We help mission-driven founders and teams stay crazy about making amazing products.

Fractional business operations for small and medium sized businesses.

You didn’t start your company to be awesome at payroll and pitch decks.

You had an idea to build something incredible and you were crazy enough to start a business to make it happen. We provide free resources and paid fractional consulting to help run your business so you can stay crazy about growing it.

“You know what gets me out of bed in the morning? Determining R&D Tax Credit eligibility. I love that.”

– Absolutely No One

What We Do*

* Hint: The hard stuff. So you can focus on the fun stuff.

“When I was 4, I dreamed of spending hours wondering what my employee handbook could be missing that might get me sued some day.”

– Literally No One

How We Work

These are our guiding principles.

AI by Default

We look for a reason to NOT use AI. We temper that with a responsibility and awareness to know when to put the Kool Aid down (and check the math).

Lean

We distill and simplify. The value of a given system can often be measured by what is taken away, not what is added. This takes discipline. We help you learn and apply it.

Tech Agnostic

We don’t push technology or platform choices. We get no kickbacks. The best tools are the ones your team actually uses and we help you find and adapt them.

Transparent

Organizations that operate out in the open grow faster. Period. We operate that way and we only work with companies who share this philosophy.

We provide two things (rarely paired together) to help you run your business.

An On Demand COO

Most smaller companies can’t afford a Chief Operating Officer or Head of Operations with 25 years of experience and most don’t need one full-time. They need one to set things up properly (or to unravel a mess), to check in on a regular basis, and to be on call when unforeseen urgent challenges with big consequences arise.

This guy will be your COO and you will only pay for him when you need him.

Scalable Plug-and-Play Operations

Look at this list and imagine using the words “let them handle it” for some or all of this stuff. Then imagine how much more time in your day you will have to actually build things and grow your business. This is all we do, we only do it for small and mid-sized companies, and we do it well.

Our toolset is platform agnostic and AI-by-default.

“I was going to help my engineering team prioritize their sprint but I’d much rather figure out what this byzantine tax notice from the IRS means.”

— No One, Ever

The Stay Crazy Team

  • Chris Sanborn

    CEO

  • Cris Hazzard

    BI & Systems Integration

  • Amie Sanborn

    HR & Coaching

  • Marshall McDonald

    Storytelling & Production

“I like to unwind by reading statements of work, office leases, and NDA’s by candlelight with a nutty, full-bodied pinot. Don’t you?”

— Truly Not One Single Person

How to Engage Us

These are the three ways we tend to get hired.

Icon of three people under a roof

Retainer-Based

We (you and us together) define a 3-month scope of work. We do our best to forecast what might come down the river in those three months and how we’ll work together.

  • We assign a fixed monthly fee for that time with a 30-day out for you if it’s not going well.

  • We decide at the end of 3 months whether to keep it rolling as is, refine the scope, or part ways in good company.

  • Generally our retainers are either $2.5k, $5k, or $10k per month if that’s useful as a baseline.

Fixed Scope Project

  • You have a project with fixed deliverables, a fixed timeline, and a fixed budget.

  • We size it up, give you a scope, agree to the terms, and off we go.

Icon of a zoom call

Phone a Friend COO

  • Book this COO for an hour-long zoom.

  • Great for founders and leaders who need a gut check, a quick solve, or a finger pointed in the right direction from a senior ops leader with a ton of experience.

  • Also a good way to road test how we roll in the unlikely event this website hasn’t convinced you 1000% that you can’t live without us.

Contact Us

Give us a shout and a real person with a pulse will read your message and respond thoughtfully.