We solve the problems that keep SaaS founders up at night
Senior-level product, technology, and AI strategy for B2B SaaS teams that need to move fast. 20+ years across eight industries.
Fractional CPTO · AI Product Strategy · Hands-on Execution
No pitch. No commitment. Just an honest assessment.
Problems we solve
The stuff that keeps founders up at night: AI product bets, scaling past the messy middle, and building a team that ships.
AI Product Strategy
Define your AI product vision and build the architecture to ship it. We've taken an AI-native product from concept to GA and we'll help you avoid the expensive mistakes we've seen sink other teams.
0-to-1 Product Development
Get from idea to shipped product. We figure out what to build, prove the market wants it, and hire the team to make it real. No 6-month discovery phase.
Growth & Scaling
The messy transitions: SMB to enterprise, founder-led to team-led sales, 4-figure to 6-figure ACVs. We've done these moves multiple times and know where they break.
Fractional CPTO
Your product leader, without the full-time hire. We join your leadership team and own the product vision, roadmap, and strategy while keeping the technical architecture honest. An insider on your exec team, not an outside advisor.
AI Operations Transformation
Stand up an agentic workforce that ships. We've built AI-driven operations from scratch: coding agents, QA agents, support agents. Replacing manual workflows with autonomous systems. This is hands-on implementation, start to finish.
Product & Technical Due Diligence
We dig into the product, the tech, the team, and the AI story. Then we tell you what's real and what's not. We've seen enough deals across 8 industries to know where the risks hide.
Where we've done this before
Led by Darren Card, who's held product and engineering leadership roles at every stage, from employee #1 at a pre-seed startup to post-Series B scale-ups across eight industries.
Lexful: AI-Native SaaS from Idea to GA
Pre-seed · Displacing $100M+ ARR incumbent with AI-native differentiation · Led as fractional CPTO
Product Vision
Executed the product vision and architecture around conversational search and LLM/RAG-powered knowledge retrieval. Made AI the core experience, not a bolt-on feature.
Team & Operations
Hired and built the product and engineering team from zero. Stood up an agentic product operations workforce with AI coding and QA agents. Established SOC 2-aligned security practices.
AI COGS & Monetization
Owned the AI cost structure: token budgets, inference cost tiers, API rate limiting, and storage limit bundles. Designed the credit system tied to real LLM costs while sales packaged pricing in consultation.
GA Launch
Launched in Feb 2026 with paying customers on day one, validating product-market fit against five incumbent platforms as fractional CPTO and sole product and technology leader.
Shipped an AI-native SaaS platform to GA as sole product and technology leader. Defined the product vision and technical architecture (LLM/RAG pipelines, semantic search, API-first platform), built the team, and brought an AI-first knowledge platform to market against a $100M+ ARR incumbent.
Pioneered the LearnOps category. Led SMB-to-enterprise pivot, including API integrations and platform extensibility that unlocked 6-figure ACVs. Key contributor to $5.5M Series A raise.
Led product strategy post-$43M Series B. Drove the composable commerce positioning and API-first architecture that made Elastic Path a MACH Alliance leader. Accelerated roadmap delivery by 18-24 months.
Scaled ARR from $5M to $20M by launching new product modules, API integrations, and an enterprise upsell motion. Ran advisory boards with Fortune 500 customers to inform the platform roadmap.
Migrated 100+ enterprise customers to a unified SaaS platform for live events and audience engagement. Owned the product vision, technical roadmap, and cross-functional delivery end-to-end.
Owned the product for a data-intensive customer intelligence platform serving 300+ global customers. Shipped features across the full stack that drove $1M in new ARR in the first year.
Common questions
What does a fractional CPTO do?
Think of it as having a senior product + tech leader on your team 2-4 days a week. We own the product vision, the technical architecture, hiring, and shipping. Everything a full-time CPO or CTO would, but without the full-time cost. We're not outside advisors. We're in the weeds with your team.
How do you help SaaS companies implement AI?
We help companies build AI-native products, purpose-built around AI capabilities. This includes defining AI product strategy, architecting LLM/RAG pipelines, designing AI pricing models (like credit-based systems tied to infrastructure costs), and making build-vs-buy decisions. We've done this end-to-end, concept through General Availability.
What types of SaaS companies do you work with?
Mostly B2B SaaS at the Seed through Series C stage, $1M to $50M ARR. The sweet spot is teams that know the market wants what they're building but need senior product and tech leadership to actually get there. Especially if AI is core to the product.
What's the difference between bolting AI on and building AI-native?
Bolting AI on means adding AI features to an existing architecture. Think a chatbot sidebar on a legacy platform. Building AI-native means the product is designed around AI capabilities from day one: semantic search, conversational interfaces, and LLM-powered workflows as the core experience. AI-native products feel like magic to users. Bolted-on AI feels like a checkbox.
How are engagements structured?
It depends on what you need. Could be a focused sprint (4-8 weeks, specific deliverables), ongoing advisory (a few hours a week for strategic gut-checks), or fractional leadership (2-4 days a week on your exec team). Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute call.
How much do you charge?
Pricing depends on engagement type and scope. Advisory engagements start at a few thousand per month; fractional CPTO roles are scoped based on time commitment (typically 2-4 days/week). We're transparent about pricing on the first call. No multi-week proposal process. Book a strategy call and we'll give you a clear range within 30 minutes.
Let's figure out your next move
Book a free 30-minute diagnosis call, or start with the assessment to see where you stand.
No pitch. No commitment. Just an honest assessment.