Fractional CMO:s Offers Unique Opportunity for Startups, PE:s and Venture Capital
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As the world becomes ever more competitive, startups and venture capitalists need to find strategies to help them scale quickly and efficiently.
A fractional or interim chief marketing officer (CMO) is a unique way for both parties to gain the skills and experience they need without paying for a full-time executive with the expertise they need.
By working with a fractional CMO, startups can get the benefits of a full-time executive without the cost, while VCs can gain the skills and an experienced core team without providing extra funding.
So for Venture Capital, bringing in Fractional Executives with domain expertise and proven results to their portfolio companies is a significant risk management element. Growth combined with risk aversion is crucial, especially in today’s volatile markets.
In addition to providing services, fractional CMOs often offer insights, contacts, and otherwise unavailable strategies for founders and scaleup executives who have yet to prove themselves as Go To Market experts.
If we look at this pragmatically, benefitting from the lessons learned and prices paid of previous growth initiatives and failures will save the startup a pretty penny and something even more valuable, time.
What is a Fractional CMO?
The fractional CMO is an executive with CMO expertise but who works with several clients simultaneously or one client as an external consultant. The main difference is that while a “hired” CMO spends up to 60% doing “nonmarketing stuff” in a tightly resourced startup or scaleup, the fractional CMO focuses 100% on generating outcomes that will bring growth.
This saves money and time as there are often more cost-effective ways that existing team members can contribute to things that the “hired CMO” can help with.
A seasoned fractional executive also helps connect startups with the right customers and investors via their networks and guides the founders into safer passages to growth. In addition to her marketing expertise, fractional CMOs are skilled in digital marketing, so they can help your startup reach a wider audience.
