The Hiring Shift No One’s Talking About with an Executive Headhunter, Miklos Blasko

friends of mine who were who who were thinking about this and they said like that sounds like a dream like you're paid and you're in charge of your own day, you're independent, you can work from whenever. They saw this from the outside and they were like this sounds amazing. And then what happened was that they were totally unprepared for not the work but the instability of the work. There are times when you have a lot of clients, there are times when you don't. and they think that they can get to, let's say, where I'd be right now after 2 years of of of this. The first day when they come in and they're they're just like, "Where are all the clients that you talked about?" It's like, "Well, you got to build the client base." It's like,
"Yeah,
it's not that you raise your hand on LinkedIn, say, hey, I'm ready to advise and and do fractional work." uh people just flood in where you can have exactly the work life balance that you imagine where you're living off of Pulia of south of Italy and you're having perfect time with your wife and your kids and

also working with with two soaring startups at the same time and they're paying you 50 G's a month because of that and and you got the time to do a couple of podcasts and update your LinkedIn as well. [Music] Welcome everybody to the Deconstructor of Fun podcast. I'm your host Mishka Katkov and today we're diving into the most underdisussed shifts in how games and app companies are being built. So the shift is the rise of fractional work. Now forget the old model of hiring a full-time CMO or a product lead on day one. More and more founders are assembling leadership team like they're building their tech stack. modular, on demand, and flexible. But what but when does this actually work? When does it backfire? And how do you make fractional hires a competitive advantage and not a liability? To unpack it all, I'm joined by Miklashko, who is

an executive hand head hunter who's seen this trend ex explode across the industry. Mickey, let's use Mickey. Welcome. Welcome to the podcast.
Thanks. Thanks, Sishka. Good to be here.
Yeah. So, this is what I do with a podcast. Like, I meet a head hunter on, you know, on a case and then I'm like, you know what? Forget your client. Why don't you come on a podcast and let's talk about this thing that we've been discussing. So, Mickey, thanks for for jumping in.
Yeah, 100%. Pleasure to be here. And it's my first time doing this, so um yeah, just keep that in mind. I'll I'll do my best to to get through it all, but excited to be here. And it's a cool topic.
Yeah. And just to just as a as two words about yourself, uh Mickey, tell me tell me a little bit about about headunting and you know what do you do?
Yeah. So look, I've been doing this for almost a decade and across a few industries. So I started in biotech and

then kind of very quickly graduated to software which is just a bit faster and more iterative and a lot more things happen. Um, so moved to like consumer marketplaces, gaming. I'm now running or one of four partners running a headunting firm working a lot in gaming and apps and payments. So both like infra and app layer stuff and kind of uh serving mainly I'd say like C to series B clients in that sort of uh set of industries and uh yeah maybe the the the other interesting point here is that I also spent uh a bit over a year secounded into a multi-stage fund where my role kind of flipped to the other side of the table having to move from being like a service provider um and uh and and actually making hires like servicing a large portfolio of companies from like preede all the way to to kind of late growth and trying to you know spar with them on talent problems and there I was like exposed to a lot more

beyond just making a single hire. So I think those are like the main things made probably just shy of about a 100 exec hires over the last 10 years um worked with almost as many startups and founders seen a lot of um you know success stories and not so successful ones. So yeah, um happy to dive into some of those and uh and and especially around this topic of like fractional talent. I think it's a really interesting one and it's not like you said it's not discussed a lot um not clearly defined. So uh happy
until now until now. Yeah.
So so let's let's start off. Let's let's bang it out. What is fractional work?
Like how is it different than freelancing or consulting
web stores? You've seen what good looks like, but have you seen great? App charge is the direct to consumer platform backed by the likes of Supercell and built by monetization pros from Moonactive, Platika, Huge Games, and others. People who know the difference. App charge powers over half a billion dollars in transaction a year

for top studios, optimizing every detail. Deeply personalized web store offers, custommade design, industryleading monetization features, in-game payments SDK, and more. 70% of top grossing games already have a web store, but the one scaling fastest, they're doing it with app charge. Learn more at appcharge.com. So I would say that there is a spectrum on the one side of which there is kind of like advisors who are you know very limited time commitment likely no particular deliverables and I'd also kind of count everyone who works with founders here. So you can be like an angel investor, you can be a paid sort of consultant or adviser working working with that company. you know, time commitment probably ranging from an hour per week to like a day per week. Um, and

and yeah, so that's one side. Then in the middle there's fractional, which I think is like in increased time commitment with some specific deliverables. Um, dedicating a fixed amount of time over like a fixed period, two three days per week. Um, different kind of pricing, right? Like with fractional, I think you do open up to, you know, potentially taking equity, potentially there being KPIs and then potentially a bonus tied to that. So more in vain of like a full-time exec. And then I think on the on on on on the other end of the spectrum, there's like the interim exec, right? Who's like full-time but for a set period of time. So like 6 to 12 months, you're basically the I don't know CMO uh de facto. Um, and again that's that's that's kind of a different setup. And then when we speak about like consultants and freelancers, I would put them in in slightly a different spectrum or category with like consultants being always project based. Like it can be a market entry, it can be

an IP license, it can be an exec hire or whatever. And then freelancers being much more executionbased like hey I need I don't know a website designed or built. And that's like one very specific deliverable that you do. You get paid for it. And I think you're not necessarily in that consultant or in that freelance bucket, you're not necessarily like a strategic force multiplier in the company. Uh whereas with like the fractional and and interimm execs, I think that's the intended use case mostly of these people. So that's how I define it.
I have to agree. uh we and I'm personally doing advisory work which is as you as you said it's like fixed cost usually and then the amount of input varies I would add one thing to the fractional work so when I or team members from from the constructor fund work as fractional we become part of the company so it is like interim but it's not full-time interim I would say it's part-time interim that's what fractional

is and um and that means you get the company email, you're accessing Discord or Slack, you're doing, you know, you're just a part of that company, but just not every day. Uh because and then you would assume like, well, how can you be a part of the company but not work every day? Well, like we we might be working every day, but not might not be a full day depending on how you do how you do deal with the u like what's your contract. But where you save is you save from all the internal politics and um everything else like like you're not part of, you know, chitchat and whatnot. You're literally just working and you're working with a team. You're guiding the team forward, but but you're not um you know, you're not participating in what type of a company outside we're going to do this. This
Yeah, the pizza party. Yeah. Or the pizza parties. I've been to pizza party for a while. come in like, "Yeah, yeah, this is all cool.
I need to get back to my work because this is away from from that." So, so

