It's 3 PM on a Wednesday, and one of your portfolio founders sends you a message: "Emergency. Our biggest customer is threatening to cancel. Can we talk?"
You're in back-to-back meetings until 6 PM. By the time you respond, it's evening. You hop on a call, listen to the situation, offer some high-level guidance. But the founder needs more than advice—they need someone to help them actually fix the problem. To review the customer contract. To draft a response strategy. To prepare for tomorrow's call with the customer's executive team.
You want to help. But you're juggling your own responsibilities, managing 15 other portfolio companies, and simply don't have the bandwidth to dive deep into this specific situation.
What if instead of scrambling to find time, you could immediately connect that founder with an experienced operator who knows their business, understands the context, and can roll up their sleeves to solve the problem today—not next week?
That's what having an extended operating team actually means.
What "Fractional" Really Means
The term "fractional" gets thrown around a lot in startup land. Fractional CFO. Fractional CMO. Fractional CTO. But what does it actually mean in practice?
Here's what it's NOT:
It's not a consultant who parachutes in once a month to deliver a PowerPoint presentation and disappear. Those engagements create reports that sit in Google Drive, not operational improvements that move the business forward.
It's not an advisor who takes equity for occasional coffee meetings. Advisors are valuable for strategic guidance and introductions. But when a company needs to build a sales process or restructure their organization, an advisor's quarterly call doesn't cut it.
It's not a contractor who executes tasks but doesn't understand context. You can hire contractors on Upwork to do specific deliverables. But they don't know your portfolio companies' strategies, challenges, or goals. Every engagement starts from zero.
Here's what fractional operating support ACTUALLY means:
Embedded knowledge without full-time cost. We become deeply familiar with each portfolio company—their business model, team dynamics, current challenges, strategic priorities. We're not learning the basics every time we engage. We know the context.
On-demand availability for urgent situations. When something critical comes up, founders can reach us immediately. Not "let me check my calendar for next week." Within hours, often within the hour.
Hands-on execution, not just advice. We don't just tell founders what to do. We co-create solutions, review documents, sit in on critical meetings, build frameworks together, help execute the work.
Systematic engagement across the portfolio. Every company gets regular attention, not just the ones currently on fire. We proactively identify issues before they become crises.
Specialized expertise when needed. Different challenges require different operational knowledge. We bring 30+ years of building businesses across industries, geographies, and stages—fintech, B2B SaaS, international expansion, marketplace operations.
Think of it this way: You get 80% of the value of a full-time operating partner at 20% of the cost, shared across your entire portfolio.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Let's walk through some real scenarios to show how fractional operating support actually works day-to-day.
Scenario 1: The Struggling Sales Process
The situation: One of your seed-stage B2B SaaS portfolio companies raised $2M six months ago. They hired their first two sales reps, but after three months, neither has closed a deal. The founder (a technical CEO) is frustrated but doesn't know how to fix it.
Traditional approach: You hop on a call, ask some questions, suggest they might need a sales leader. Maybe you make an intro to a VP of Sales candidate. The founder spends three months recruiting, makes a bad hire, and burns another $150K before realizing it's not working.
Fractional operating support:
Week 1: We sit down with the founder and sales reps, audit their current process, review call recordings, examine their pipeline. We identify the core issues: unclear ideal customer profile, no qualification framework, weak discovery process, pricing confusion.
Week 2-3: We work with the team to build a structured sales process. Document the ideal customer profile. Create a qualification checklist. Develop a discovery framework and call structure. Fix the pricing presentation. Train the reps on the new approach.
Week 4-8: We join weekly pipeline reviews, coach reps on specific deals, iterate on the process based on what's working. By week 8, one rep closes their first deal. By week 12, both reps have consistent pipeline.
Outcome: The company didn't need a VP of Sales yet—they needed a sales process. Saved $150K+ in salary, avoided a bad hire, and actually solved the problem. Total investment: 30-40 hours over 12 weeks instead of burning six months and significant capital.
Scenario 2: International Expansion Gone Wrong
The situation: Your Series A portfolio company decided to expand to Brazil. They hired a country manager, opened an office, and six months in have spent $400K with minimal traction. The CEO asks you: "Should we double down or shut it down?"
Traditional approach: You don't have Brazil expertise. You might know someone who does and make an intro, but by the time they assess the situation and provide recommendations, another two months and $150K are gone.
Fractional operating support:
Week 1: We fly to Brazil (or jump on extensive calls with the local team), assess what's actually happening. Interview customers, partners, employees. Review the market entry strategy, competitive positioning, go-to-market approach.
Week 2: We present findings: The country manager is excellent but was given an impossible strategy. They're targeting SMBs with a product priced for enterprises. Local payment methods aren't supported. No Portuguese customer support. Partnership strategy doesn't match market reality.
