Fractional COO Erica Layer shows founders how to stop being the bottleneck ~ and build a business that runs without them in the middle of everything.
GROWTH PILLAR: Leadership & Ops
WHO THIS IS FOR: Founders / SMB owners / Startup operators / Leaders who are scaling but buried in the day-to-day
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: A clear picture of why hiring alone does not fix ops chaos — and the practical framework to build a business that runs without you in every decision
Most founders hire people to get breathing room. Then they realize the chaos got louder, not quieter. That is the problem Erica Layer solves.
Erica spent twenty years leading operations in global health — running teams across South Africa, Tanzania, and beyond. When USAID was dismantled in early 2025, her entire sector collapsed almost overnight. Instead of waiting for things to recover, she audited her skills and launched Layer Advisory Services as a fractional COO and strategic operating partner for founders and startups.
In this episode, Erica and Bernie walk through why founders become the bottleneck when they hire — and what to do about it. She covers the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), how to build real-time data dashboards that let founders step back with confidence, and how she uses AI automations to bring it all together. She also shares her own story of rebuilding a career from scratch — one conversation at a time.
Key topics covered:
Connect with Erica:
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Next Steps
Bernie (00:22)
Question of the audience. What do you do?
When the career you spent twenty years building just stops existing. That is not a hypothetical. That is exactly what happened today's guest. She did not spiral. She did not wait. She redesigned everything on purpose and turned it into a practice that now helps founders do the same thing inside their own companies. Let me introduce her.
Erica Layer spent twenty years working inside global health and health technology. She led organizations, she ran operations, she helped teams grow across multiple countries. Then the sectors she had built her career in changed almost overnight. Instead of waiting for the next role to appear, Erica chose to redesign her path on purpose.
Today she runs Layer Advisory Services. She works with founders as a fractional CEO, a strategic operating partner who steps in and makes things actually work. She helps teams get clear on priorities, figure out who owns what, and build systems that hold up under pressure. Her clients are founders who are doing too much themselves. Leaders who are the first person everyone goes to for every decision.
People who are good at growing their businesses, but buried in Running them. What makes Erica different is that she's been in the seat. CEO, she has navigated uncertainty from the inside, and she brings that same clear eyed thinking to every founder she works with. She lives in Portugal now with her husband and two young kids, and yes, she makes her own Neapolitan pizza from scratch. I'm hungry now.
You can find her on LinkedIn and also layeradvisory dot com. Erica, absolute pleasure to have you here. Thank you for joining us. Do you have a favorite quote or saying?
Erica (02:02)
I do. And thanks so much, Bernie. It's great to be here. So one of the quotes that's that's really helped me get through the last year, I would say, is a a quote by Aaron Hansen where it says, I'm afraid to jump. What if I fall? my darling, what if you fly? And that's really kind of underpinned a lot of the uncertainty that I've been through and and my decision to make some some different leaps that I think we'll talk about today.
Bernie (02:25)
So what's happening in global health? 'Cause you know, the health industry I don't think is gonna disappear because you people still get sick and it's lots of people, but what's happening in whole in the global health that you know that made everything kind of go sideways for you?
Erica (02:39)
Yeah, well, I mean, global health and development is what a f for I I don't even know how many billion dollar industry, but it's really an aid industry where many high income countries are are are donating funds to support global health and development in lower income countries. And that's really where I built my career. So I spent two years living in South Africa, I was in Tanzania for nine years. most of the work that I was doing was was really helping to
Work with governments to build technology that could make healthcare delivery more accessible for people who need it most. So we worked a lot with nurses and community health workers who are delivering services to the poorest people. Many governments in low-income countries are very reliant on that foreign aid in order to support their health system. So within Tanzania and especially Zanzibar, where I spent a lot of time, 50% of their health budget was based on foreign.
Donor aid. So what happened a year ago, a bit over a year ago, that many, many listeners are probably aware of, is that the US government dismantled USAID. And USAID was the provider of about 50% of all global health aid in the world. And what happened on February 3rd, I will never forget, is when Elon Musk made the statement that he spent the weekend putting USAID through the wood chipper. So it was literally dismantled.