you're like, "This is what it would be if you're only focused on work." So, whether you like it or not, but that's how it works.
So, I wanted to ask you like is it growing in popularity right now? Because not like for my personal perspective where we're signing you know clients all the time for fractional uh not all the time because we're only few people so you can't be signing too many but but it's been quite constant for the last couple of years. Is this only my perspective that's growing in popularity or is it
the trend attention app and game developers? Are you ready to unlock the secrets behind the world's top performing apps and games? With Sensor Tower, you get the ultimate competitive edge, whether it's breaking into new markets, fine-tuning your UA strategies, or boosting monetization. Dive into data like never before, track global trends across app stores, analyze market leading inapp purchase and inapp ad strategies, and benchmark your performance with realtime

insight. The best part, Sensor Tower doesn't just deliver data. It helps you turn it into action with intuitive tools and expert analysis. It's everything you need to make smarter, faster decisions. Thousands of app and game studios, from indie creators to global giants, trust Sensor Tower to help them win. So why not you? Start your free trial today at sensortowwer.com. that is censortow.com.
I feel like I feel like it's the trend and and I think it's also been around just less tangibly for a long time. Like there's multiple factors that I see and you're going to have to jump in here because you obviously have this like deep expertise in in the industry but like there is one side where like talent

is for very specific use cases like I don't know UA or monetization is just scarce right it's niche talent it's scarce and it's expensive and also occasionally your need for these types of skill sets are like episodic depending on what stage your company's at if you have like a launch coming up, if there's some particular event happening that kind of justifies or or or or creates the need for for some sort of expertise. So, I think like that's that's one thing and and I think you see that quite a lot. I think generally just the like the significance of the tech sector globally has just become much more tangible uh in the sense that like you know Elon Musk is now running Doge and whatever and so like the fact that people are aware of tech executives and these things going on it it also just makes it much more visible to see that like you have a guy who's got like nine

different jobs on LinkedIn. But I think that's another thing. Um, and you know, companies are operating in in in a remote semi- remote setup. So also since like COVID hit in many industries that was already the norm, but that's like kind of spread across all industries almost. I think that also drives it. And um yeah, sometimes it's it's also driven just by the appetites of the people who are successful and who have the skill set that the companies require. And like that appetite seems to be going towards, hey, I want to like spend a bit of my time investing. I want to spend a bit of my time, I don't know, helping a PE company on deals and then I want to spend a bit of my time helping other founders where I myself maybe I'm an exodate founder. And so like these are all these different kind of things that make this more salient. Um, and there's a lot of use cases for it. And then there's a lot of like no-go zones, I think, where it's never going to become like the de facto norm to to to hire

like fractional or or interim people. So yeah, that's my side. What what what do you think like what are your clients telling you about this? Most of my fractional work has come through actually venture funds and these are usually companies that are not startups. So I mean every every company is a startup sorry they're not just started up but they are usually cross that 100 employee um range and when you start crossing those ranges like that's when the level ups into the leadership team need to happen pretty quickly and you need to stack up your talent and so some there's there's different reasons. So for for the company perspective like there's definitely the short time term expertise that sometimes they're they're they're wanting to do. So let's say uh a company that I'm currently discussing with they've grown quite heavily. They've actually merged with another company.

There's a lot of uh different ways of working at the same time. They've scaled you know hundreds of people and they don't and their executive team is still really much in the product and wants to be in the product. And so they want to bring in um a CEO type of a character who takes on the rest of the organization except the product organization to clean it up and to streamline it and to make it function function as in a way that it supports the product organization rather than brings more work to the uh the founding team and the leadership team. And so the you know in that case it's about bringing that that expertise. It could be short-term, it could be long-term. Uh it could be something around turnaround. So sometimes we've been joined as heads of product in various organizations and that's usually coming in from the investor side where they're seeing that there's um product expertise missing with the team. They might be really technical. They might be good at marketing uh but their product expertise

not quite there. And that could be either you're taking a position of a CPO as a fractional and you're coaching um the uh the product team. It could be that that you're replacing the product role, product leadership role while the company is looking for a new CPO and in that case you're actually holding the Ford running the team and also helping to hire your replacement or potentially the company also says we are looking from outside but do you see any of these people that we have inside can you coach them up and so in that case those are kind of like the best type of roles. So you're coming in with a clear goal of replacing yourself and that can take anywhere between six to even even 12 months. So there there are um yeah there there are cases where when in my opinion fractional makes sense rather than trying to hire an executive because to hire somebody let's say you're hiring a CPO or a COO or a CMO that's a long process. Like I know that

there's a lot of people who are free right now. Um but still it's a long process and when that process fails that's also not good because like you bring somebody into a leadership position then they don't you know maybe gel in as well as you thought or they they drive it to a little bit different type of a direction etc. You have to start all over like there's a lot of risk involved and with a fractional role as I've talked to other head hunters they've said that this is normal outside gaming industry because somebody comes in and you're essentially testing them. I call it dating. So like like this is this is us working together
and if I like it here and I bring value and you like me
and you think I bring value and why don't we make this permanent. So it's it's incredibly low risk for both parties.
This podcast is brought to you by Appsflyer. In today's digital world, understanding your app's journey from discovery to download is more than just insightful. It's essential. Enter

Appslier, the leader in mobile attribution and marketing analytics that allows you to measure the full potential of your marketing efforts, making every ad dollar work smarter. With Appslier, that's your new reality. Dive deep into datadriven insights that reveal exactly where your users come from and how they'll interact with your app. Appslier, where your app's potential meets performance.
Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And and I think there's a lot of value to that setup even even even when the outcome is inevitably to replace yourself. I think there's two things that happen when you go with this fractional first. Like in the case of most startup scaleups, call them whatever you want. Like by the time they call someone like me that they need a CMO, you ask them when do you need it? And they'll always say like yesterday, today, tomorrow, like very quickly, right? Because there's things to be done. And I think getting someone who's fractional in is just a much lower sort

of it requires a lower degree of trust because you can just cut at any time, right?
And essentially like you're investing pre-investing into the onboarding of your future full-time CMO by having whoever is going to run the show there, giving them a time of of overlap, and essentially you're also getting an expert interviewer for the for the full-time replacement by having that person in. So it is it who knows your organization who knows the organization who knows the people and interviewing in that type of situation has been amazing. It's like I know who you're going to run so I I know it's like yeah
yeah yeah yeah exactly like is there someone promotable on this team to like an I don't know head of whatever. Um the CEO might have a completely different opinion than the functional leader right because they're just looking at different different attributes. So yeah I think that's a uh that's always a good setup.
Yeah. Yeah, co might not even understand the dynamics that are happening in the product. Let's say if it's a product organiz or organization, they might not know. They might see that this person