Week 3-4: We help the team pivot. Restructure pricing for the local market. Implement local payment options. Adjust the ideal customer profile. Redesign the partnership approach. Keep the country manager but give them a viable strategy.
Month 2-3: We stay engaged as the new approach is tested. Monthly check-ins with the local team, quarterly reviews with the CEO, adjustments as needed.
Outcome: Brazil operation becomes profitable within 9 months instead of being shut down. The company successfully enters an important market. The investor saves a $400K write-off and gains confidence for future international expansion.
Scenario 3: The Fundraising Crisis
The situation: Your portfolio company is three months away from running out of cash and needs to raise a bridge round. They've been "preparing to fundraise" for two months but aren't ready. The CEO is stressed, the team is distracted by fundraising conversations, and nothing is getting done.
Traditional approach: You give feedback on their deck, make some investor intros, hope for the best. Maybe they close, maybe they don't. Even if they close, it takes longer and they raise at worse terms because they're clearly desperate.
Fractional operating support:
Week 1: We do a fundraising readiness assessment. The financials are a mess (multiple versions, unclear assumptions). The deck doesn't tell a clear story. Key metrics are missing or inconsistent. The data room doesn't exist. Due diligence will be a nightmare.
Week 2: We pause outbound fundraising and fix the foundation. Work with finance to clean up the financial model, standardize metrics, create proper projections. Rebuild the deck with a clear narrative. Start assembling the data room.
Week 3: We prepare the CEO for investor conversations. Run mock pitches, prepare answers to tough questions, coach on how to handle objections, refine the ask.
Week 4-8: Now ready, the company starts fundraising properly. We help manage the process—tracking investors, coordinating diligence, negotiating terms. The CEO stays focused, execution continues, and they close the round in 6 weeks at good terms.
Outcome: Instead of a desperate 6-month fundraising slog that kills momentum and results in terrible terms (or failure), the company raises efficiently and gets back to building. The investor's ownership isn't massively diluted in a down round.
The Portfolio-Level Advantage
These examples show individual company support. But the real power of fractional operating support comes at the portfolio level.
Pattern Recognition Across Companies
When you're deeply engaged with 10-15 companies simultaneously, you see patterns that individual founders miss:
"Three of your portfolio companies are all struggling with the same hiring challenge. Here's the framework that's working for Company A—let me share it with Companies B and C."
"I'm seeing early signs of burn rate issues across four companies. None are in crisis yet, but we should address it now before it becomes urgent."
"Companies D and E both need similar partnership capabilities. Let me introduce them—they can share resources and negotiate better terms together."
This portfolio-level view creates leverage. Solutions developed for one company benefit others. Common challenges get addressed systematically. Your entire portfolio gets smarter together.
Early Warning System
With quarterly health checks and ongoing engagement, problems surface early:
A company's velocity is slowing (fewer features shipped, deals taking longer to close). Not a crisis yet, but an indicator that operational friction is increasing. We dig in, identify the bottleneck (usually organizational or process-related), fix it before it impacts metrics that investors care about.
A founder is showing signs of burnout. Still showing up, still working hard, but decision quality is declining. We can intervene early—help them delegate, restructure their calendar, bring in support—before they flame out or make a catastrophic decision.
Team morale issues are brewing. Nothing obvious, but engagement surveys and 1-on-1s reveal friction. We help leadership address it before top performers start leaving.
Early intervention is exponentially cheaper than crisis management. A problem caught at month 2 takes 10 hours to fix. The same problem at month 6 takes 100 hours and costs the company 6 months of progress.
Leverage Your Own Time
Here's what changes for you as an investor when you have systematic operational support:
Your portfolio meetings become more strategic. Instead of troubleshooting tactical problems, you focus on big decisions: market positioning, fundraising strategy, M&A opportunities. The operational details are handled.
You spend time with winners, not firefighting with strugglers. The companies that need the most operational help get it without consuming all your time. You can focus on supporting your best performers and sourcing new deals.
Your decision-making improves. When it's time for follow-on investments, you have detailed operational insights, not just the founder's pitch. You know which companies are actually executing well versus which ones just talk a good game.
Your reputation as an investor strengthens. Founders talk to each other. When your portfolio companies consistently execute better because they have real operational support, you become known as an investor who actually helps companies win. Better deal flow follows.
Why This Works Better Than Hiring Full-Time
Some investors consider hiring their own full-time operating partner or platform team. For large funds ($200M+ AUM), this makes sense. But for angel investors and emerging funds, the math doesn't work:
A full-time operating partner costs $200-400K per year (salary + benefits + equity). Plus recruiting time, management overhead, and the risk of a bad hire.
They're expensive even when idle. Some quarters are busy, others are quiet. You're paying full-time whether you need full-time support or not.
Limited expertise breadth. One person, even excellent, has gaps. They might be great at B2B sales but have never done international expansion. Strong in marketplace operations but weak in fintech compliance.
