Fractional Leadership for a Founder-Led Startup at an Inflection Point

The Challenge:

Andes recently partnered with a lean, founder-led startup with early traction and growing external demand. The product was strong, investor interest was real, and business development conversations were picking up. But behind the scenes, the team was stretched. There wasn’t the time or internal capacity to build the structure needed to support the next stage of growth.

Like many early-stage companies, the founders were doing everything: steering product, fielding customer conversations, coordinating hiring, and reacting to a steady stream of new opportunities. Priorities were shifting quickly, and the systems that had worked at 15 people were starting to fray.

They didn’t need a full-time COO or a formal People lead, but they did need someone who could drop in, connect the dots, and build systems that could grow with them.

The Solution:

Andes stepped in as a fractional operating partner (~10 hours/week) to stabilize what was already working and build the missing infrastructure without slowing the team down. The scope focused on three key areas:

• People Infrastructure: Codified how the team worked by documenting decision-making norms, roles, and values-in-action. Built a repeatable hiring and onboarding process that helped new hires land quickly and contribute with confidence. Introduced lightweight performance rhythms that supported clarity and growth without adding unnecessary overhead.

  
  

• Business Operations: Helped translate company goals into clear priorities, ownership, and execution plans. Created internal operating rhythms (weekly planning, async updates, cross-functional visibility) that made progress more trackable and less dependent on founder memory. Took on high-leverage projects that didn’t have a clear home but were slowing momentum.

  
  

• Business Development Support: Partnered with the founders to develop business development processes that reflected how the team actually worked—collaborative, high-context, and product-driven. Organized the outreach motion into a clear, trackable system and created simple, usable materials (decks, summaries, internal briefs) to support consistency and follow-through. The goal wasn’t to “professionalize” too early—it was to make sure the team could pursue meaningful opportunities without dropping the thread.

  
  

The Results:

In just a few months, the company made visible progress—internally and externally:

• The team had a clear, consistent operating rhythm, freeing the CEO to focus on product and long-range strategy

  
  

• Critical roles were scoped, hired, and onboarded through a repeatable, founder-aligned process

  
  

• Day-to-day priorities were better aligned, with greater team ownership and accountability

  
  

• Business development conversations were tracked, supported, and more likely to close

  
  

• Founders had more space, and the team had more clarity and capacity to keep scaling

  
  

Just as importantly, everything Andes helped build was designed to stick, so the team could carry it forward without needing ongoing external support.

The Key Takeaway:

This engagement worked because it matched the company’s stage—offering structure without bureaucracy, momentum without chaos. The goal wasn’t to redesign the business. It was to create the space and systems for the team to keep growing intentionally, sustainably, and with less friction.

Andes came in as a steady, trusted partner. Not loud. Not overbuilt. Just someone who could move across people, ops, and business development, listen closely, and quietly build what was needed. The work was shaped by real context, delivered in collaboration with the team, and designed to run without us. Clear-eyed support, practical systems, and a respect for the pace and personality of the team is what made the engagement both effective and lasting.