Your product org isn't slow. It has broken decisions.
A fractional Chief Product Officer for SaaS scale-ups (€1M–€10M ARR) — backed by a team of AI agents, each with its own second brain. One hire, the output of a full product team.
Catalin Adam
Fractional CPO
13+ years across 5 SaaS verticals
- ▸ Your CPO, embedded — with a team of AI agents and second brains behind me
- ▸ Outcomes you can show your board — not slides you'd have to defend
- ▸ Transparent hours · no retainer minimums · pay for what moves
Where you might be right now.
Most founders I work with are stuck in one of these patterns. None of them are unusual, and none require a full-time CPO to fix.
"Our roadmap is a debate club."
Every prioritization meeting reopens last quarter's decisions. Nobody can defend the backlog with anything other than opinion.
Outcome: prioritization stops being argued
Proven: 7 engineering teams on one sequenced roadmap at a top-3 payments platform.
How I fix this →"Discovery takes forever."
From idea to spec is measured in months. By the time you ship, the assumption it was built on is stale.
Outcome: ideas reach spec in weeks, not quarters
Proven: discovery cycles cut from 7 months to 6 weeks at a global payments platform.
How I fix this →"We don't trust our analytics."
Three dashboards say three things. Decisions get made on gut anyway because nobody has time to audit which one is right.
Outcome: every number defensible to your board
Proven: one metrics formula became the basis for all OKRs at a 14M MAU network.
How I fix this →"We ship, but we don't learn."
Every launch is "a success." There's no test against a hypothesis, so nothing gets disconfirmed and product knowledge doesn't compound.
Outcome: every launch produces a real signal
Proven: +9% MoM revenue lift, sustained, from a programmatic A/B pipeline.
How I fix this →"We need a CPO. We can't afford one."
The role is real, the budget isn't — yet. You need senior product judgment now, not in 12 months when the runway permits a full-time hire.
Outcome: senior product judgment without the full-time cost
Proven: embedded 2 days/week as acting CPO — +30% MRR within one quarter.
How I fix this →"Our pricing just… happened."
A number got picked at launch. Tiers got added when big customers asked. Nobody can defend the price points, and expansion revenue is flat.
Outcome: pricing designed, validated, defensible
Proven: +19% MRR per customer from a validated pricing redesign — tested before rollout.
How I fix this →I don't advise on AI. I operate on it.
My practice runs on an AI operating system I built: a second brain that never loses context, 25+ custom agent skills, meeting-to-documentation pipelines, and idea-to-deployed-prototype velocity measured in days. Every engagement ships with that leverage — including this website, which was built with it.
See the AI Operating System25+
custom agent skills in production use
14
PRDs shipped in two weeks
days
idea → deployed prototype, not sprints
0
context lost between sessions — the second brain remembers
Your AI forgets you. A second brain doesn't.
Every new chat: re-explain, re-paste, re-do. The product I'm building gives your AI a second brain that's actually yours — it remembers across every session, captures your work nightly, and runs a team of specialists that draft, review, and improve while you sleep.
It builds itself
Not a wiki you maintain. It reads your work and builds — then prunes — its own web of connections between your people, decisions, and projects. No filing, no upkeep.
It works while you sleep
Each morning it hands you the next moves — the PRDs to update, the tickets to file, the replies to send — drafted, with the reasoning, ready to approve.
It gets sharper
It reviews its own misses first, records the rule behind every correction, and runs a red-team of peers — tuned to you — that kills the plausible-but-wrong before it ships.
In private testing — ask for an early look on a call.
Previous engagements
new MRR within one quarter
via pricing redesign and funnel rework
Revenue lift, sustained
from a programmatic A/B test pipeline
MRR per customer
tiered pricing redesign, A/B-validated before rollout
Discovery cycles
down from multi-quarter
What "measurable" actually looks like.
The kind of measurable change the work is built to produce — read across the funnel, the pricing, and the retention motion.
MRR through ARPU expansion
Existing customers, no new logos. Pricing redesign + funnel rework.
Conversion up at every funnel step
Every stage converted better after the signup flow was rebuilt give-value-first.
One churn number, two problems
Diagnosis that changed the retention strategy: count and value tell opposite stories.
→ Two retention motions installed, not one.
Want these numbers modelled on your business?
Try the Pricing Impact ModelerWhat you'll hold in your hands.
Every engagement ships documents and systems your team keeps. Samples below — sanitized, real structure.
Audit Report
8-decision scorecard, sized impact per gap, 90-day sequence.
See the sample →
Pricing Model
Tier structure, gating table, revenue impact model — A/B-validated.