could be the next leader, but they might not know that maybe that person doesn't get that well along or is not considered as a leader by by his peers or her peers. So, so there's there's the these type of type of things. So, but again, uh coaching helps with that. Um, so we we talked about the company perspective of why fractional makes sense. Can you talk about from talent perspective? Like when does it make sense for for you know people like myself? Yeah, I mean, um, look, it's it's it's usually I feel like in almost every single case, um, at one point it happens. Like either you're a really successful founder, you exit a company, and then you've gone through hell to do that and you might not just want to do that again, but you still want to be involved in it, right?
Are you are you talking to me?
I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. apart from the successful. But
but in in in any case, right? So like

like like there's that angle where you just kind of want to to to multiply yourself across different things. If you're a successful founder, you probably made a lot of money. Probably a chunk of that money goes back into I don't know being an LP in a venture fund or a venture partner. And then immediately you're exposed to this portfolio of companies with interesting different problems that like you you want to help them with but you can't do all of them full-time. So you you need to kind of divide your time. I think there's other things which uh I I don't know if you know Ellen Vera, she talks a lot about this who's like the growth guru. She's got a lot of and she and she prefers this kind of fractional role. She it's a lifestyle thing. she has kids, you know, she's done the exact career and she's got to be a full-time mom and she's got to also run her exact career. So, there's like that. And then I think there's, you know, also other cases where where and and maybe you can talk a bit more about this, but like these episodic challenges like if you see like a head of recruiting who's

really good at scaling up a company, adding a 100 FTs post to series B, what do they do after that's done? like they can try to reinvent their jobs into something else or go to the next company and do it again, right? So, like I I think there's a lot of different times when it makes sense and and I think a lot of people also just enjoy like the social benefits of being associated with a bunch of different cool companies. I think there is one kind of word of caution from my perspective which is not to do it too early. Like I see a lot of people who's like I was a head of product at a series A company or whatever had like some mild level of success and and then already try to go plural and do this and and and what they what what ends up happening is they they like kind of self- select them into themselves into like tier 2 companies because they don't actually have the experience that would warrant them you know being hired or or being being you

know hired as advisers or whatever. into into other
they also have they also have success from a company that was not a tier and so they're kind of bringing the e the uh the
the playbook of a bt tier success company and that is not enough in an A tier.
Yeah, exactly. I've done marketing here and therefore I can do marketing there versus like I've done something very specific like
Yeah.
It's like with football you could say hey I'm like I'm a goddamn star in Hungarian league and you be like
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
this is Italy. So, let's see if you can even score.
Exactly.
Could be. But, but okay. So, you mentioned a couple of things like one of one was the uh
one was the uh the sort of a lifestyle choice where you have goals outside your work life that you want to achieve whether it's family, whether it's travel, where you know you just want to live your life, but at the same time you don't want to not do work. you want to be like not not just do as much as you

did before. Uh and so that that freedom kind of lends itself to a fractional role. Um you talked about, you know, uh being an really expert at certain phase of of work and and that allowing you to um to basically do that multiple times in different companies. And the second one, um, you mentioned maybe like sort of a portfolio approach to your career where where you're just enjoying different mixes of of of things that you're doing like let's say postexit. So you want to do a little bit of investing, you want to do a little bit of advising here. Uh, there are some cool companies and you're jumping in as a fractional. Maybe you're jumping into two of them and so forth. And so that allows you to to have that portfolio approach rather than that singular career path that you have as a founder or as an executive. And then final one, I don't know if you mentioned this, but kind of like access to all kinds of cool

things. This was at least to me a big driver and it still is like the companies that I've been able to work are uh app companies for example. I've never had that before. U so that's been really cool to kind of bring that expertise and for them it's also a lowrisk thing. they want somebody from gaming but they don't know how the somebody from gaming and then you come in and you kind of like try different type of things. So, so that one and as well as moving into for me to different uh vectors of gaming like whether we're talking about a Roblox company, whether we're talking about a PC company that I've never really worked at, whether we're talking about console. So, I can kind of switch up my careers and get that stimulation where I do have certain expertise, but it's not like I can sleepwalk through this. Like, there's a lot of things that I can learn and it's really stimulating. You've heard of Heroic Labs by now and we keep talking about them because you need every edge to be successful in

today's market. Heroic Labs gamestack is built like a brick house. You got the Nakama their backend game server, Hero, their game development framework, Sattorii, their WBOP service, and last but not least, Heroic Cloud to provide massive scalability. Heroic Labs is a battle tested partner and their tech enables you to be flexible, creative, and scale for success. Focus on your game, avoid tech risks, grow your product with scalable live ops, and save a big chunk of cheese, all with heroic labs. [Music] Yeah. And I guess there's a lot of like other practical things like even time zone like you can take a 2 day a week role in a time zone that's 8 hours off and just suck it up for those two days but you can't do it 5 days or 60 hours a week where you're just like without completely you know switching around your lifestyle.
That's actually absolutely true. I've I've uh I've had those like it's uh yeah

it's uh yeah actually you that you described it perfectly. you're just sucking it up and you're like the idea might be cool. It's a cool company. Yes, they're based out of US. I can do this. It's only going to be a couple of days. If you would have been 5 days a week, you probably quit after the first week. Now, you're kind of enduring it for like three, four months. And then when the contract is getting to a position where it's like the first set of goals are being completed, you're like, I think we're good. I think, you know, I think I think everybody can can just move on. like it was blast but uh but this is unsustainable for for for people with family. Um can you talk about like the situations where this is not working from a perspective of a company like when they shouldn't take fractional? I mean there is there's a few um one that I think we we've talked about is like roles where you just need really to

be culturally integrated into the company. But like if you're I don't know in a role that's very heavily focused on experimentation, you want to have that organizational memory of what's been done before, what were the results, how did we do that? And like in many many cases, especially at early stage, those are not well documented for you to just kind of async run through them and and kind of pick up what's what's happened. Um again I think like stuff where you're required to do day-to-day leadership, organizational management, people management and let's say there's no close number two who's able to kind of take those things over from you right in in like a functional setup like someone who's almost at the level that you're coming in but not quite that you can kind of delegate to. I think that becomes hard creative. It becomes really hard because it's very very difficult to like do something authentic creatively that's authentic to the DNA of the company if you're coming externally like

