Fix the operating structure
Authority, cadence and ownership are unclear, and the business is not yet complex enough to need an executive. A COO would inherit the ambiguity.
Before you hire senior operating capacity
Don’t spend thousands a month until you know a COO is what your business actually needs.
A Fractional COO can be a brilliant investment. It can also be an expensive answer to the wrong problem.
In around 15 minutes, the COO Readiness Audit gives you an Operating Leadership Prescription: which of five routes fits the way your business runs today, and what to do first.
Get my COO Readiness Audit — £29 →One payment · no sales call · result straight after the audit
Built for founder-led businesses
£500k–£10m+Growing teamsOperational complexityFounder bottlenecks
“Don’t buy senior capacity until you know what problem it must solve.”
Who this is for
Are you about to hire senior operating capacity for the wrong problem?
The business has outgrown you carrying it personally. What is less clear is whether the answer is a person, and if so, which one.
✓ Important decisions wait for you before work can move.
✓ Managers bring you problems to solve rather than decisions they have made.
✓ You are the one who notices when things slip, and the one who chases.
✓ You have added people or software, and the load on you has not fallen.
✓ You have started pricing Fractional COOs but cannot yet say what one would own.
If you have already defined the role’s mandate and authority and are choosing between candidates, you are past the point this audit is built for.
Founder bottleneck
The diagnosis
Five possible answers. The audit tells you which one fits.
Strengthen your internal operator
You already have someone running operations. The cheaper test is giving them real authority before you buy another senior role.
Hire an Operations Manager
The business needs a dedicated operator for execution, cadence and process ownership, but not yet COO-level scope or cost.
Use a Fractional COO
The problem crosses functions and needs senior operating judgement, but the workload does not yet justify a permanent executive.
Prepare for a full-time COO
Scale and leadership complexity point to a durable executive mandate. Define it around outcomes and authority before recruiting.
EXAMPLE PRESCRIPTIONIllustrative
OPERATING LEADERSHIP PRESCRIPTIONStrengthen your internal operatorYou already have an operations lead, but they hold responsibility without authority. Test giving them cross-functional decision rights for 90 days before buying a senior role.
What you receive
A decision you can act on, not a score.
Your Operating Leadership Prescription
Which of the five routes fits, why, and why not the next level up.
Role brief and authority boundary
What the role should own, what it must not own, and where your authority stops.
First 90 days
Milestones, measures and decision gates if you follow the prescription.
Interview scorecard and red flags
Weighted criteria and questions to test candidates against the actual mandate.
Your readiness score appears alongside it as supporting evidence. The prescription is the answer.
What happens after you buy
From checkout to prescription in one sitting.
Review your order
Confirm the £29 audit in the cart. Optional extras are shown there and are never preselected.
Pay securely
Checkout is handled by Stripe. There is no sales call.
Answer the audit
Your revenue, team, management layer and growth pressure, then statements about how decisions and work move today. Around 15 minutes.
Get your prescription
Your Operating Leadership Prescription and decision pack appear when you finish. You may be offered optional implementation support first, and you can skip it.
Built by an operator
“Define the operating problem before you buy the seniority to solve it.”
Antony Draper spent years in the Royal Navy, then in large operational businesses at HP and Capita, leading and stabilising complex teams. The audit applies the question he asks before any operating intervention: what is actually happening, and who should own it?
Questions founders ask
What if the answer is that I don’t need a COO?
Then the audit has done its job. Two of the five prescriptions exist because many founders do not need senior capacity yet. They need structure, or authority given to someone already in the business.
Is this a quiz?
No. The prescription comes from your scale, team, management layer, growth pressure and how dependent operations are on you, and the result shows which of those inputs drove it.
Will someone try to sell me a COO?
The audit is automated and there is no sales call. It does not place candidates or recommend providers.
Is this recruitment, legal or HR advice?
No. It is operational decision support based on your answers. Use it to define the problem before you take hiring, employment or contractual advice.
Before you commit to a senior hire
Spend £29 finding out what the role must solve.
Review your order in the cart, then check out securely with Stripe.
Get my COO Readiness Audit — £29 →
Optional extras are never preselected · one-time payment