Fractional Chief Product Officer
Startups, Products, Ecosystems, and Go-to-Market Strategies that scale.
25 years experience, including 12 years in Silicon Valley: Former Head of Product @ Uber Developer Platform. Co-founder of the DataPortability Project. Worked with Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, CNN, Disney, and more.
Currently, helping startups operate efficiently and fast-forward to the best answers as quickly as possible through Books & Articles. The Startup Podcast and as a Fractional Chief Product Officer for a small handful of companies.
Do you have a product leadership problem?
Here’s how you know…
Stuck in endless debate and indecision
Taking too long to ship meaningful products & features
Your product fails to attract, convert, delight, and/or retain users
Interpersonal problems between product managers, engineering, sales, marketing, etc
Long, painful sales cycles
Endless backlogs of customer feature requests and customers who are never fully satisfied
What I do
Unlock exponential growth and capital efficiency.
Early Stage: Go from zero to one
Build, ship, and succeed with your first Product.
Understand and build an effective MVP.
Accelerate product-market-fit (PMF).
Learn, iterate, reduce churn, and grow.
Unlock your next funding round.
Mid Stage: Expand from one to N
Go beyond your first product by expanding into logical adjacencies, new markets, product suites and/or platforms.
Design the perfect expansion strategy.
Create products that fit together and amplify each other.
Create flywheels that make your business unbeatable.
Later stage: Coach & scale your team
Identify bottlenecks, reduce politics, mitigate indecision, and improve the efficiency of your org.
Go beyond OKRs and simple tricks to define incredible team structures, titles, areas of responsibilities, and ways of working that work.
Cut through indecision, confusion, and thrash.
Help struggling members of the team to do their best work.
Craft patterns and processes that are essential to scale.
All Stages: Unlock product-led growth
Craft a product that sells itself to reduce costs and accelerate growth.
Eliminate long sales cycles.
Slash customer support costs and delays.
Reduce churn and increase NPS.
My Experience
25 years experience building Silicon Valley companies and working with the best companies in the world.
My specialist areas
I’ve gone deep across a broad range of domains.
General Startups Dynamics
I have built, and run a series of great startups. Most as CEO, all as co-founder. See Linkedin. I work with founders to help them understand all the fundamental patterns and processes required to build a successful product-led, high-growth, venture-backed company.
Digital transformation
I’ve worked inside some of the most disruptive new companies and with some of the largest legacy enterprises in the world. This experience gives me a unique insight into how to drive internal change that breaks down and rebuilds calcified cultures and reignites innovative thinking.
Angel and VC fundraising
I have both raised and invested money as a Startup founder and an angel investor. I’ve developed and read countless investor pitch decks. I apply that experience to create compelling stories that drive investor conviction.
Business Strategy
I’ve built business strategies across B2B, B2C, B2B2C, and Developer Platforms. Choosing the right model can mean the difference between middling success and break-out disruption. I help founders think outside the box to create models that power true disruption.
Org and culture design
I’ve helped many companies re-design their org chart, ways of working, cultural values, and product principles to minimize dysfunction and maximize efficient execution. I help execs organize the team for maximum autonomy and accountability at the edge while maintaining alignment with the core business strategy.
Product strategy
I’ve been involved in the conception of hundreds of products across a diverse range of industries and personas. Building great products involves a careful combination of art and science. I help founders translate their vision into elevated yet actionable product strategies.
Product management and design
I’ve managed the development of countless products and product teams. The only way to translate a business and product strategy into concrete outcomes is with intense focus and careful craft. I help accelerate the development of roadmaps, product designs, self-serve onboarding flows, retention strategies, viral loops, and more.
Developer platforms & ecosystems
Having built a platform from 0 to 85 Billion API calls a month (Echo) and served as the Head of Product for the Uber Developer Platform, I am one of the few product leaders who have built and run a developer platform at scale. I help supercharge traditional product and engineering teams to design products that developers love (APIs, SDKs, Dev Portals, Documentation etc). Read more.