you're kind of just doing what you think is good but not necessarily you know coming from the place of of intent of of what the company's trying to do. Um, and yeah, like it's it's a bit abstract, but any role where where you have like long-term compounding value and sitting in that role for a long time, you kind of want to fill it with a full-time employee as fast as possible so that they can start to compound.
Um, so I think these are the ones that come to come to mind for me. Uh, what about you? Like, um, what has been your experience there where it's like not worked out or or or whatever? uh when it's not worked out uh it well if the company is going through multiple transformation all the time and they're kind of unset with their strategy. So sometimes that is impossible if you're not there all the time it's impossible to just stay like if they're pivoting like every second week
um roll. Yeah. So it's like

if we're if we're focusing on a new thing and you weren't here yesterday and it's again a new thing then that becomes really really difficult. uh the people management I actually experienced in a way that people management was better as a fractional than it was as full-time because when I was in a fractional role let's say a product head of product role uh the PMs were really open with me like they would they would talk about you know considering even leaving the company and kind of worrying about this and so I was I was getting for the first time I was getting real talks with the people who you know kind of report to me but they were seeing me as an outsider that is not here forever. So they would be absolutely open to talk to me about things that didn't function uh you know in terms of the organization the frustration points uh their career goals and so forth and that was actually amazing and allowed me to fix so many things that would have that I wouldn't

be able to fix if they didn't talk to me for real if they thought that I was that new boss. they can't say that they they're thinking about leaving the company. Come on. And so and so that allowed me to to actually,
you know, be a better people manager by just actually having the real information.
So, so I would say I would say that's a that's a big that's a big bonus with with that certain company I can talk about because it's an app company. They don't listen to the podcast. So uh there I still keep in touch with them like it's been a year since I worked with that company and you know the the projects in terms of KPIs everything went really well but the PM still keep in touch and they would ping me and you know say hey you know I'm thinking like it's been a year this and that and get career advice even afterwards they would be working there. uh or once once the guy pinged me. He was like uh he was thinking about leaving the company when I when I came in. Uh and then he's still there and he pinged me like nine months

later just to say hey I'm still liking it here. Thanks every thanks so much. I've never had that as a as a manager but that allowed me but I've never had the real information as a manager. So I would say people management as fractional is really good and then you also are able to talk to the founding team the management team and give them intel on like what's going on really in the company about like small things that they might have missed or the way they spoke about certain things and how that made people actually feel and what could be the remedies and how we can you know transform communication so this doesn't happen. So, so, so I would I would say those are those are the type of things uh from from talent perspective uh you know personally for me you know it's this stage of career I'm one day from turning 40 uh
so so it's like yeah I know I look so young and I speak so young so cool I'm so cool and so funny

I'm just kidding
no you're like you're Wow.
You're like I thought Yeah, cuz you were like I thought you were 50, dude.
No, no, no.
Yeah, but um but like being in in this stage, you know, even when I met you through a through a process, like my perspective was like I don't want to marry like let's uh let's do a fractional thing. Let's test it out. Like I can't join a company based on like two calls. like are you crazy just to to come in in an executive role not knowing anybody just take that risk? It's it's not worth it.
Um I've seen fail too many times
and and so and I don't need it per se, but I'm more than happy to date and see if that leads somewhere. So I would say that it's it's uh it's also a lowrisk approach for the talent to to figure out in what type of company they would join. I've had situations uh where I've been approached to join a company in a in a leadership role and I would say hey you

know this is amazing your company this and that but let me come in in a fractional and I would be like first day one hour in and I'd be like I'm so glad I didn't take a full-time position and not that the company is bad but it's like I'm such not not a fit here and then you're like well it's month by month so I think this is the uh this is the this is two months cuz it's first and last. So,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think and and I think that goes both both ways, right? It goes both ways.
It's super easy for the company as well. It's so And the company doesn't have to tell employees like, "Oh, we hired this person and yeah, it didn't work out after two weeks." Like, you know, let's just not talk about it. Like, there's no shame. Everybody tells like, "Hey, I'm here to help. I'm, you know, going to be for for for a while. just try to help you out, guys. And then if you stay, people that that's great. If you leave, people are like, "Yeah, he was here just to help out.
Of course, he's out."
Yeah.

Yeah.
So, it's a it's it's such a good option. I I can't understand why people don't do this more.
Yeah. I think it makes it makes a lot of sense in those cases. Yeah. Agreed.
And and some people say like, you know, there's there's the downsides is like, you know, um the ownership or continu continuity. that's that's definitely there, but at the same time, you're coming in to hold the fort while there's a talent gap. So, I don't know if there's that much uh risk of ownership or continuity because you're you're really following a certain type of project. Uh and then the some people say like, you know, it's harder to build good relationships because you're only fractional. I would say it's counter to that. again like using my examples and other ones, it's like people are so real with you when you're not part of the organization but you're in the organization. Um but
but the one thing that I will tell you that is really difficult from talent perspective
is when you have too many of these roles

because the work when when you're consulting when you're being fractional when you're being adviser which is like all three that that myself and and a couple other people here at the constructor fund are doing it's uh it's not a steady cadence like there are months where where it's just quite quiet like you're revenues might drop by 80%. And then there are months where you don't have time to eat because like it's it's back to back and
and it's incredibly stressful during that time and that context switch that you're trying to do because yes you're fractional but it's seldom that a company would say hey you can work here Monday, Wednesday and Friday like no fractional means like we don't expect that you'll be here all the time uh but it's um it's still they expect you to be there every day. So
yeah. Yeah. This this ownership thing it it always kind of I I I get pissed off for this, you know, cuz like when do you

need someone to feel ownership about the whole thing? It's when you don't know what they're there for, you know, like I care so deeply that whatever happens, I will take responsibility for it. No. Like if you're bringing on a marketing person, don't tell them, hey, I need someone to do marketing. Tell them like I want 20% bro uptick now. like that's what I need to do in the next 6 months and then they'll be judged by that and that's what they're there to do and that's what you're paying them to do and that's the deal and if I don't know you have a bonus attached to that then then that'll be their incentive and they don't need to feel ownership by default like that's not the that's not the setup right and so I think ownership should be felt by people who own something and that's you know like and if you're the founder and you own 100% of your 50% of your company like of course you're going to feel ownership But that's like just it's
I I disagree with that in the sense that when you're hiring people who are seniors for these these fractional roles

like I feel a lot of ownership in the things that I'm meant to deliver and that is actually what causes stress. Like if I wouldn't give a then then I would I be like yeah I don't whether this fails or works you're still going to pay me the money and then yeah I'm just going to cancel the project. But like I want to succeed and and I've committed to a certain deliverable.
Yeah. I think I think the nuance is that like you can't expect people to feel ownership for like very vague things. You can expect them to feel ownership for something specific that you guys agree about, right? And then they need to price that in the way that that incentivizes them to feel ownership and and and and you know and and that they're able to deliver it. So I guess that's the nuance.
I understand what you're saying. So, so ownership and perspective of like when you get hired to a startup, they want you to have ownership of building up this company. Whatever you see is is you know not functioning perfectly, you will be here to build it up. Yeah. But also,