Overnight. And what happened was quite frankly catastrophic. You know, countries who are literally depending on this aid to save people's lives lost that funding overnight, and people stopped getting health services. Organizations went out of business from one day to the next. Thousands and thousands of people lost their jobs. And so I was really in the middle of this. My whole career had been spent in this sector.
and all of a sudden everybody in my network was was scrambling or or losing their jobs. And and we realized at that point that things were not going to go back to normal in a few months or even a few years because these institutions that have been built up over decades have been completely dismantled. And so this is is a very long-term situation that that we needed to realize how are we going to adapt to this new normal, both to to support the countries that are are reeling from from these cuts.
As well as all of us who have built our careers in this sector and no longer have a field to turn to or a professional network to support us.
Bernie (05:02)
Wow I yeah it's
Here in in Canada, well we we don't have we don't necessarily have that same catastrophic rendering. But we do have yeah, w we're funded here in in the province of Ontario through the government. so the the provincial level. Federal supports the the the provincial. And but there's I I'm thinking back for the last I've been in healthcare since the early eighties.
And every year I would get from a boss saying, by the way, we've been asked to tighten our belts. It got to the point where the the the statement was like alm almost felt rhetorical, like really, is it was their year that we were flush. That said, there there are times where literally the the the hospital had to contract, had to had to get had a contraction, they had to you know, lay lay staff off, un unfortunately.
that process and you've you've gone through it but on a on a larger scale when a company goes through that you know what advice would you have to the person experiencing that now I mean there's you know the there's an internal dialogue they're going my gosh my gosh and I'm probably paraphrased it and made it too nice and fluffy and soft and to next steps. Well what would you you know
What would you say to the people that are that are going through this moment of transition unexpectedly? Yeah.
Erica (06:22)
Well, and I I think i in in in the case that I was in, you know, many times if you get laid off from a hospital, there are other hospitals that you can apply to. There's something very similar that you can go to. This was something that was completely unheard of. And I have colleagues who have been working in the space for, you know, 40 years and said they'd never seen anything even close to this. And so I mean
It I would be lying if I said that I was very graceful and had a plan right away. I mean, I spent a number of days in paralysis, quite frankly. I mean, in disbelief. And I think all of us were feeling this because it was a magnitude that we had never expected. No one had planned for this. And so the first thing I would say is that you need to give yourself grace and let yourself feel.
the feelings that you will feel and and be okay with that. And then you know, we can talk about it, but there was quite a process. It was months before I I knew what I was going to do next. I was very fortunate and then my organization was not directly funded by USAID. So we knew that we had a runway throughout 2025. But from 2026 that wasn't the case. And so I knew that I had about nine months and I'm much f more fortunate than many people who who lost their job overnight and
And were then in the same position as me, but had no income coming in. and I think, you know, in in in my situation, there was there was a process of first letting myself feel the shock and the disbelief. the first thing I did was was try to to cling to what I knew. And so I I had been working in the global health space, I started applying to
To other global health jobs. And of course, you know, there's thousands of people literally applying for these jobs at that point because everybody was out of work, had some interviews, but just realized this wasn't quite right. You know, a lot of these organizations were much larger, much more bureaucratic than I was used to working in. I come from very much kind of a startup background with small teams that are growing and building something. And that was where my heart was. and then I went through quite a few other processes of trying to figure out, well, if not.
global health, then then what next? What what should I do? What do I want to do? and at first my my thinking was, I'll just, I'll do anything at all. It doesn't matter. I just need, I need a job. You know, I I I really didn't know who I was outside of that space. And I remember asking some colleagues when I was feeling very much you know, that I I I had no direction, you know, tell me the things I'm good at. What are the things that I I could even consider going into?
And the funny thing looking back on that now is that we have so many skills that you learn in whatever industry you're in that can be transferred to other industries. And it's sometimes hard to see that when you're in it. But you know, I kind of did an audit of of what I was good at and what I loved to do. And and really at the heart of it is that I've been working in strategic operations for many, many years.
