Fractional CFO Service
The shortcut: Most founders think they need you for the fundraise itself — the real money is in the 90 days before the deck exists, when you build the model, clean the cap table, and standardize revenue recognition so the CFO can answer any question a Series A lead will throw. Sell that as the lead-in retainer and stop pitching "fundraising support."
Industry: Finance & Insurance | Investment level: Small — $5,000-$15,000 | Time to launch: 4-8 weeks (no licensing gate; first paid retainer is the only gate)
Best for: Senior finance professionals — VP Finance, Director of FP&A, or first-CFO veterans with 8-12 years of experience and at least one prior board-reporting cycle under your belt. What you'll likely make: $5,000-$8,000 month 3, $12,000-$20,000 month 6, $25,000-$45,000 month 12. Math is in Section 4.
Market Opportunity
A full-time CFO runs $250,000-$400,000 all-in with equity, bonus, and benefits — which is exactly why every Seed-to-Series-B company either has a bookkeeper playing CFO or a burned-out VP Finance drowning in work that's three levels above their pay grade. The $300,000 base check isn't on the table. What is on the table is a $5,000-$15,000/month retainer for someone who can build the board model, clean the cap table, and make sure revenue recognition doesn't torpedo the next fundraise.
A full-time CFO at a venture-backed startup costs $250,000-$400,000 all-in with equity, bonus, and benefits — which is why companies between Seed and Series B almost never hire one. They live in the gap between "the bookkeeper who calls themselves a CFO" and "the executive we can't afford yet." Burkland Associates runs retainers in the $8,000-$20,000/month range and is openly waitlisted Burkland Associates. Pilot's productized CFO service starts around $849-$1,999+/month Pilot CFO Services. The middle — bespoke senior advisory at $5K-$15K/month — is wide open for solo practitioners.
The trap is being a generalist. Generalist fractional CFOs cap around $7,000-$10,000/month. Stage and sector specialists charge $12,000-$20,000/month because the model template is sharp, the metrics vocabulary is right, and the board already knows their type. Pick one stage — pre-seed bootstrap, Series A SaaS, or $5M-$25M traditional businesses. The models, fundraising work, and KPIs are completely different across the three.
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