you're getting a share of that company. So, you're essential to a shareholder. I have ownership of the things that you have agreed upon that I will be doing in this role. Uh, but I won't be, you know, walking around and helping you to design different rooms for them to facilitate better conversations like or or, you know, designing incentive packages if that's not part of my my my uh my contract.
Um, what what do you think companies should be looking for when they're looking for a fractional hire? So first of all, you have to have like the proven operational or functional like experience of like having done the thing or something quite analogist to it. I don't think you should hire someone who's like not to on like the consultancies, but if someone was at McKenzie all their life and then now they're a solo consultant, like it's it's a different it's a different thing, right? They hand off to people who then do this stuff and and you need someone to do this stuff. So, I think like

that's one thing that you and you can be a little bit more strict. Um, because I think when you're hiring a full-time employee, I would always advise founders to be a little bit flexible. Most of the best hires aren't the most obvious ones and all of this stuff. But when you're hiring someone for like a specific project, use case thing you want to achieve, like you really want to vet, have they done that? And they should be able to tell you that they've done that. and you should look at their CV and be like, "Okay, this guy worked here and did that and I need to do something similar and therefore he's probably going to be able to do that with me." So, um that's probably one. Two is um they should be able to like integrate with the team fairly quickly or on board fairly quickly and have like some sort of methodology of their own of for doing that. Like you need to make whatever they need to do their job available to them. like if that's data if if if that's just the access to Slack or your email or whatever data room but I think

they need to have an idea on how they're actually going to execute as opposed to like hey I did this X years ago at Y company and therefore I can do it here so like a bit of specificity and like the other thing is that that you know especially if you've done this a couple of times um like you said you you you feel the ownership for the outcome with the role you're in and that's also the is because the next person who who you're going to pitch to might call the previous person you worked with. So like the references should be there like that kind of social proof from another founder who's worked with them on a on a similar pro project for example should be there. So I think I think these um these are are are important and then like the final one that I always and and and we kind of mentioned it like specificity. I think you need to be specific in what you want to achieve and then come up with terms of engagement and an incentive system for that person that aligns what you want and what they

should want, right? Like how do they get paid the best? How like how do they maximize their outcome by by getting the thing done that you care about and not some other way? And so I think if these things are roughly there then then then you can you know you can move ahead.
Yeah. I I would add that though those are all make sense. I would add also the the ability to kind of jump in into a company really quickly. So you're you're probably looking for people who haven't been at one company for their entire career. Uh because then they would have a very most likely fixed way of working like this is how we do at EA and everything is based on that. So you're looking for somebody with a with a much more versatile background so that they can integrate much more quick quicker to different organization and they don't have like this is the one way that that things work. And the other part that is really important that I've seen from the companies is that they expect you to hit the ground running. Like I always try to say hey you know like it will take me a

week or two to kind of situate have conversations with every stakeholder to understand where we are. like cool cool but uh we need to get the KPIs up like right up like you need to come in almost with ideas and implementations and AB test like if you're in product role or or other ones where where you're making right away changes and have that get your hands dirty attitude. So basically being a wartime leader versus a peace time leader where you come in like oh let's have a conversation what does everybody want to do let me funnel it one it's like no you have to understand that you're coming in as an outsider you're staying as an insider outsider you don't have to worry about the internal politics of who wants what you need to worry only about getting the result and so you have to be you know hands dirty mindset type of a person that's my opinion
yeah And how do you how do you do that? Just to kind of flip the question, like first of all, how do you how do you catch up like absorb all of the information that needs to be absorbed

for you to be able to like say something that's that's impactful? And then I guess the second is how do you avoid like drinking from the fire hose? Cuz there's like you're on Slack, there's 55 different things going on at any given time. How do you focus on like the three actual updates that matter to you to get your job done? like what's how do you actually navigate that because it sounds easier in theory than it must be in practice, right? And
I I'd say it's easier in practice than it sounds in theory. So, let's put it this way because there
because um in in you know when you come in in a company as exact you've been hired then you're starting to make friends. When you come in as fractional you're not making friends. uh you are going for goals and and you know I'm not saying that I'm coming in as an but I'm not going to come in and try to be a politician where I'm trying to find hey Mickey what do you want to achieve and okay and what do you want to achieve and then I'm like I have to play this game

as a pol as a as an executive where I have to understand what everybody wants how everybody's connected who has the power who's driving which division to what way and then start making my moves only once I understand the currents as a fractional. I do not give a damn about the currents. I only give a damn about this goal that has been set by the CEO or the founding team. Usually, it's either one person or two people who have who see this. So to me what usually happens is is they set like through conversations they set quite clear goals of what the company needs to achieve and then once I get in there is that you know you can't get anything done unless you work with the stakeholders with the people. So of course I do my rounds I I converse I I I am myself I talk to and everybody understands I'm here to help and then um then I understand the lay of the land a little bit better. uh how how everybody's performing, how they teams look like and I start basically just

executing against the strategy and if somebody is not moving along I'll just clearly say hey this is not working uh this team is is not hitting the goals I've talked to the person he doesn't believe in this goal so CEO what do you want to do
yeah yeah
so I'm like it's ruthless execution it's almost like private equity approach
uh that I would say where where I only look at the results.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And you know, like you can you can afford to piss people off a bit. And that's that's actually that's actually I can see the utility in that. Not to say that that's a goal, but like you know, some friction is not.
I I'll do a counter. I actually like sometimes in our conversations like I I have been um like I would deem that somebody is not suited for the role and either they don't have the capabilities or they've kind of exhausted their capabilities or you know they've just been a little bit too long and they could use a new spin. uh working at

startups is is tough like maybe you've gone through some history of pivots and you kind of lost your belief in the founding team and you're being actually quite negative inside the company because of that and so I would basically inform the uh the CEO that hey um you you should change this person in this role and um these are the reasons and the person then they would usually ask me like well do I have anybody else I'm like First of all, I'm not Mickey. I'm not a head hunter. I don't have a catalog and that's not the point. But what I do help them with is I help them to actually um offboard the person. So sometimes situations where again because I'm not inside the company, I can talk to that person and say exactly what I think that they're going through. And as an outsider, they, you know, I've been in situation where they would say, you know what, actually, you're absolutely right. I'm kind of burnt in