You know, I've been a COO, I've been a CEO who was who is growing an organization and really kind of figuring out how do you put in an operating system as the organization is growing quickly. And so very much I had been doing this work for many years, and I realized that whether it's a global health organization or a small business or you know, a venture-backed startup, these are skills that I can transfer. and so it was very much a process and it took many months to to figure this path out.
but what I would say to others who are in this situation is, you know, set yourself a goal, figure out, you know, one step at a time. It was a winding path for me. I did not know exactly where I was going when I started, but I knew I was going forward and I was going somewhere. And so every day I would move and then I would pivot a bit and say, okay, I'm not going to stay in global health. Maybe I'll work with a startup as a full-time role. and then I started looking into operations more generally.
And then I stumbled across this world of fractional work, which is something I had never heard of before. but it's it it basically is you know, senior level experts at the executive level who join companies on a part-time basis, but are embedded within leadership teams. And fractional experts are self-employed, they are consultants, so they have their own businesses, they are you know able to kind of dictate who they work with, how they work, how much they work.
And as soon as I came across this, it was like a light bulb moment and and everything clicked. And so after that point, this was probably in July of 2025 when I stumbled across this. And then from there on, I had one one goal in mind, and that was to to launch a fractional practice. And so that was sort of the meandering road that I went through to to figure out where I was going. and so the advice I would give is you don't need to know exactly what the destination is.
But start walking, start taking the steps and you will figure it out along the way. If you let yourself get stuck in that paralysis phase, and I do know a lot of people who were stuck there all of last year, you're not gonna find that destination because you're not exploring what could be.
Bernie (11:16)
When you started this journey and and again, kudos by the way, 'cause i it you know, it's you know, cold water to the face is never, you know, unless of course you're expecting it, right? And in in this case no one was. Did you rely on network? Did you rely on mentors? Did you rely on coaches or did you r rely on certain groups around you? Like what helped what helped provide, you know,
the flow is going this way. Like even even to realize, you know, the concept of fractional services and capitalizing on your CEO and CEO experiences, again, kudos because that's that's those are true hard skills, right? what brought you there? Like I how did you how did you figure out, yep, that's what I'm gonna do. Is it one day you were watching you were looking in the newspaper or watching something online going, that's the ticket. Here we go.
Erica (12:03)
I mean to to to who who I leaned on, it was all of the above that you mentioned. So I started of course talking to my immediate network. What I realized very quickly is that they were all in shock and were losing their identities as well. Like people the my my network and you know, as as much support as they could give me didn't have a lot of professional connections because they were also figuring out what next.
so then what I did was I kind of went to my my week connections. So I looked on LinkedIn and people I had met, you know, eight years ago, but who are working in the health tech space in the US, I I just reached out to people, anybody that I could, and I talked to anybody that would talk to me just to get advice. and so in those early days, it was really trying to talk to as many people as I could to see what are the different things that are out there. And I got a lot of really good suggestions and leads from that.
the fractional bit, I don't actually know. I think I just started following people in the operations space on LinkedIn. And then one day I came across somebody who was a fractional COO, which is something I hadn't seen before. And she posted something that got my attention. And then I started to read more about what she did. And then I saw some people following her, and so I followed them as well. And then I came across someone who who has a podcast for fractional executives, and I devoured
everything I could. I remember I listened to every single episode that I possibly could. and again I reached out and I just set up conversations. So I think one thing to for people going through something similar is don't be afraid, don't be shy. You know, yes, not everybody will respond to you, but many will and and people want to help. And so you just you have to ask for it though. And and you can't just sit back hoping that information will come to you. So I was extremely proactive in this search.
I also started to read as much as I could. So I read, you know, as many books about operations and fractional work. and I came across the entrepreneurial operating system, EOS, which is something that I use now in my in my practice. And I really clung on to that. And I ended up taking a master class as and now I'm a trained EOS integrator, and that also connected me to tons of new people. and so I think it's just getting yourself out there.
Finding the things that are adding value to where you're going and finding others who are on a similar path. you know, just last week now I I did a webinar with a group of women that I've met who are also fractional COOs and we've realized, you we've kind of become each other's support system. and I found all of them on LinkedIn. I didn't know any of them before. And I just reached out and now we're we're a really strong network supporting each other. So there's there's a lot that can be done from just asking for conversations.
