Breakwater

Build Track · Retainer

Fractional CPO. Chief Product Officer, on retainer.

Senior product leadership for startups, capital operators, and founders who need the judgment — not the $400K seat. One to three days a week. Remote nationwide. Based in Los Angeles.

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TL;DR

A fractional Chief Product Officer runs your product function on a retainer — typically 1–3 days a week. You get roadmap, strategy, hiring, pricing, and hands-on product leadership without committing to a full-time hire. Breakwater offers fractional CPO engagements to early-stage startups, capital operators, and founders who already have engineering but are missing product judgment. Typical retainer: $8K–$20K/month, 3–12 months, remote nationwide.

Three scenarios where a fractional CPO makes sense

Do any of these sound like you?

The early-stage founder

You have engineers. You have a product. You don't have product leadership — and you're feeling it in every planning cycle. You don't need to hire a $400K CPO; you need judgment, process, and someone accountable to the roadmap.

The capital operator

You're funding a thesis — angel, GP, operator-investor. You've got conviction and capital but not a full operating team. You need an experienced product leader to run the build while you keep doing what you do.

The scaling SMB

Your company has grown past the founder's product comfort zone. Roadmap is reactive. Prioritization is a fight. You need senior product judgment before you can justify a full-time exec hire — and you want someone accountable, not another advisor.

What a fractional CPO engagement actually includes

The judgment, the ownership, the throughput.

  • ◆Roadmap ownership. Quarterly and rolling roadmaps tied to business outcomes, not feature wishlists.
  • ◆Strategy. Positioning, pricing, packaging, competitive calls, and build-vs-buy decisions.
  • ◆Hiring. Interview PMs, senior engineers, and designers. Structure comp bands. Coach early-career hires.
  • ◆Process. Planning cadence, specs, QA workflow, metrics and dashboards, async operating rhythm.
  • ◆Hands-on product work. PRDs, customer interviews, launch planning, and direct work on the highest-leverage initiatives.
  • ◆Stakeholder communication. Board updates, investor narratives, customer escalation paths.

Who's running the engagement

A senior product operator.

Your engagement is run directly by a sitting Chief Product Officer at an AI-powered data company in financial underwriting — not an account manager and not a junior. Eleven-plus years across product, engineering, and growth in fintech, insurance, food & beverage, fashion, music, advertising, healthcare, retail, SaaS, and real estate. Based in Redondo Beach, CA, and serving founders nationwide remotely.

We'll share specific background and references on the intro call — Breakwater keeps things lightweight up front and substantive once we're talking.

Fractional CPO FAQ

What founders ask first.

What is a fractional CPO?

A fractional Chief Product Officer is a senior product leader who runs a company's product function part-time — typically 1–3 days a week — under a retainer. It's the product equivalent of a fractional CFO or fractional CTO: the judgment and accountability of a full-time executive without the full-time cost or commitment.

When do companies hire a fractional CPO?

Three common moments. (1) Early-stage startups between $0 and ~$5M ARR that have engineering but no product leadership. (2) Capital operators — angels, fund partners, operator-investors — funding a thesis who need someone to run the build without standing up a full team. (3) Founders whose companies have grown past their comfort zone and need senior product judgment before they can justify a $400K full-time CPO hire.

What's actually included in a fractional CPO engagement?

Roadmap ownership, product strategy, hiring and interviewing PMs and engineers, stakeholder communication, process design, pricing and packaging decisions, and direct work alongside engineering and design on the highest-leverage initiatives. For earlier-stage clients it often includes hands-on PRDs, user interviews, and launch planning. It does not include running day-to-day standups unless that's scoped in.

How much does a fractional CPO cost?

Typical retainers run $8K–$20K per month depending on cadence (1 day/week vs 3 days/week), complexity, and scope. Engagements run three to twelve months, with a one-month exit ramp built in. Pricing is a retainer — not hourly.

Fractional CPO vs fractional CTO vs fractional head of product — what's the difference?

A fractional CTO owns engineering: architecture, hiring engineers, technical debt, tooling. A fractional CPO owns product: what to build, for whom, why, and what success looks like. A fractional head of product is effectively the same role, sometimes at a slightly smaller scope. Breakwater's Build track is structured as fractional CPO — product-led — because that's the judgment most early-stage operators are actually missing.

Are you available remotely or only in Los Angeles?

Remote nationwide. Fractional CPO clients are rarely geographically concentrated. On-site visits are scoped into engagements when they make sense; otherwise everything runs on async-friendly product operations (Linear, Notion, Loom, and shared working sessions).

If this is the right moment, let's talk.

Every engagement starts with a 30-minute call. No deck, no dance — just whether we're a fit.

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