You Can't Scale Complexity

Derek Fredrickson left Wall Street to run operations behind a founder, and sixteen years later he puts fractional COOs inside companies between seven figures and twenty million. Why you can't scale complexity, drive by delegation, what AI is actually doing for his clients, and handing off his own sales seat.

Derek Fredrickson left Wall Street in 2008 to run operations for his wife's coaching company, which she describes as having been built on toothpicks and band aids. Sixteen years later he runs The COO Solution, putting fractional COOs inside founder led companies between seven figures and twenty million.

His rule for all of it: you can't scale complexity, but you can scale simplicity. The work is making a business process driven instead of people driven, so the founder can stop white knuckling the day to day and move from the operator seat into the owner seat.

He is also living it himself. He runs every sales call for his own company from France, into a US market, and he knows exactly when that turns him into the bottleneck.

In this episode

• Why he reads every business in the same order: marketing, sales, operations, then finance
• Where the fractional model fits, and why it spreads too thin above twenty million
• Done for you, then done with you, then done by the team, so the COO never holds the keys
• Drive by delegation, and the questions that make a founder sell themselves on their own idea
• What AI is actually doing for his clients right now: filling in the weekly scorecard nobody wanted to update
• Fixing the problem versus solving the issue that caused it
• Who should not hire a fractional COO, including the owner who could not picture it working remotely
• His ten year, three year, one year plan, and handing off his own sales seat

Timestamps

1. 00:00A show for founders who are done being the bottleneck
2. 01:03Leaving Wall Street in 2008 for his wife's business
3. 02:02Toothpicks and band aids
4. 03:22Where fractional fits, seven figures to twenty million
5. 05:15Marketing, sales, operations, finance, in that order
6. 07:30You can't scale complexity
7. 08:29Process driven, not people driven
8. 10:35Three things on the menu
9. 12:15Where the founder still sits in the business
10. 14:58Letting go of the sales seat, including his own
11. 16:58Founders love the hunt and skip the fishing
12. 18:28Does the system survive after the COO leaves
13. 20:46Done for you, done with you, done by the team
14. 23:23Drive by delegation
15. 24:35Make the founder sell themselves on the idea
16. 27:22AI starts with the use case
17. 28:52The scorecard AI fills in for you
18. 31:26A dashboard nobody can hide from
19. 32:42Fix the problem or solve the issue behind it
20. 33:40Who should not hire a fractional COO
21. 36:01The owner who could not picture a remote COO
22. 37:38What is next for The COO Solution
23. 39:28Where to find Derek

About Derek Fredrickson

Derek Fredrickson is the founder and CEO of The COO Solution, which places fractional COOs with founder led companies. He spent sixteen years as a second in command, first scaling his wife's business coaching company past seven figures, then as a fractional COO for other growing companies. He hosts The COO Solution Podcast.

Website and podcast thecoosolution.com

LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/derekfredrickson