The Fractional Interview Series - Harris Brown’s No Bull💩 Fractional Work

We’re back with a new episode of Fractionally Speaking. It’s a rapid-fire Q&A, 5 minutes long, featuring the top fractional executives in tech. Get an inside peek into how they best approach their fractional work.

This entire series would not be possible without Besolo. They’ve been a huge partner for Fractional Jobs, I can’t thank them enough.

Today's 5-minute Q&A features Harris Brown, a pioneer in fractional leadership with 4 years as a Fractional Head of Product and 5 years at Airbnb before that. He has been a Fractional Head of Product since before the term “fractional” became popular, around four years ago. He spent five years in various product roles at Airbnb and now applies his expertise to help early-stage startups.

I asked him questions like:

• “When did you start doing fractional work?”
• “What’s the pie chart of where your leads are coming from?”
• “How are you adding value to your clients on a fractional basis?”
• “What’s the biggest challenge you're facing in your fractional practice?”
• “What’s one thing you wish more founders and hirers knew about fractional leaders?”

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The Interview

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Taylor: When did you start doing fractional work?
Harris: I think I nailed it about four years ago, in the spring of 2021, coming off a seven-month sabbatical.

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Taylor: Did you start off using the word “fractional,” or did you adopt it later?
Harris: I adopted it later. When I first got started, I referred to myself as a product consultant. At that time, I didn’t know anyone doing this kind of work, particularly in the product space, so "product consultant" seemed like the easiest fit. It worked fine for a while, but eventually, I realized that “consultant” didn’t fully capture the scope of the work I was doing. The way I approach my engagements is much more embedded. If you didn’t know I was fractional, you’d think I was a full-time employee.

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Taylor: What’s the pie chart of where your leads typically come from today?
Harris: Despite doing more business development and content marketing now, most of my leads still come from referrals—from my network, past clients, and other fractional folks I’ve partnered with over the years.

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Taylor: How many clients are you working with right now?
Harris: Right now, I’m working with three.

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Taylor: Take one of your clients as an example. How are you adding value to them on a fractional basis?
Harris: I’m working with a Series A company in the food tech space. They do culinary operations for large food vendors. I’m helping them understand what their AI strategy and roadmap might look like, how they can apply AI both internally and to their end users. I’m also working with the team to build and implement those ideas into production.

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Taylor: Something I imagine you hear often is, “How can you do product work part-time? Don’t you have to live and breathe the user?” What do you typically say to that?
Harris: It still surprises me how much impact can be made by someone who’s highly experienced and can quickly come in, pattern match, and drive results, even with limited bandwidth. There’s always a trade-off between developing context and driving impact, but that’s actually where fractional leaders excel. We’re hired to make an impact quickly. That’s what we do.

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Taylor: What expectations do you set with your clients about your availability and responsiveness throughout the week?
Harris: I try to establish mutually beneficial guardrails around specific times or days I allocate to clients. But in reality, most weeks don’t pan out exactly as planned, and that’s okay—it’s just part of the ride.

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Taylor: What’s a big challenge you’re facing right now in your fractional practice?
Harris: The biggest challenge is scale. It’s tough to figure out the best model for taking on as much work as possible, while still going deep and being as impactful as I can. As a fractional, you’re effectively selling your time, and finding the right balance is a constant challenge.

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Taylor: What’s one thing you wish more founders and hirers knew about fractional leaders like yourself?
Harris: It’s easy to experiment with this model. I say, why not give it a try?Taylor: I love that. Fractional work is so much more flexible. You’re preaching to the choir. And I completely agree!

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Taylor: So, Harris, what’s your “why”? Why do you do fractional work?
Harris: Honestly, I really love it. It’s unanticipated, but I enjoy the no-bullshit nature of the fractional model. I can focus on solving the highest-priority problems for companies, but I can also be direct, transparent, and explicit about where I focus my time. I love running my own business, working for myself, and the autonomy that comes with it. I really appreciate that.

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‍Fractional Jobs helps startups hire fractional talent, like Chris Bee, across about 10 different function areas. And we help fractional leaders build a successful fractional practice through our Playbooks, our Toolkit, and then through introductions, of course, to potential clients. And that’s about it for Episode 3 of this little fractional interview series that doesn’t have a name yet!