The original title is "The Founder Bottleneck: When to Bring in a Fractional COO"

Short summary

The article argues that early-stage startups slow down not because the work is hard but because every decision routes through the founder, creating a bottleneck. It identifies the signals that indicate it's time to bring in a fractional COO: recurring operational questions, idle team members waiting on founder decisions, and onboarding that lives only in the founder's head. A good fractional COO encodes recurring decisions into systems the team can run independently, freeing the founder for work only they can do.

• •Founder bottleneck occurs when all decisions route through one person, slowing the entire company
• •Signals to hire a fractional COO include recurring operational questions and team members blocked waiting for founder decisions
• •A fractional COO's job is to systematize recurring decisions so the team runs without founder involvement

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