Bernie (14:46)
Clarity EOS What is EOS?
Erica (14:49)
EOS is the entrepreneurial operating system. And I I I don't want to make up a number, but it's been used by tens of thousands of companies. And basically it's a it's essentially a simple framework to help organizations, usually smaller and growing organizations, basically take strategy and turn that into consistent execution. And so there's a six different pillars.
That that look at how aligned a team is, looking at if people are, are you of the right people in the right seats, if you're leveraging data in the right way, if if you're dealing with issues in a proactive way, and then making those processes really stick. And there's lots of different tools and frameworks around it, but it's something that I I read I read the book Traction by Geno Wickman, and he's kind of the the father of of EOS, and and I immediately thought.
I wish I had this when I was a CEO, because you know, we were doing a lot of things ad hoc. We were figuring things out and putting systems in place. But if you just have this simple framework, it would have made so many things so much easier. and so I've I've started to introduce this in different ways with all of the teams I work with, and I get a similar response every time, which is I wish we knew about this sooner. And so it's it's kind of gospel in many, many companies and organizations, but it's not quite.
mainstreamed. and and I've just found it to add such tremendous value to to every group that I've worked with.
Bernie (16:07)
So when you when a company goes we're growing, obviously it's 'cause they're scaling, right? And fractional work usually means they don't have or they're not they're not placed well enough the curve to to have someone be a permanent fixture. But permanent in in a in a temporary sense, if that makes sense.
When do they realize it like one day that someone goes, my gosh, my gosh, everything's gone sideways? Because it's it's a growth thing. It's almost like, you know, what you clothes you wore when you were five years old is not the same at fifteen and definitely not the same at fifty. how do you know when you go, you know, I think I need I need I need some help here, you know, even if it's it's temporary. Where where are they at in that spectrum?
Erica (16:49)
Yeah, well, let me tell you, I mean, there's kind of two two scenarios that that I I work with, but the most common is that there is a founder who has started a business or a startup, you know, they have a brilliant idea and they can pitch that vision to to everybody and get everybody aligned and excited, probably build out a first product and demonstrate the value and be able to bring money in, whether that's through revenue or investment.
And then you start to hire people. So it's usually as you go from kind of maybe the five to 10 person mark where when you're really small, you know, things just happen. And the founder is doing everything, making all the decisions, you know, they're leading the investor conversations, they're thinking through strategy, talking to customers, and they're also doing all of the finances, you know, and they're trying to lead weekly meetings and other processes. when more people come on, generally what what what happens is that.
First of all, that the founder just is overwhelmed. There's way too much happening. And you bring people on and think things are going to be easier now because I'm hiring, you know, someone to actually lead all of these functions. And actually, it's the opposite that happens because the founder still has things in their head and they know how they want things to happen. They are the decision maker. There is not clarity on new roles, on decision-making rights, on you know, when communication needs to happen, the alignment isn't there. So much is in that founder's head that.
Someone comes on and they can't articulate, you know, where the team is going. And so everyone is moving in a different direction. And what happens then is these new hires come on and they get very frustrated because they don't know what to do. They, the founder is not responding to them because they're way too busy and overwhelmed, and they're a bottleneck. And so they're not making progress. And then the founder gets frustrated because these new people that that they brought on are not doing their jobs, but they're not doing it because the founder is actually the challenge. And so that's kind of the
The scenario that I see play out again and again. And what I've actually had is a number of founders come to me based on my LinkedIn content where I post a lot about the things that I'm experiencing and kind of what I've dealt with and what I've learned and the mistakes I've made along the way. and and then I talk about, you know, kind of how I help in this situation. And I can't tell you the number of people who have come that say, gosh, I feel like you're writing these posts about me or
You know, have you been sitting on on my calls for the last six months? Because this is exactly what we're dealing with. So I've come to realize that this is a very common problem across the board. And it's usually that founder who either realized on their own or maybe they see how this is being articulated, that they have that moment to say, I actually need some help. And I see that I'm the bottleneck and you know, I can't do this alone. So even though you have really highly qualified people that you've brought on, having someone that can be this kind of integrator.
layer and help think through the operating processes for the organization is that key that kind of unlocks then the ability for the rest of the team to thrive and for the founder to get out of the middle of everything.