this place. And I was like, I know
like you should and I and I and I even help like not even I'm I'm a person. I help that person to find other jobs
and I I help them to connect. And so they end up leaving in a very positive way because somebody says out loud and that somebody is not
coming from the company that they have this relationship or or so forth. So I've exited people uh as in in my fractional roles in a in a quite positive way uh and helped them to to go for other companies literally send out their resumes to other places like they're not bad people they've been or incompetent like often times they've been just in one position to a to a point so many years that they've kind of soured. So that's that's perfectly fine and you just help them out to to to to move along. Yeah, but um kind of like move moving or

touching to some point that you mentioned which is
incentive structures like how should companies set up incentive structures to
um to fractional roles?
Do you have any examples? Uh, I mean, you know, you've you've sold many of these and I'm sure you've sold them under different terms, so I I'll I'll lean on you a little bit. I think, um, I've seen a few different ones. Um, and they're all usually they're they're usually a reflection of how the given advisor likes to work. Like there's people who let's say go for like a nine month engagement and they're cognizant of the fact that in the first three months I'm gonna it's a fractional role but in the first three months I'm basically full-time.
Next three months I'm going to be I don't know 50/50 and then in the last three months I'm like kind of 20% of my time here and then and then the rest not not
absolutely.

Um, so I think I think uh in in those cases I've seen like a flat retainer that kind of is like okay I'm 50% of my time is spent here. I will price that. And usually what I see is like it's very close to what an exec would get as comp. And then there is a premium of like 20 30% on top of that to compensate for like lack of benefits, lack of a bonus, lack of equity, healthcare, whatever it is. So, that's kind of like the price range. Um, and then, you know, I've seen um I've seen different setups where um let's say someone's coming in to execute like a fundraising round. Let's say you're like a series BC and you need kind of like a CFO who can sell to growth investors because you're no longer being looked at for like the potential of your team and like your creativity, but like there's numbers, right? And so, that's a different setup. they might have a very different outcome based kind of comp uh depending on on on

on whether the fundraising round goes through. And so like it really depends on whether you're looking for support, whether you're looking for like a specific outcome. Um you can you can tie a sort of bonus uh to a specific outcome that you're looking for. I think the one thing that I'm I'm always like skeptical about with with interim engagements is like the equity element. I don't think that in most cases it makes sense because you have someone working like six months, I don't know, 12 months and then you say to them like here's your incentive 12 years from now. Like it just kind of, you know, the timelines don't don't really make sense.
So uh so I guess that's the that's the one where I'm where I'm uh yeah, I'm always skeptical, but but but but fundamentally that's that's what I've seen a lot of. How about you? like how do you um how do you go about charging this and maybe what what have you learned in the last couple of years of doing this?
Yeah, I I I can't say I'm a master in any of this. Like I've typically I've

done uh sort of a base fee based on um the amount of days. So it's you know it's not the cheapest thing but it is going to be probably cheaper than hire not probably it is cheaper than hiring an executive. Uh so so you you have that base fee and the uh the approach is like that like you're saying basically like in the beginning I'll be spending 5 days this is because it requires just so much and then I'll try to come down to the 3 days uh and that will average out and then uh as we go forward at some point we have to make a decision whether um you want me to stop fully whether I'm able to offboard or whether you want me to move to an advisory role which is again like as you said like few hours a week uh maybe coaching the people who who have been who you've hired to take your position and so forth kind of like that longer term offboarding uh that then ends up with like totally offboarding yourself. So, so those are the type of things I've had contracts

that would come in with a base monthly fee and like I remember my first deal was like base monthly fee and then after 3 months there was like this big bonus retainer and I was like that sounds crazy because for the company there's a huge incentive to cut the relationship after 3 months because then they don't have to pay and surprisingly they did pay and then they Yeah. So uh which is which was very positive in the sense that the company wanted to keep me in while taking essentially a penalty for crossing the three-month period but they came up with that with that one and it was my first fractional role and I was like I I I guess like I didn't know better but like hindsight that doesn't sound too good where the company's incentivized to cut the relationship after 3 months. Um so so now I've just put in like a base base fee for for the engagement accounting for 3 days and then sometimes with a

smaller projects that would on approximately take me one day I would just say well this is the one day fee and we can do with the one day and in my own startup we had for example an art director who worked that way so we paid him for one day a week.
Yeah.
Yeah. And it really helped for that stage. We didn't need a full-time art director. And that was really helpful where they where they took the place essentially drove the the small art team.
Yeah. Maybe one thing to to call out is like the hourly
pricing is I don't think it makes sense in 99% of cases. Um, and and I do know some people who who do that who who are like external advisors and and they're like, "Okay, one hour with me is like, I don't know, 500 bucks or whatever, thousand bucks." And it's like,
but those have to be like calls like those are advisory calls or something.
Yeah. It's it's it's it's it's very different. And I think you cannot you cannot justify doing that cuz like

realistically like we said that any project like in the beginning you're going to spend maybe 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week and then you're going to spend 10 and you kind of want to average it out but that hourly thing it it will not make sense. It's hard to track. It's
Yeah.
We I've also had um just recently you know doing this. So when a client really understands like we're we're probably going to talk about the the common mistakes of this of of fractional rows but there are like once you once you interact with the uh the big clients uh who are savvy uh they they know that you're stretch thin because they've they've known these things. So, it's pretty cool cool when they understand, you know, your challenges and they might say, "Hey, um, you're clearly, you know, stretch thin. You have a lot of clients. How much for you to limit your clients to two or how much to limit your clients to one?" So, I like the I like when the client is is

empathetic and just basically picks up the whole bill because they understand that that you're human. You're incentivized by taking more of these roles. and you think you can push it through uh but then your your work result starts to uh starts to revenue. So this is more for companies like if you feel that the work with the fractional role is going really well uh but that person has two three companies that they're working in at the same time
bags under their eyes every time
bags under the skin like really tired like they're trying and and you you know instead of uh instead of firing them and trying to find a new one I mean you won't fire because they're executing still but they're just really tired just
ask them take up the whole bill like take take them on if if you if you're feeling that you're getting the value for the work. So, uh and I promise you from my own perspective, then you're going to deliver it to them so much because they essentially help you out of the bind of of having too many clients without uh losing revenue streams.

