Fractional Product Manager for Startups

A fractional product manager acts as your product lead on a part-time basis — setting direction, prioritising the backlog, writing specs and running delivery — without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire. You get senior experience applied exactly where it is needed.

You get a senior operator immediately, with no ramp and no long-term headcount commitment. I also leave behind the process and templates, so your eventual full-time hire inherits a healthy function instead of a mess.

Typically two to three days a week, adjusted to what the stage of work demands. I flex up around launches and discovery, and down once the rhythm is steady.

Whatever your team already uses — Jira, Linear, Notion, Miro. I adapt to your stack rather than forcing a migration mid-engagement.

Discovery usually begins within a week of our first call. You will have a first cut of the prioritised roadmap inside the first two weeks.

Not usually. The earliest decisions (who the product is for, what the first version leaves out, and how you'll know it's working) are the hardest to undo later. If you'd like to see the approach first, my guide to building a product from scratch walks through it step by step.

A product owner manages the backlog for one team, usually inside Scrum. A fractional product manager owns the product decisions: who it's for, what to build next and how you'll know it worked. A fractional head of product does that across several teams and also builds the function, including the first hires. Most early-stage startups need the middle one first, and I scope the engagement to what you actually need.

Yes. Many engagements start after launch, when the first version is out and the decisions get harder: what to improve, what to stop, and what the numbers are really saying. I set up the metrics and a prioritised backlog so improvements are chosen on evidence, not on whoever asked last.

Yes. I'm based in Islamabad and work remotely with US and UK startups. With New York the daily overlap is 9am to 1pm Eastern, which covers standups, planning and stakeholder calls. UK teams get most of their working day.

I'm taking on my first US clients at an introductory rate, from $1,000 a month for two days a week, invoiced in USD. The final number depends on how many days you need and how long the engagement runs, and I'll confirm it in writing after our first call. For comparison, that is a fraction of a full-time senior PM's salary and benefits, with no recruiting time or notice period.

Simply. We sign a direct contractor agreement, either mine or yours: I'm happy to work on your own contractor agreement, NDA and IP assignment. I invoice monthly in advance in US dollars, payable by international bank transfer. There's no agency in the middle and no need for you to set up anything in Pakistan.