CPO Is Focused on Results

Create strategic roadmap / Prioritize tasks / Launch product / Drive growth and scale / Increase revenue / Improve effiency

Fractional CPOs Are Product Team Leaders

Lead teams to success / Guide implementation / Assess and implement initiatives / Coach team members and help them grow

A Fractional CPO Ensures Customer Satisfaction

Do customer research / Set up feedback loops / Create engagement strategies / Support customers / Reduce churn / Ensure customer success

Hiring a Fractional CPO Pays Off Quickly

Avoid the cost of hiring a full-time employee / Get results faster / Decide exactly what type of help you want / Avoid hidden costs

Benefits of Working with Christos

Deep Expertise and Expert Guidance at a Fraction of the Cost

A trusted partner and advisor
Mindful leadership as foundation for company growth
Proactive mission-driven methodology
Precise measures of success and execution strategies
Hand-on support (in the trenches with your team) when needed

As a Fractional CPO, Christos partners with the CEO and company leadership to:

Build product strategy and roadmap

Streamline processes and improve delivery times

Improve communication between leaders and execution team

Increase customer satisfaction

FAQs

What is a fractional CPO?

A fractional Chief Product Officer (CPO) is a part-time product executive who drives product strategy and execution, working closely with the CEO, high-level management, and the development teams. The fractional engagement means that they are not a full-time employee within your company but have a more mission-driven consulting role. They bring in critical expertise and have many successful product launches behind them, making their part-time role produce full-time results.

When should I consider hiring a fractional CPO?

You should consider hiring a fractional CPO if:

You're a new startup and can't afford a full-time CPO.
Your CPO is overwhelmed with daily tasks and can't focus on overall vision and strategy.
Your previous CPO didn't work out and you need the role filled quickly.
You know just the type of product assistance you need and it doesn't require full-time engagement.
You want a proven expert well-versed in the startup environment to lead your product team to success.
Your product strategy, product management, and implementation need an outside perspective.
You have a special type of product that requires specific expertise you don't have within the company.

What are the most important things to look for when I'm looking to hire a fractional executive?

The main things to consider when hiring a fractional executive are experience, expertise, availability, and price.

How long have they been in product management roles?
Are they familiar with the tools you use and any other tools necessary for their role?
How many successful product launches have they had?
What type of companies have they worked with?
Why did they leave and what kind of feedback did they get on those prior engagements?
Can they accommodate your needs and schedule?
Can they see the project through and deliver the end result?
Can you afford their services considering the estimated amount of time needed to fulfill set goals?

What are the responsibilities of a fractional CPO?

The main responsibilities of a fractional CPO revolve around product strategy and roadmap, product development/management, and product implementation (does it meet the needs of customers). Mainly, they are brought on to accelerate product launch and help achieve product-market fit.

Why not just hire a full-time Chief Product Officer?

The costs of finding, interviewing, onboarding, and orienting a full-time CPO can be substantial. In addition, it may not work out due to misalignment of vision, work practices, or culture. Then you're back to square one, with no Chief Product Officer and even less money to onboard a qualified expert.

What are the benefits of hiring a fractional CPO?

A fractional CPO brings immense expertise, product knowledge, and a fresh perspective to a company. Here are some additional benefits:

They cost less than a full-time employee and the onboarding process is simpler.
They will take some burden off the executive team, while propelling the development forward.
They act as consultants to management and as team leaders to implementation teams, bridging the gap and taking ownership of monitoring the progress and results.
They can act as an interim CPO if you're currently without a full-time CPO.

What are the downsides of using a fractional CPO?

Finding a fractional CPO that's a good fit for your organization will require time and effort.
You will need to orient them about your vision, product, goals, culture, and introduce them to the rest of the team.
If your fractional CPO will work remotely, you will have to rely heavily on digital communication, which can cause misunderstandings.
With a remote position, there may also be less opportunity for oversight of daily tasks, so it's crucial to have lines of communication open.
If you need a lot of help with your product strategy and execution, a CPO's hours may pile up, resulting in higher costs.
You may want to onboard them to a full-time position but they may not be available for that.

How long before I see the results when hiring a fractional CPO?

Fractional CPOs are high-performance individuals who are focused on delivering results quickly and efficiently. It's likely that they are formulating a plan during your initial conversation and already have some checkpoints and suggestions in mind. You may expect to see increased team performance within the first month of hiring a CPO. Depending on where you are at the moment, and where they get to jump in, you may increase your speed to market 2-3x with their help.