Bernie (19:42)
Is it a matter of that the
Because y you can be a small business, right? The solopreneur, and then all of a sudden, you know, the business is picking up and and the business engine is starting to grow. So is it having standard operating procedures as part of it? As well as and you mentioned something else, you know, authorizations, you know, to do to do to do certain tasks.
All right. yeah, and again I'm thinking back to my corporate days, you were allowed to spend X amount of dollars as long as you didn't reach a a certain threshold. Right. And then you had to go you had to go up the food chain. And it was i it was interesting. Certain ones because it was involving leases and you know i the aggregate total was exceeding more than what my VP could sign off for. So I had to go to a board. So that that involves a lot of structure and that I can't see that happening overnight.
for lot of companies that that's experience hard hard earned experience or some pain I guess in the so you're taking away that that pain piece 'cause you already have that understanding based on on the shape of the business. Is but is that where you're coming in and you're providing that standard operating procedures around them?
Or is it more than that?
Erica (20:50)
I think it's a lot more than that. So standard operating procedures might be a small part of what happens when you're kind of defining core processes, but but really it's it's looking at the entire organization and how things are working. And actually I'll say that I I I kind of play two different roles. So one often is being, I like to say, the strategic operating partner to the founder. And so often that founder just needs somebody that they can talk to, that they can bounce ideas off of, that they can think about the future with.
and and be able to make plans and and oftentimes because others are are so specialized on their their specific departments nobody else has that big overview and so this is one role that that often just immediately kind of allows the founder to feel like they're not in it alone. the second piece is really around this operating structure, which is different, you know, we really start by looking at
Team alignment and vision and the clarity of that vision. It's not just about having everybody have their own standard operating procedures. If everyone is a crystal clear on exactly where they're going, standard operating procedures aren't going to help anything. You know, so we start there by looking at that vision. Do we have it mapped out? Does everyone know where we're going and how we're going to get there? And then you, and then it's really looking at people. Are people clear on what their roles are?
Do we have the right people in the right seats? You know, d or do we need to make some changes? And often, often there are difficult decisions that need to be made to make sure that you have that right team. And sometimes it's moving people around. Sometimes it's just defining roles better and giving people the structure and and and and support that they need. but that is a big piece, you know. And then another thing is around the data. And this is something that I I think.
Everyone wants to be data driven, but but most companies really are not. And you know, creating simple scorecards and indicators. And that's a big piece of helping that founder to step out. This is their business, this is their heart and soul. And they need to know that things are working. But without micromanaging, you know, they need a way to be able to feel confident that things are going well. So we do a lot with data and really look what are the the key metrics.
That you need to see every single week so that you are confident that we are moving in the right direction. and what are the key metrics that each department should be focused on? And we create a very simple scorecard. another thing that I do increasingly is to build kind of AI automations that can bring data together from different sources so that we have a real time dashboard that's updating on its own. And then every Monday we look at that and you could even, you know, have alerts set so it flags something as red if if something is trailing what the target is. And
This has been really transformational because it means that the founder does not need to be involved in everything. And we can identify early on what are the signals that are telling us that something's not going where it should, and then intervene there. But you can let, you know, the marketing team and the finance team go because we see their numbers and everything is working fine. And that I think is the missing link a lot of you know, having the founder step out, but also feel that confidence because you can step away.
But if you're not convinced that the teams are working, then then you know they're going to feel that. And then there's going to be, you know, kind of demotivation amongst the team. so that's it's all of these different things. And then processes, absolutely, that's part of it. You know, and so much often lives in somebody's head and it's not documented. And this is what I've seen again and again is you know, we can really simply and easily have a video where someone can walk me through everything they do. We record it, we get the transcript, we get the video.