They create dependency. If they leave, your portfolio support disappears. You're back to square one.
Fractional operating support solves these problems:
You get enterprise-grade operational expertise at a fraction of the cost. You pay for what you actually use. You get broad experience across industries and functions—30+ years of building businesses, not one person's limited background. There's no recruiting risk, no management overhead, no key person dependency.
Think of it like AWS versus building your own data center. You could build your own infrastructure, but unless you're massive scale, it's more expensive and less flexible than using a specialized provider.
What About Platform Teams at Large VCs?
Large venture firms have platform teams with specialists: recruiters, marketers, finance experts, product strategists. These are valuable resources, and portfolio companies appreciate them.
But here's what platform teams typically don't do:
They don't get their hands dirty with execution. Platform teams provide resources, tools, and advice. They might run workshops or make introductions. But they're not sitting with your portfolio company's sales team rebuilding the process. They're not flying to Brazil to fix your international expansion.
They're spread too thin. A recruiter supporting 80 portfolio companies can't provide deep, customized support to each one. It's transactional: "Here are 5 VP of Sales candidates. Good luck."
They're generalists serving diverse needs. A marketing platform person needs to help a consumer app, an enterprise SaaS company, and a biotech startup. The guidance stays generic because specific expertise would limit their portfolio coverage.
Fractional operating support is different:
We don't replace platform teams—we do what they can't. We embed with companies. We execute alongside founders. We bring specialized domain expertise. We provide continuity and deep context over quarters and years, not one-time interactions.
If you're a small fund competing against large VCs, this is how you level the playing field. You can't afford a 10-person platform team. But you can provide portfolio companies with better hands-on operational support than most large funds deliver.
The Founder Perspective
Let's be honest: Some investors worry that founders will resist having "someone from the investor" involved operationally. In practice, the opposite is true.
Founders are desperate for operational help. They're smart, capable people who've never built a sales organization or scaled internationally or prepared for due diligence. They know they're making avoidable mistakes. They want help—they just don't know where to get it.
They appreciate that you're investing in their success. When you provide real operational support, founders see it for what it is: You care about them winning. You're putting resources behind your investment. That builds loyalty and trust.
They value having a thinking partner who isn't their employee. Founders often feel alone. They can't be fully vulnerable with their team. They can't show all their uncertainty to their board. Having an experienced operator they can brainstorm with, who understands their business deeply, is incredibly valuable.
They get it done faster with guidance than alone. A founder spending 3 months figuring out how to structure a sales team gets it done in 3 weeks with experienced support. That's time and capital saved, and they appreciate it.
The key is positioning. We're not "oversight from the investor." We're an extension of their team. A resource that makes their life easier and their company more likely to succeed.
What This Means for Your Portfolio
Here's the practical reality:
If you're managing 10+ portfolio companies, you physically cannot provide adequate operational support on your own. The math doesn't work. The expertise doesn't cover every situation. The time isn't available.
You have three options:
Option 1: Accept that capital is your only value-add. Write checks, make occasional intros, hope for the best. Watch some companies struggle and fail for preventable operational reasons. Accept lower returns because execution quality across your portfolio is inconsistent.
Option 2: Try to do it all yourself. Burn out trying to support 15 companies deeply. Sacrifice your own business, family time, and sanity. Still fall short because you can't be everywhere at once.
Option 3: Extend your capabilities with systematic operational support. Partner with experienced operators who serve as your portfolio operations team. Get leverage, provide real value to founders, improve your returns, and maintain your sanity.
Option 3 is what GNX provides.
We don't replace you as the investor and advisor. We extend you. You remain the trusted relationship, the strategic guide, the board member. We become the operational execution layer that turns advice into implemented reality.
You stay focused on what you do best—sourcing deals, making investment decisions, strategic guidance. Your portfolio companies get the hands-on operational support they need to execute and win.
How to Get Started
Systematic operational support for your portfolio isn't complicated to implement. Here's how it typically works:
Start with a pilot. Pick 2-3 portfolio companies facing specific challenges. We work with them for 4-6 weeks, deliver concrete results, demonstrate the value. Low risk, clear outcomes.
Expand to portfolio-wide support. Once you see the impact, we establish ongoing engagement across your portfolio. Quarterly health checks, on-demand support for urgent situations, systematic attention to keep companies on track.
Adjust based on what works. Every portfolio is different. Some investors want intensive support for early-stage companies. Others need help with specific challenges like international expansion or fundraising. We customize the approach to your portfolio's needs.
The goal isn't to create dependency. It's to provide systematic operational leverage that improves outcomes across your portfolio—so you can compete with larger funds, deliver better returns, and actually enjoy the experience of being an investor instead of drowning in portfolio management.
Ready to Extend Your Operating Capabilities?
Let's discuss how systematic operational support would work for your portfolio.
Contact us: vitaly@gnx.vc
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area | Serving investors and portfolio companies globally
