Fractional Roles: Why Your Startup Can't Afford To Wait
Scalient Ventures
Go-to-Market. VC/PE Portfolio Value Creation. Exits. Capital Raising. LP and Start-up Investments.
Exceptional entrepreneurs share a common trait with history's great leaders: they refuse to succumb to circumstance. Napoleon didn't win battles because he always had superior resources—he won so many stunning victories because he was able to overcome obstacles with tactical brilliance and speed. Often, issuing swashbuckling mid-battle orders that lesser commanders couldn’t have dared consider.
Unlike Napoleon, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, most of us go through life simply accepting what we are given. Limited budget? Hire accordingly. Top talent unavailable? Settle for what you can get. The greats do things differently. They consistently find ways to secure what they need to win, often with total disregard for what circumstance suggests they can afford.
How does this relate to startup talent acquisition and the question of fractional executives?
The best operators are expensive and already committed—either to well-funded competitors or building their own companies. Most startups can't match Google's compensation packages or offer multi million dollar signing bonuses like Meta. Yet without exceptional talent, failure is all but guaranteed.
Read that again, and internalise it: Without exceptional talent, failure is all but guaranteed.
The rise of fractional executives offers founders who refuse to settle, a solution. Instead of resolving to live with limitations, smart founders are finding a way to access top-tier operators on terms that can actually work for early-stage ventures.
The Macro Backdrop
There are a number of coalescing macro forces that have paved the way for the emergence of the fractional exec.
Workforce dynamics have changed. Pandemic-era remote work normalized flexible arrangements. Now, many experienced professionals increasingly value a level of autonomy that rigid corporate structures cannot offer, and startups can capitalize on this shift.
Demographics compound the trend. The workforce is aging, junior talent is scarce, and AI is displacing roles across industries. This has created a pool of veteran operators that are seeking new models of work. The numbers tell the story: the number of fractional leaders doubled from 60,000 in 2022 to 120,000 in 2024. Top-tier talent that was previously locked into traditional employment is now available to startups willing to think creatively about hiring.
Global funding for startups is declining. It may not feel like it, watching from the sidelines as pre-product AI companies raise the biggest equity finance rounds ever recorded, but the amount of funding available for startups, and VC funds, is shrinking.
As the market continues to recover from the misallocation bonanza of 2022-2023, many of us will have to learn to do more with less.The companies that survive will be those that find innovative ways to compete with larger, better-funded rivals.
Under these conditions the merits of fractional executives naturally come to the fore. Accordingly, it is no surprise that 72% of CEOs plan to increase their use of fractional executives.
Separating Signal from Noise
As with any emerging trend, founders must proceed with caution. Not all fractional execs are created equal. Some have the ability to empower founders to seize the initiative and compete in increasingly darwinian markets, others are simply advisors (the bad kind) that have rebranded themselves to capitalize on the emergence of a new trend.
When considering a fractional exec founders should prioritise operators that are focussed on execution and hands-on involvement. If you are looking for a CRO, you want to work with people who are going to help you close the kinds of deals that are going to enable your business to survive long-term.
The Three Types of “Fractional” Support (And Which One You Actually Need)
The Coffee Chat Advisor - Sadly, what many people think “fractional” means…
The Strategic Consultant
The Execution Partner - What actually moves the needle
The AI Productivity Multiplier
At their best, remote fractional executives can operate more effectively than their office-based peers, owing to their extensive experience and separation from the distractions of your office environment. The proliferation of AI tooling, once again, dramatically amplifies how effective they can actually be.
A fractional CRO armed with AI tools for market research, lead qualification, and proposal generation can easily outperform multiple, less experienced, full-time employees. What makes us so confident that this is possible? At Scalient Ventures, we have seen this scenario play out numerous times. We have discovered first-hand that we can achieve outcomes that would have formally required entire teams.
Act Now
Every quarter without the right talent on your team, is another quarter your competitors pull ahead—gobbling up your dream enterprise deals before you have even mapped their accounts. You might be tempted to accuse us of hyperbole, but imagine if next week a Deel, a Wiz, or a Loveable emerges in your sector, and hits $100m MMR within 12 months—will your investors still be backing you? Or, will they write you off, and—under pressure from their LPs—go off chasing after opportunities that look more like the aforementioned?
The brutal truth is that you simply cannot afford to wait. Your company requires the best, and your job as a founder is to make that happen as soon as is humanly possible. Act now.