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.

  • We can BE your operations team and handle every aspect of day-to-day business operations so you can focus 100% on making great products.

    You get an on-demand COO and every operations-related function your team requires. More detail on what that looks like is here.

  • We are your Head of HR. We make sure you follow day-to-day best practices, that your policies and compliance is always right-sized and up to date, and we get you through the inevitable sticky human situations.

  • We design and implement systems that power your business so you can grow it. The systems we recommend are designed to help you test and iterate in tight cycles of learning. Learn faster, grow faster.

  • AI will not replace you or your team, it will only replace whoever doesn’t learn how to use it to be better at their job.

    We can run an audit of your operational footprint and a) give you an x-ray on how your AI adoption stacks up to best practices b) give you recommendations on where and how we think you can apply it differently and c) train you and/or your team on how to make AI your new best friend.

  • Do you need errors and omissions insurance? Is your annual franchise tax report on schedule to be filed? Will your next product launch push you into SOC 2 compliance? Are you sending the right notices to terminated employees based on where they live? Do these questions make you wish you decided to be a shepherd instead?

    These and other fun questions are no longer your problem to solve.

  • Almost every business on the planet struggles with data. We help you distill (and if needed, fix) your data and empower your team to access and interpret the insights that help them learn.

  • We bring alignment to your teams, your lines of business, and the scorecards you use to measure whether you are winning or losing.

    We get deep underneath the data and the magic that powers your company to draw a blueprint that (literally) works.

  • Your company runs on systems. You have a system in place for how to get everything done. We specialize in building and optimizing every system under your roof so the tools you use and how you use them are always fine-tuned and efficient.

    These days, this means a lot of AI learning and development. We train you or your team to be AI warriors (and understand when to put it down).

  • Leadership is hard. Being an owner is lonely.

    We advise founders and leadership teams on how to navigate complex issues and unlock their individual and collective potential.

  • The nuts and bolts of keeping your operation humming day-to-day is boring…and essential.

    We build and optimize operational tools and frameworks and give you hands-on guidance for things like project and product management, customer experience, IT and other support for systems that make your business go.

  • If you are an early stage founder seeking your first or next fundraising round and need help creating pitch materials, articulating your story, navigating due diligence, and simply surviving this terrifying journey, we’ve been there…and we’re here to help.

  • At the core of your business there is an authentic story for why you exist. We help you articulate it consistently, internally and externally.

“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.