Yeah. I mean, it's it's an entirely different thing, but like I remember my early career was running like 14 searches at the same time and just like dying. And now I'm doing five max and I'm like no no no more than five because because that's that's the stretch that I can do at any given time and still do a good job.
Yeah.
Yeah. We we have the same thing with uh with just bringing more people aboard and and pushing cases their way where where I'm just staying as a you know just looking over the shoulder if that I work with people who I worked with for years before. So it's not like you know I know them really well. we work at different companies so I can just say hey this person is really goddamn good better than me work with him.
Um but but talking about like the common mistakes like the common mistake is again because this is not a steady stream work people need you yesterday uh and then sometimes they don't need you because the contracts can end that month it's like we pivoted we've changed

this we found this and it just ends. It makes it very difficult to balance to that sort of a oh I'm going to just work three days a week. There are
yeah,
you know there will be weeks when you work eight days a week and um and there will be weeks when you work zero days a week. Well, you know, uh unless you have other other streams of of uh income and so forth. Uh but it's what I'm trying to say. There's there's peaks and valleys. Uh so that's uh that's that's one of the common mistakes that leads to is you take too too many clients at the same time because you you feel like you need to there's a Finnish term. It's like you need to hit you need to slam while the iron is hot or like what do you I don't know I don't know what what the what the word is.
I know there's an expression but I also don't remember what it is. Yeah.
There's there's a probably about [Laughter]
Yeah. like recurved bow version of

Yeah.
But what are what are the other kind of like common mistakes than overloading yourself?
I mean like first of all it's like you know and this is for all hiring. It can be just a full-time exec or not full-time but like you know you like it's writing a horoscope like it's you imagine that things will be like this and you know it's like kind of fluffy and and then you have this sort of idealized version of what might happen and then that doesn't happen and then you get disappointed. So like from a company's perspective and and and also from the exec's perspective, it's good to be clear on like what are we doing? And that's the difference between like, hey, my sales team is underperforming. I need them to sell more versus I need someone to do marketing for me. Like one of them there's a concrete outcome, more sales. And the other is like do marketing. Okay, what like just rebrand like new logo? You can organize an event like what what are we doing? you know, so I think like that that that specificity both ways if if it's not there, if there's no alignment on what

the outcome should be, that'll lead to a lot of friction and and probably disappointment on both sides. Um, giving the fractional person a full-time job to do three days a week. I think that's also a a a common one, right? Like if you say here's 100% of the responsibilities of a CPO that and you say that I have 60% of this person then what's like the 40% that I don't want them to do you know like have a have an anti- goal I do not want this person to do this but I do want them to do that I think not having that is is is and it's risky for both especially if you're starting out with these fractional things because you might fall into the trap that you just work full time for 60% of the salary because you're like that's the expectation and I'm used to just doing the work and I just want to do good and I want a good reference for my client. So like you don't have the boundaries set up and then you end up getting and it's just like you

know I think that that's something
typical um typical
having no like internal champion for it like that's that's another thing like you need someone who's a who's like going to be like hey this is my idea and I'm taking ownership for hiring this guy as a fractional and I want to make them succeed throw them in there
I have to make sorry for for uh for No that was a really good one I've been in situations s uh where I'm brought in. Again, I can speak freely because my client base is outside gaming as well where I would be brought in um in a in a key role on a product side by the CEO, the founder CEO
and the founder CEO is actually doing other things most of the time and not even focusing on the product and that's why it brings it and then doesn't champion that role and hasn't maybe like yes there are interviews with the other you know other people in the company but doesn't champion really that one. And

then you kind of come in and then you have to weirdly fight for your spot, you know, as you would be in an organization for fight for your ownership in this area and so forth. Those are really problematic. is like like you're brought in to help but then there's no there's no support from inside the organization from the other executives and like they haven't kind of cleared it out like please align with everybody before you bring a fractional talent because that person is not there to fight for them to be able to do their job. It's like
Yeah. Yeah. And it's even worse when it's like the VC who puts someone in and then they they just they just Yeah. Yeah. And then and then it's like no one wants you there. Everyone wants you to fail and they have to pay you. Like that's that's literally the worst. Like that's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another one is is typical one is you're hiring famous but a low engagement person. So
my favorite.
So to be clear, I'm not saying I'm

famous and also like this is this is what people are afraid. So I'm just saying like this is this is a good one to cover. I don't work with even half of our fractional clients like mo and I make it really clear that I'm busy because I'm not famous but I have other things. I got podcasts, I got media and so forth. So, so but I have this friend of mine, this friend of mine, they're much better at this. They're in the same time zone and everything. So, but I could imagine this before I had um partners on on our consulting side on on our consulting services. this would be what would have happened is you you hired me and I've had other things to do and I'm just uh wasn't able to do the same type of engagement as as currently. So now I you know really guard myself with only having one fractional client.
Yeah. I mean I I this is the this is my favorite topic. You know I I work with uh with quite a few like blockchain web

3 gaming companies and this is their favorite pastime. This is their favorite pastime. hire like the president of Activision Blizzard to run my 30 person.
Yeah. Bob Bobby needs to come in and turn this into Activision web 3 version.
Yeah. Yeah.
And and like Yeah. Maybe board eggs.
He's going to be here.
Oh, that that that was too close to the source. You're laughing too much.
No, no, no. All good. All good. I mean, it's the literal it's the literal example, right? But, uh, but yeah, those those rarely work out. So, I think one thing that we didn't say is like stage appropriate experience, right? Because you could get someone who's a real genius at growing a 500 million game to 1 billion, but they're not going to take you from like zero revenue to 100K,

right? And and so I think that that's also something to think about across this entire spectrum is that you might be cash rich at any moment and you might be lucky. Although that's not plaguing a lot of gaming companies at this day and age, but there have been times, right? Um
when we do work with other companies like bigger ones, uh consulting projects, these are like the one-offs that we discussed, they have fractional on their side. And so a lot of the times they're actually using this famous but low engagement execs and they're usually like I'm not name naming anybody but they let's say they would say like this person made Call of Duty, this person made Titanfall, this person made Star Wars named you know a great game
and you're like did they I mean like I'm sure they worked on it but how many other hundred people worked on it or let's say tens of people in a in a leadership role and those are the sort of like famous name clients that typically come on board is that is that they have that resume game and they are as you said not perhaps for the right stage because they might have been early

in I don't know Destiny uh or late in Destiny when it was a live project and your project is off the ground on the ground and so forth. It's like but nevertheless they are they worked on Destiny they worked on Call of Duty they worked on Battlefield they were Battlefront.
Yeah. Save that for your fundraising deck, I think. Or or or like for the
I don't know if VCs are buying that even anymore. Like they they used to.
I mean, yeah. Yeah, they used to. Yeah, they will again when they have the money like
it is what it is. Um let's take this home with us both answering two different questions. So, one is what is the one piece of advice for a founder thinking about hiring their first fractional exec? And the second question is one piece of advice for a senior leader considering a fractional role. Mickey, which one do you want to take first?
Uh let's go for the founder perspective. Okay. Company perspective. So what do they what's the advice?
So I think I have roughly like three

