Fractional product leadership to clarify your strategy and ship against it in the same quarter
Growth-stage companies reach a point where the team has product-market fit and is executing, and the metrics are still moving slower than the ambition. Gauges Green works with companies at that point. Ryan Eberhard, ZipRecruiter's CPO from Series A through the NYSE IPO, joins as your fractional CPO or head of product, takes ownership of the initiative that matters most, and hands it to your team once they can carry it.
Every engagement is led by Ryan, and we take a small number at a time. We also work with established businesses on AI Operations.
Who We Work With
Companies bring us in at one of these moments:
- The next stage of growth needs a senior product leader before the company is ready to hire one full time.
- A founder-led team is building out its first executive layer.
- Pricing, monetization or retention has become the biggest lever on growth.
In each case there is one initiative that is too important to delegate and too cross-functional for any single role. That initiative is where Ryan starts.
Fractional Product Leadership
The work covers product strategy and the roadmap, retention, pricing and monetization, and the operating rhythm that turns a strategy into shipped work. Ryan leads product, growth or both directly. He hires and coaches the team and ships the roadmap. He works in your Slack, your standups and your data.
Within the quarter, the strategy is clear, the board and the team have heard the same story, and the roadmap is shipping against it. By the end of the engagement, a permanent hire or your own team owns the work.
Ryan was ZipRecruiter's first product hire and its CPO for eight years, from Series A through the NYSE IPO, while revenue grew from $100M to $900M with 46% year-over-year organic growth. As President of JobGet, he helped push revenue past $100M as the company reached profitability. That work enabled three acquisitions, including Snagajob and Seasoned.
AI Operations
For established businesses changing how they operate, we work out where to apply AI, what to build, what to buy, and how to govern what you put in place.
AI-assisted software delivery. When engineering has adopted AI coding tools and leadership wants shipped output to rise with them, we map how a product decision becomes shipped software in your organization. Then we install written briefs with clear acceptance criteria, instructions that live in the codebase, automated checks before work merges, and a release path into production. Your team keeps ownership once it runs.
We run our own work on the same kind of system we install for clients. See how it works.
Ryan was COO of Swing Education, hired to lead AI work across engineering and operations. OpEx and COGS fell by more than 50% year over year while product velocity held.
How an Engagement Runs
Diagnostic, about 30 days. You get findings and a recommended 90-day path. Fixes usually start shipping during the diagnostic.
Embedded. Ryan leads the initiative the diagnostic identified as most important, hiring and coaching the team as the work ships.
Handoff. The work moves to a permanent hire or your internal team once they can carry it. The engagement is finished when your team runs the work without us and runs it better than before.
Is This a Fit?
The best fit is a company with product-market fit, a team that is executing, and that one initiative already in view. If you can name it, start with a call.