In the first 90 days a fractional executive listens, fixes the most urgent problem, writes the plan, and starts running it. By day 90 you should be able to see the difference and decide whether to keep the seat.
What does a fractional exec do in the first 90 days?
How the three months usually break down:
- Days 1 to 30: listen and read. Meet every person who touches the area. Read the contracts, the systems, the numbers, and the last plan. Find what is about to break and say so.
- Days 31 to 60: first fixes and the plan. Fix one or two things that are costing money right now. Write the plan for the next two quarters, with an owner and a cost on each item.
- Days 61 to 90: run it and report. Start on the plan, manage the vendors and the people against it, and report to the owner on what changed.
The work is the same shape whether the seat is CTO, CMO, or Chief AI Officer. The content changes.
What does the first month look like in each seat?
- Fractional CTO: a list of every system, who has access, what it costs, and which vendor is responsible. Backups and passwords checked.
- Fractional CMO: where customers actually come from, what the marketing money buys, and which channels nobody is measuring.
- Fractional Chief AI Officer: which AI tools people already use, what data goes into them, and where the hours go that AI could give back.
What should be fixed by day 90?
At least one thing you can point at. A vendor contract renegotiated, a broken process fixed, a tool turned off that nobody used. The plan matters, but a fractional seat that only produces a plan is a consulting engagement with a monthly bill.
What does it look like in a real seat?
I hold three seats now. At Quartz Importers MN, as fractional CTO, a small sales team runs on 49 automated workflows every day. At U.S. Asset Appraisals, also as fractional CTO, it is the marketing technology and AI rollout for an appraisal firm working in 35+ states. At Appraisal Dream, as fractional Chief AI Officer, I built their AI software.
What should I have ready on day one?
Logins, contracts, the last plan if there is one, and a list of the people to meet. And one person on your side who can make introductions and answer "who decides this?" without a meeting.
What should I not expect?
Do not expect a finished strategy in week two. Anyone who delivers one that fast wrote it before they met you. And do not expect the seat to do the routine work. A fractional executive decides, chooses, and manages. Others do the daily tasks.
The seats run $3,500, $6,500, or $11,000 a month for about two days a month, a day a week, or two days a week. What a fractional CTO costs and what a fractional CMO costs break that down. The fractional seat page has the details, and you can start on the start form.
Answered by Jared Lukes, Minneapolis. Twenty-five years in brand, UX, and technology, currently holding fractional AI and technology seats at three companies. About Jared.