How it works →
Metrics Tree
Revenue decomposed into owned, measurable levers. The spine of OKRs.
How it works →
Test Verdict
Pre-registered hypothesis, sample-size gates, signal vs. noise called honestly.
How it works →
The 8 Decisions
Product orgs run on 8 decision systems: what to optimize · what data to trust · what to charge · what to work on next · whether it's worth doing · whether it worked · who to hire next · how vague ideas become shippable specs.
Most companies have 2 or 3 in working order. The companies that ship and learn every month have 7 or 8.
I find which of yours are broken — and build what's missing.
- 01 →
Metrics Tree
Decides what to optimize
- 02 →
Tracking Plan
Decides what data to trust
- 03 →
Pricing Architecture
Decides what to charge
- 04 →
Discovery Framework
Decides how vague ideas become shippable specs
- 05 →
PRD Template
Decides whether it's worth doing
- 06 →
A/B Framework
Decides whether it worked
- 07 →
ICE Scoring
Decides what to work on next
- 08 →
Product Roles
Decides who to hire next
Diagnose. Build. Run.
Three steps, each with fixed scope and a measurable outcome agreed up front. Start at step 1 — the Audit fee is credited in full against any Build. No retainer minimums.
Diagnose
Product Org Audit · €1,500 · 1–2 wks
A written assessment of all 8 decision systems: which work, which are broken, what each gap costs, and the 90-day sequence to fix them.
See a sample report →
Build
Fix one decision · €4–7k fixed
Pick the broken decision system — pricing, prioritization, discovery, testing — and I build the fix. Your team runs it without me when we're done.
Learn more →
Run
Embedded CPO · 2 days/week · 4–9 months
Acting CPO in your leadership meetings, owning the roadmap. Each month the roadmap moves, the right hires get made, and decisions stop circling back to the founder.
Learn more →
Why founders bring me in
I build. I don't advise.
When I leave, your team is running systems I built — not reading a deck I wrote. Discovery framework, metrics tree, A/B framework, PRD template: all delivered as working operating layers, not slides.
Instrumental in enhancing our processes — significantly improved our estimation and delivery.
Outcomes, not retainers.
Every engagement is scoped to a measurable outcome agreed up front. No retainer minimums. No "let's see how it goes." The Audit alone is €1,500 fixed-scope and ships a written assessment in 1–2 weeks.
Discovery cycles dropped from 7 months to 6 weeks. +30% MRR within one quarter. +9% MoM revenue lift sustained.
Embedded, not advisory.
2 days/week as your acting CPO. In your leadership meetings. Owning the roadmap. Making the call. Not "available for a monthly check-in."
"I was able to offload completely unto Catalin and focus on other areas of the business. He started delivering results straight away."
13+ years across 5 verticals — not one playbook on repeat.
Fintech, payments, productivity, hospitality, ad-supported SaaS. The frameworks adapt to your motion. What works for a 14M MAU calculator network is not what works for a €10M ARR hospitality SaaS — and I've run both.
2Checkout · Verifone · Wrike · Ready2Order · Omnicalculator
Built the system, then handed it back.
The engagement ends when your team is shipping without me. Documentation, training, ownership — built in from day one. If you need me forever, I built it wrong.
"One of the best PMs I have worked with. He will be a huge asset to any companies or clients."
I also work the other side of the table.
My current engagement came through the fund that owns the company — not the founder. Portfolio diagnostics, KPI systems that match your portfolio-wide standard, pre-investment product due diligence, and reporting that lifts cleanly into IC materials.
Common questions
How is this different from a strategy consultant? +
What if you don't find anything wrong in the Audit? +
Will my team actually own this when you leave? +
How fast can we start? +
What's the typical engagement cost? +
Will you replace my product hires? +
I was able to offload completely unto Catalin and focus on other areas of the business.
Markel Palmstierna
Chief Operating Officer
Catalin's got DRIVE — he'll work any project relentlessly and get it done, moving past any obstacles in his way.
Bogna Szyk
Chief Operating Officer
A rare ability to execute complex projects while maintaining high standards — a true partner and a pleasure to work with.
Sivan Kadosh
General Manager
One of the best PMs I have worked with. He will be a huge asset to any companies or clients.
Jing He
VP Finance
Instrumental in enhancing our processes — significantly improved our estimation and delivery.
Lucie Staněk Merunková
Senior Product Designer
Want to see if there's something to fix in your product org?
A 30-minute call to scope. No charge, no pressure — we'll know quickly if it's a fit.
Last engagement: +30% MRR in one quarter — via the fund that owns the company.