Operations
When to Hire a COO, and When a Fractional COO Comes First
A one-week test, seven signs, and how to choose between an operations manager, a fractional COO and a full-time COO.
Updated October 2026, 9 min read
Straight talk on operations, systems and building what holds.
What I learn building AI systems and running operations inside growing businesses, written down for founders who carry the same load.
Posts
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Growth
The Founder Bottleneck: Why Most Service Businesses Plateau at $1M
The $1M ceiling is rarely a sales problem. It is an operations problem: what it looks like, why it happens and how businesses get past it.
May 2026, 8 min read
Shorter notes go up three times a week on LinkedIn: real systems, real numbers, real failures.
Guides: one kind of business, or one system, at a time.
Longer pages on the work itself: what a fractional COO does inside a home services company or a private lender, how an AI receptionist gets tested, and how schedules, checklists and procedures get built.
Reading about it is the slow way. The audit is the fast one.
Book the Operations Leak AuditComplimentary while this season's openings last. I run every audit myself, so I keep the number small.
Wilkins Ndwiga, AI systems and fractional COO. Remote, working US hours.