Published 18 Feb 2026  ·  Depesh Vyas

What a Full COO Partnership Looks Like (And What It Costs)

Most COO conversations start with a founder who has a rough sense of the problem — they're stuck in execution, the business isn't growing the way it should, they need to step back from operations — and a very vague sense of what engaging a COO actually involves. What does the person do day to day? How is the engagement structured? What does it cost? What should change, and by when?

This post answers those questions directly.

The Engagement Path: How It Works

Every engagement at VBOG follows the same sequence, because the sequence is designed to ensure both sides are making a well-informed decision before committing to significant work together.

Step 1: Operations Audit ($500, 7 days). A structured diagnostic that produces a scored assessment of your business across six operational dimensions. The output is a prioritised constraint list, a cost-of-inaction analysis, and a clear recommendation for what the right next step is. The audit is the required starting point — not because it's a revenue generator, but because operational work built on an honest diagnostic is consistently more effective than operational work built on assumptions.

The audit also serves a relationship function. Seven days of working together on a real diagnostic tells both sides more about the fit than any amount of sales conversation. I've walked away from full engagements after an audit because the fit wasn't right. That's the correct outcome in those cases.

Step 2: Month 1 Trial ($2,300). Based on the audit findings, if a Full Partnership is the right path, Month 1 begins as a paid trial. I embed in the business and start executing against the audit roadmap. At the end of Month 1, we assess honestly: is the engagement working? Is the founder seeing meaningful change? Is the team responding well? Both sides decide whether to continue.

The trial exists because a 12-month operational engagement is a significant commitment. Month 1 gives you a concrete, evidence-based picture of what working together looks like — before you're locked into anything.

Step 3: Full Partnership (12-month minimum, from Month 2 onward). If Month 1 works, we move into the full engagement. This is where the real operational transformation happens.

What the Full Partnership Actually Involves

A Full Partnership means I take over all operations. Not "I advise on operations" — I own operations. The division of responsibility is clear: the founder focuses on strategy, sales, and key client relationships. I handle everything else.

In practice, this includes: the operating cadence (standups, weekly planning, KPI reviews), delivery quality (the standards, the review process, the escalation framework), team management (day-to-day performance, clear role accountabilities, hiring when the business needs to grow), systems and processes (what gets built, how it gets documented, how it gets maintained), and client experience at the operational level (consistent communication, renewal management, delivery reliability).

This is embedded work, not advisory work. I'm in the business — in the team calls, in the delivery workflow, in the hiring process. Not as an outside consultant showing up once a week with slides. As the person running operations.

The Pricing Structure

The VBOG Full Partnership uses a performance-based structure rather than a flat monthly retainer. The reason: a flat retainer creates a misalignment between what the client wants (operational results, business growth) and what the engagement is measured on (hours delivered). A performance-based structure means VBOG's economics are tied to the business's economics — if the business grows, the engagement pays out more; if it doesn't, it pays out less.

The structure is a tiered profit share, starting at 20–30% in the early months when the operational infrastructure is being built, reducing to approximately 10% as systems are embedded and the business is running independently. The exact percentages and structure are finalised based on the audit findings — what the business looks like going in affects what's reasonable to commit to.

This model is not right for every founder. Some prefer the predictability of a flat retainer. Some have cash flow constraints that make profit share preferable to upfront fees. The right structure is discussed openly and determined based on the specific business and the specific founder, not applied uniformly.

For reference, the Operations Sprint — the alternative to a Full Partnership, covering 1–3 specific operational problems over 8–12 weeks — is priced at $3,000–$6,000 total and is not performance-based. It's appropriate when the business has specific, bounded problems that don't require full operational ownership to solve.

What the Business Should Look Like at 3, 6, and 12 Months

Month 3: Operating cadence is in place and functioning. The founder's ad-hoc involvement in operations has dropped significantly (typically 60–80%). Core delivery systems are documented and being followed. The team has genuine ownership of their outcomes. The founder is spending meaningfully more time on sales and strategy than before the engagement started.

Month 6: The operational infrastructure is solid. Quality is consistent and not founder-dependent. Hiring is running against a structured process rather than reactively. KPIs are being tracked and reviewed weekly. Revenue is typically growing, because the founder's capacity has shifted toward growth activities. The business can handle more clients without proportionally more founder involvement.

Month 12: The business runs without the founder being in the operational loop. Decisions are made at the appropriate level. Quality is maintained by the team's systems, not by the founder's personal review. The founder is working strategically, not operationally. The systems built over the 12 months are documented well enough to survive personnel changes and continue functioning without constant rebuilding.

What This Is Not

It's worth being direct about what a Full Partnership is not, because there's a version of "COO" that's essentially expensive consulting — strategic advice, occasional check-ins, frameworks delivered in documents that the founder then has to implement themselves.

That's not this. The VBOG model is embedded execution. I do the operational work, not just advise on it. The distinction matters because the limiting factor in most founder-led service businesses isn't access to good frameworks — it's execution bandwidth. Advice that adds to the founder's to-do list doesn't solve the problem. An operator who takes the list and executes it does.

VBOG works with a maximum of 3 companies at a time, specifically to maintain the level of embedded involvement that makes the engagement worth doing. If the current cohort is full, you can join the waitlist.

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If this sounds like it might be the right fit, the starting point is a $500 Operations Audit. Seven days, a clear diagnostic, a prioritised roadmap, and an honest recommendation on whether a Full Partnership or an Operations Sprint is the right next step.