You can pull out simple SOPs using AI tools. and you can take snippets of videos and you can put that into a really, you know, very, very quickly and easily, basically an onboarding guide for for someone else, because that's another challenge with small companies often is that if if one person is sick, nobody else knows what they're doing. And so certainly, you know, this is is part of it, but there's a much broader kind of framework around this this whole operating structure that that I look at with the founder.
Bernie (24:41)
So as you as you were describing this, I'm I'm sitting back and my thought process, because I again having gone through my corporate space, the first year I started my job managing this one particular corporation, it was attached to the to the healthcare facility. And a budget got dropped to my lap. And I'm thinking, okay, what's this mean? And where do we get these numbers from? And the story went on. and it evolved over time that
Knowing what you've just described, you know, right person, right place, right time. And it's not it's not just a matter of you know, having things written down for procedure's sake, because that that was part of the leg of the journey, but it's also mapping it out. So when you're mapping out a strategy, so I'm a founder and I'm a widget maker and I'm really good. And this is an IT widget box that I make. Maybe it's SAS. And but I need more around me.
And I'm really good at the SAS. I'm not good at asking for money from people to help fund me and you know, do other things. So I have to find those right people coming in. Do I then do you come in and then say, Okay, you're here, where do you want to be? And then map out the blocks to get there. Would that be fair enough to say that?
Erica (25:50)
That would be fair. And it's it's funny. I'm in London this week working with a client and we are doing exactly that. So we have created a tool. And, you know, again, I think the world is changing so fast with AI that you can you can mock up different systems. So instead of using something off the shelf, you know, to track OKRs, I just built a tool for the team. And because we knew that one of the challenges that we have is figuring out
Exactly where we're going, and then like you said, working backwards at a high level to say, you know, what does success look like in each quarter? If in one year we're gonna be here, we need to be focused on X in quarter one and Y in quarter two, and then Z in quarter three. And then from there, you can drill down to say, okay, in that case, you know, working backwards, what does it look like in in quarter four? What are the different functions that need to be operating well?
You know, do we need to bring in a marketing team? Do we need an an an expert advisor on commercialization? Do we need a product engineer? and and what are those functions going to be doing? And then you can work backwards each quarter and and really look across these functions to see what is what does success look like for this particular team in order for the company to be here.
and so this is literally what I've been doing for the last few days is mapping this out to say where's the where's the company going? And then each team is meeting to say, you know, here's what our success looks like that that fits into this. And what's been so helpful with this is that then we have, you know, a mapped out plan for the year. We know exactly who's accountable, we know exactly what metrics we're going to be tracking, we know what the targets are, and then you can look across and look at.
dependencies because I think this is also a challenge as teams are growing. You kind of, you know, bring on different people to do different things, but they need to collaborate. So for example, you know, with the team that I'm working with now, they're a a B2C product company, a startup, and we're we're working towards a a fundraise at the end of the year. And what came out clearly this week is that we need to really expedite the commercialization. We need a lot more revenue in than we originally thought. And
So all of the teams kind of put together their plans initially and then this surfaced and everything changed. And then we realized, you know, the marketing team then needs to be fully aligned with the commercialization team. The product team needs to stop new features and they need to focus on these particular aspects that are gonna unlock more revenue. And the whole plan shifted because we had that high-level view. And so these are
Absolutely. The kinds of things as you're thinking through growth and you're thinking through strategic planning to have that kind of an overview that's that's really, really critical and and eye-opening for teams.
Bernie (28:26)
I that's it's interesting that you mentioned something that, you know, product development's going along. We want to do this, but we're we need more cash. So we got to go back and and tweak what we have in place. So does your AI then kind of sit back and do modeling going saying, hi, this is gonna be the bottleneck or the pinch point? you must alleviate the stress. this is the next part of the goal for success. And
Second part of the question is first part is the AI. I how do you craft the AI? Is it just like a spell checker or is I think it's a bit more in the spell checker? And and then later on, when you go to the the investment, is this something that you also show to the investment to gain funds to you know, more favorable terms.