Two-sided and on-demand marketplaces
Having worked at Uber and several on-demand marketplaces, I have extensive experience building two-sided marketplaces. I help product and ops teams solve the cold start problem, design self-reinforcing marketplace dynamics, build systems that manage reputation and trust, and more.
Generative AI
I’ve gone deep on classifying emerging AI tools and identifying white space for new AI-powered products. This work is embodied in the AI Classification Framework.
Enterprise BD, sales, strategy
I’ve driven sales motions into central product and IT groups at CNN, NASDQ, Disney, UMG, NBCU, Coke & more. I work with GTM teams to develop messaging, pitch decks, and other sales enablement tools to sell products to enterprise customers while minimizing costly feature requests.
Data Portability
I coined the phrase Data Portability. Invented Backplane & APML This field is particularly important now given the introduction of GDPR. I help companies design data collection and management systems based on user rights, open standards, and compliance.
How it works
I join your team, and I help.
Onboard: Initial deep-dive on existing plans and problems. This helps me onboard quickly.
Strategize: Strategic meetings to develop or refine an effective high-level action plan. This helps create a clear context for alignment and collaboration.
Accelerate: Developing frameworks/rough drafts of key deliverables (E.g., PRDs, roadmaps, go-to-market strategy, product designs, etc.) in real-time with the team. This accelerates all decisions, actions, and high quality deliverables.
Elevate: Review team deliverables (including pre-release software) and make pointed and actionable suggestions for improvement. This elevates essential implementation details.
Operationalize: Join weekly meetings to protect strategic alignment in all discussions and decisions. This mitigates thrash, wasted time, and inconsistent execution due to strategy drift.
Do you qualify?
Funded startups making a dent in the universe.
Ideal stage
I enjoy helping companies at all stages…
Seed Stage: I help with early ideation, business model design, product strategy, product market fit, hiring, and fundraising.
Series A and B: I help with organizing the team to scale, moving the product from point solution to platform, rotating the culture from sales-led to product-led, and/or coaching the CPO to develop an elevated and effective product strategy.
Enterprise: I help key teams break out of incrementalism to restore the capacity to make big, bold bets.
At all stages, I focus on saving wasted time and money to fast forward to the best high-growth outcomes as quickly as possible.
Ideal characteristics
I’m interested in companies with…
Potential to disrupt some fundamental aspect of the world
A founder with ambitious (global) goals
A coachable team eager to evolve and improve quickly
A “Chris-shaped hole” in the team where I can add a lot of value quickly
Limited slots available. Offered on a best fit basis.
Social Proof
Comments from founders & execs I’ve worked with.
“Wisdom and Passion”
“One of the top advisors you can find on this planet”
“Almost clairvoyant ability to see big opportunities”
“If you can get the chance to work with Chris, seize it with both hands. But be ready to bring your whole self to the adventure ... because if you do, you will get so much more back than you can possibly imagine. ”
“Someone to keep you focused on what really matters”
“A true legend with no ego just wisdom, knowledge, and the power to achieve great things.”
“I have had the good fortune to get to work alongside some incredible start-up mentors at YCombinator, Google Launchpad, The Family, and speaking at events like WebSummit, Techne Summit, and StartCon (to name a few). In my mind, Chris Saad stands out as one of the best.”
“We still use the frameworks that he gave us. He moves incredibly quickly, so we covered a lot of ground in each session … Chris helped us develop more clarity and confidence in our product roadmap, and was instrumental in a major product rework.”
“His coaching style ensured we retained full ownership of the strategy while developing it to be the best it could be … Chris consistently worked towards precision and clarity ... He diligently helped us de-conflate core aspects of our organization and product strategies … He not only helped us pave the way to become a product-led company but also taught us a lot along the way”
Let’s get to work
Limited slots available. Offered on a best fit basis.
My time is limited
Check out my free startup content
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to work with everyone, so I regularly share generally applicable advice and content to support founders on their journey.
The Startup Podcast
A guide through the unique mindset and approach that drives Silicon Valley style disruption at scale.