things. One is specificity and I've talked about that already. So I'll just I'll just do the headline. Two is like think of your company's stage and cadence because if things are changing every day and you hire someone who's only there two days a week, then they're not going to be able to keep in keep in the loop and you're not probably not going to succeed that way. And maybe you need an interim instead of a fractional or whatever, right? And then the third is like if you need to hire someone to get you from point A to point B, you need to define the coordinates of point A and point B to be able to kind of, you know, really maximize the utility you get out of that person. Don't lean on that person to tell you where to go, you know. Um I I think that's that's my those are the high level ones. Um, my advice, go through your normal hiring process like you would be hiring for your exec position. Don't do it on a quick call where you know people

haven't maybe align on everything. Just do the JD. Do everything and then do all interviews like you would for any senior position. And if you still feel that this is the person uh also the second part is just think about the future. uh is this a person that you expect to be in a fractional role for a certain amount of time until they fix it or you know whatnot or is the person dating to be for a permanent role and then align on that with the fractional role so proper interviews background checks you name it like I mean you don't have to hire a private investigator but just do the whole process and then align on what happens when this ends do you want them to stay and if They say there's no chance I'll stay and that's probably an you know good to know in the beginning.
Yeah. Yeah.
Uh okay. So one piece of advice for C for for the talent. What would that be?

Don't do it too soon in your career. That you know we we spoke about this like your exact career is what you will be judged by for almost every one of these fractional roles. No matter if you've done 10 of them already and the last time you worked was 10 years ago. If you were head of marketing at series A startup which did okay and exited for you know couple more dollars than than than was invested in them then that's your resume. And even if you if you're a great adviser and you've done a billion things afterwards that's still your core resume. So build that up before you go plural. I think that that that for me is because it's it's seductive to just like make a bit of money and and and have a bit of popularity and then go immediately this route. I don't think most people should like invest time in your career. Um
good point. Uh my advice would be prepare like prepare for instability. Like this is it's it's ups and downs all the time.

And I've had people who wanted to like who saw what I was doing and I not saw but I explained to them and friends of mine who were who who were thinking about this and they said like that sounds like a dream like you're you know it's well paid and you're in charge of your own day which is not true. Your clients are in charge of your own your day. Um uh you're independent. You can work from whenever. Also not true. You got to travel to your clients. Uh but nevertheless, they saw this from the outside and they were like, "This sounds amazing." And then what happened was that they were totally unprepared for not the work, but the instability of the work. There are times when you have a lot of clients, there are times when you don't. And they think that they can get to
uh let's say where
I'd be right now after two years of of of this
the first day when they come in and they're they're just like, "Where are all the clients that you talked about?" It's like well you you got to build the

client base. It's like
it's not that you raise your hand on LinkedIn say hey I'm ready to advise and and do fractional work people just flood in and give you that perfect amount of time where you can where you have exactly the work life balance that you imagine where you're living off of you know the goddamn pulia of south of Italy and you're having perfect time with your wife and your kids and also working with with two you know soaring startups at the same time and they're paying do 50 G's a month because of that and and you got the time to do a couple of podcasts and update your LinkedIn as well. It's like that's the dream and if if that looks for you as the dream then work for it but it's not going to come in the first day and there will be situations where it's like I don't think I have clients anymore. Did I up? What happened? And then there will be situation like I can't handle this. There's too much work. My brain is breaking. I I can't you know I have to wake up at 4:00 a.m. to to catch up with all the plans that have been happening.

So that's that's the work. It's not, you know, it's not as as sexy as it may sound. So So the role of this podcast is not to tell everybody that fractional work is the new is the new hype. You should definitely jump into it. This is we're discussing like what it is in real life. Think about it. Think about it.
Yeah. I still feel like I I still feel like the consensus is we're like pretty bullish, right? Like it does work. You just need to be aware of when and how. I think it's a it's a good
I like it. I like it. But I always say, hey, if I meet the perfect one, I'll we'll be we'll be together. But it's not I'm saying I'm not having worked with amazing companies. I have I have respect for all of them and it's been incredibly exciting to work with all of them. I'm saying as a as a person who works with various clients and I'm looking forward for working with many more but they just you know haven't haven't been the type of fit that that you would see forever and it's quite

exciting. It's not even about them. It's quite exciting to work with more and you feel like oh I want to work with company that is doing Steam games. I've never done a Steam game. I want to jump on that. Oh, I want to work uh with a company with a dating app or a food delivery app or uh a new startup that does cosmetics and it has an app and I want to work with that and so forth. Like this is truly exciting when you jump in and you feel like you're learning new things. And I'm also the type of person like I like like look at my career. I've never stayed in in place for too long of a time. That's my detriment, but it's also my my um benefit when I work for these companies. I I slip in like a like a like a foot in a sock about a one week and and so I can I can take on really quickly and and I enjoy meeting new people. I enjoy learning. I've seen so many ways to fail and I've seen so many ways to succeed. So I don't have this playbook that I would be, you know, coming with and forcing everybody. This is what this company does, so we have to do it. Everything else is No.

Yeah. So
yeah,
but anyways um you anybody listening to this can connect to Mickey with the uh link in the description below and to take it home. Uh fractional work isn't just uh a workaround for the lean times especially now where a lot of people are are looking for jobs. Um it is a deliberative strategy for some to build more agile companies. Like there are companies that that are focusing and are really good actually at using fractional talent but it really requires a lot of clarity. It requires a lot of intent. It requires that you set up the right incentives uh in order to get it right with the fractional talent. Uh so whether you're a founder debating uh or your next hire or an exec thinking about going to this portfolio route this fractional round I think this is a trend that that you should try and yeah Mickey

big thanks for for coming on the podcast for sharing your insight from the other from both sides of the table working both with the execs as well as with the companies uh and um as always Stay sharp out there. So, thank you for joining us.
Thanks so much.
Thank you everybody for listening and connect with uh with Mickey or myself to hear about truth of fractional work. Bye-bye everybody.
Thanks for listening to the full episode. Now, did you know that Deconstructor of Fun isn't just your favorite industry podcast? We're also a bit of a consulting powerhouse. Now whether you're launching your next hit, scaling your live ops, or vetting your next acquisition, we've got you covered. From market research and go to market strategy to live operations tuning and due diligence, our team of experts works with the top names as well as the rising stars of the industry. So if you are building, publishing, or buying, don't do it alone. Do it with us. Email consulting deconstructorofund.com

and let's build smarter together.