Erica (29:08)
I it it depends. There's there's the product and then what I build are kind of operating tools. And I I like to use for example, lovable is one of my favorite tools now because you can just like chat and and tell it what you want. and I combine that with Claude Code where I can kind of build out mock-ups of of what I'm thinking about. I mean
Let me just give you an example of the different kinds of tools I've built recently. So, one is this kind of strategic planning tracker that allows you to see, you know, across the year and which teams are doing what. You can track the metrics as you go. And there is an AI automation layer on that that we've put, which really does analyze each quarter. You said you were going to do this, but you're only this far. You know, I think you need to have a conversation with these teams in order to do things differently. So there is a level of
insight that comes into that that that can really help with the planning. I've also worked on some financial dashboards that bring data together from financial systems that look at the revenue that has already come in, combining that. I have another client that works in the the health space and so they have patients coming in. So we have a patient management system and we can forecast out
The patients that are coming, the revenue that will come in, and link that to the budget that we have and kind of look at all of these three pieces together in order to be able to make strategic decisions. and so you know, it's all completely automated. there is a a bit of an AI layer on top of that, but I will say, you know, we don't need AI insights for everything. Sometimes it's really just having the right data in the right place and then being able to use that and and to look at what's happening, and then you can, you know, query.
afterwards to say, here's the situation, what do you suggest? But but I think sometimes it's really just having information brought together from disparate sources that can be so, so helpful. So these are just a few of the the systems. I've also been doing some work with helping founders with their thought leadership and being able to pull in, you know, news articles from different places to take transcripts of interviews we do with them and link that and and then kind of draft LinkedIn posts that are written in their voice.
that know the the direction they're going because they want to to to raise funding. And so this is what investors are looking for. And here's what current events are doing and here's how it combines with with our vision. So those are different tools that that I've just been able to kind of whip up and create that are are helping teams. I don't think that these are necessarily things you take to founders, but you know what's helpful for for early stage startups is if they can show that the entire team has kind of an AI first mentality.
Because things really are changing so fast. And so with one of the startups I work with, we now have seven, there's seven people on the team. Most of them are part-time, but the output is probably that of a 20-person team because every single person on that team is just embracing AI and we're we're teaching each other and we're learning. And I think that's what we're seeing as we move forward is that if you stay on top of where AI is going and you're able to leverage tools in very practical ways to solve problems.
you can do three times the work easily. You know, I feel like I'm probably I'm probably three times more productive than I was a year ago because of of the way that I'm I'm able to leverage AI now. And it's only in the last couple of months that this has really really taken off in ways that people who are not coders can can just just use and they can build solutions in no time to their problems, which is really exciting.
Bernie (32:29)
I think they c they call that vibe coating, if I'm not mistaken.
Erica (32:32)
Yes,
exactly. Sorry.
Bernie (32:34)
When should a company get the fractional services? What what what's the what what are the flags to say, do it?
Erica (32:40)
I mean, it's a great question. I think every company's a bit different, but I I see tremendous value since I've started this work where, you know, it's such a strategic investment because you can bring someone on that has very high level experience. They're very strategic and they bring value, you know, even if it's one day a week or two days a week, that value is far greater than what you would get with the same budget if you hired a mid level person.
And I think this is often the the challenge where you say, well, I'm just going to hire a full-time operations manager, but you don't get that strategic value. You don't get someone who's really able to move the needle for the company. and so I think many teams that bring on at least at the COO level, it's it's not quite as common, kind of an operations person who's fractional. many come too late. They come at the point where things are falling apart, they're so overwhelmed and stressed out.
and you know, that's fine. Like that's a that's an okay time to bring on a fractional operator. A better time would be before things get to that point. And I I think what's changing now is is the fractional world is becoming much more well known. and there's reports out this show that you know the there's gonna be five times the amount of of fractional consultants in the next few years. Thing it's it's not going anywhere. And so I think as recognition grows and there are more fractionals who are doing this kind of work.
because there's still not that many. I think that it's going to come much sooner in a in a company's evolution and it will add a lot more value.
Bernie (34:07)
So if what areas do you serve? Do you just serve Europe or Portugal? South Africa, North America, South South America? Where where do you where do you travel? Where do you hang your hat? Where will you wanna hang your hat?
