FRACTIONAL·APR 23·12 MIN
Hiring Subcontractors Without Becoming an Agency
The playbook for hiring fractional subcontractors into a solo practice. Legal boundaries, single-point-of-contact delivery, margin math, and a vetting sequence.
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Topical cluster
Fractional Ops & Service Leadership
The operating patterns behind a fractional practice that ships real work instead of just strategy decks. How to structure engagements that don't eat the week, what fractional leadership actually looks like when the operator still writes code, how to hire contractors who don't dilute the work, and the mechanics of running multiple accounts without the lights flickering. Notes from inside the practice.
12 postsFor: Fractional operators, solo studios, and senior ICs evaluating the fractional move
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·13 MIN
Scoping a Sprint From a Single 45-Minute Intake Call
The intake call that scopes and closes a 90-day fractional sprint. The agenda, five disqualifying questions, and the one-page SOW that goes out same-day.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·11 MIN
The Retainer Trap: Why Productized Beats Billing Hours
Monthly retainers feel like the default fractional shape. They're structurally weaker than productized offers. The specific failure modes and the escape plan.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·11 MIN
Turning a Fractional Sprint Into a Fixed-Scope SKU
How to take a 90-day sprint you've run three times and turn it into a fixed-scope SKU with a price, an intake form, and no custom proposals.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·11 MIN
The Real Cost of Switching Between Four Client Stacks
The context-switching tax is the hidden cost of a fractional practice. The per-session math, the weekly compounding, and the architecture that saves the portfolio.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·11 MIN
Most Fractional CTOs Are Just Advisors in Costume
The line between advisory and operational fractional leadership is sharp, and most fractional CTO titles sit on the advisory side while charging operational prices.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·11 MIN
Fractional Leadership Is Not a Cheaper Full-Time Hire
The fractional-as-discount frame is structurally broken. What the buyer actually gets, what they don't, and how to price fractional honestly against full-time.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·12 MIN
Four Fractional Engagement Shapes That Actually Work
The four fractional engagement shapes that actually work: 90-day sprint, advisory retainer, ops-lead seat, audit-to-implementation bridge. How each wins and fails.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·12 MIN
The Clean Exit: Closing a Retainer Without Burning It
The exit playbook for closing a fractional retainer cleanly: final session, credential audit, closing memo, and the 30/90/365-day check-in cadence that preserves referrals.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·12 MIN
Credential Hygiene Across Seven Client Accounts
Credential hygiene across a fractional practice: separate vaults per client, hardware keys, scoped service accounts, and quarterly audits for blast-radius control.
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FRACTIONAL·APR 23·12 MIN
The Practice Operating System: Docs, Tools, Cadence
The documents, tools, and cadences that hold a fractional practice together. Every recurring action belongs in a system; the OS is what makes marginal clients easy.
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Running a high-leverage fractional practice without becoming an agency.
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Attribution & CAPI
Server-side tracking, dedup, and the math behind DTC attribution.
Shopify
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Theme architecture, metafields, agent-orchestrated builds, Hydrogen decisions.
Healthcare
Healthcare & Compliance
HIPAA-aware Next.js, audit trails, and regulated DTC patterns.
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Creative-Tech Solo Brand
The hybrid creative-director-who-codes operating system.
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Services Business & Pricing
Productizing services, pricing strategy, and the retainer exit.
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Klaviyo flow architecture, retention math, and the LTV playbook.
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GA4, BigQuery, and the warehouse-first analytics rebuild.
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PDP patterns, cart decisions, checkout extensions, and the CRO stack.
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Meta, TikTok, and Google Ads for DTC operators who also own the data.
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Brand Architecture & Design Systems
Visual identity, naming ladders, and design systems that scale with the business.
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Selecting, configuring, and replacing the third-party stack on Shopify.
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Local AI Image Generation
Running Flux, Z-Image, and Qwen locally without the cloud-API bill.
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