Erica (34:21)
I I you know I've I've I've been living a global life for over twenty years. So when I finished college in in two thousand six, I moved to South Africa. I was a Peace Corps volunteer and I I haven't actually lived in the US since then, but most of my work has been with US companies. So I'm very used to working remotely or with with people in in the US and often with very global teams. So so right now, one of my clients is a nonprofit based in the US but that has staff
kind of around the world. and then I'm actually working with with two companies in the UK, which has has been great. It's in the same time zone as Portugal, but I'm I'm open to working, you know, kind of wherever, certainly with US teams. I'm having some conversations with groups in sub-Saharan Africa right now. And I really hope to be able to to support some organizations working in the the the social impact space, which is where I've come from. But I've realized
You know, I love working with startups, with early stage startups and also with small businesses because, you know, at that stage, this is I've I've been in this seat of of kind of a small growing business and and it's really fun to work across industries because you can cross pollinate ideas. Everyone I work with, I'm learning something new. And so, you know, I I I hope to continue working kind of globally, ver remotely from Portugal, but but I also love to travel to be with teams in person because you can't replicate that in person time.
Bernie (35:41)
Are there any verticals that you prefer to be working with? Are like tech, bio, health? I mean, I I think health would be a good f natural fit because you have a heavy background in that, but are there other verticals you like?
Erica (35:54)
I mean health and tech. So so yes, right now my my clients are either in in the health space or the the the tech kind of tech startup space. So I'm working with an ed tech company, working in the education technology space, and it's I mean the the parallels with what I was doing in health tech are, you know, very, very similar. So you have a developer team and you have a product team and you know, kind of a a a go to market team, and and so I'm really enjoying that. I will say, you know, I I
I want to work with teams that have a strong mission and they're interested in in purpose as much as profit. So it's great if there's a, you know, a financial services or just a pure AI company that's going to make lots and lots of money. I want to work with the groups that see the value that they can bring to the world. That doesn't need to mean, you know, curing HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, but if you can see the way that your work is going to make people's lives better.
And you are committed to having a team that is is you know has a a strong team culture and that people want to show up to work. That's the kind of team that I want to work with.
Bernie (36:57)
Neapolitan pizza What is Neapolitan Pizza versus any other pizza?
Erica (37:02)
So this pizza, it's it's funny. I bought my husband a an Uni pizza maker about three years ago. and it's it's fantastic. I can recommend it to anybody. it's the most incredible design that I've ever seen, but it's it's a pizza maker that uses just a very small amount of wood, heats up in about 20 minutes, and you can cook the most incredible pizzas. So I've been on this
This journey to make the perfect pizza over time. I mean, Neapolitan pizza is essentially where you have a very thin crust and you have really or base, anyways, and a really, really fluffy big crust on the outside. and it's actually very, very technical. So I've kind of invested in learning this and have very special scales that go down to the you know, hundredth of a gram. I import flour from Italy.
we make the dough the night before and it rises for 24 hours and then the stretching of the dough. There's a very particular way to stretch it so it's it's thin on the outside, but you preserve that crust. so this is a family favorite. Every Friday night is pizza night and we make we make some pretty good pizza. And I'll say, since we moved to Portugal, we haven't yet found a pizza restaurant that makes
Pizza better than we can. not to say we're the best. Certainly it exists elsewhere, but but we're pretty proud of of how far we've come with our pizza making.
Bernie (38:21)
You know, well, congratulations. You know, Eri Erica, I I just want to say thank you so much for being a guest on the Knack 4 Business podcast and and for our listeners too, because we we appreciate the information that you're sharing with us. And you know, if from the listener perspective, if you're a founder and you're finding yourself doing way too much and this this whole conversation goes
Start makes you start thinking, how how do I bring in the best resources? Reach out to Erica, she can help you manage these details. She can leverage the AI. And it's not the end all and be all of the solution, but it's part of that journey. It's one of the one of the tools. And she has a lot of experience in the in the background. And in fact, she has a lot of connections even outside of the health market or even outside of the country you're operating in. So reach out to her.
To reach us, check our website out, knack4business.com. And we use a little chat bot on there, and you can research out all the previous podcasts in that particular space.