Someone running the product side so you can run the business
You've got a developer or an agency. What you don't have is the person who decides what they build next, checks it works, and tells you when it'll ship. That's the job we take on, part-time, month to month.
You hired builders. Nobody is steering.
The developer keeps asking you questions
Every day there's a new one. Should the report include cancelled orders? What happens if two managers approve at once? You answer between customers, and the answers don't always agree with each other.
The agency ships, but you can't tell if it's right
Releases arrive with a note saying "done". You click around for ten minutes, find something odd, and aren't sure whether it's a bug or what you asked for. Nobody wrote down what to test.
The roadmap lives in a group chat
Requests come in from staff, customers and your own late-night ideas. They pile up. The loudest one gets built. Six months in, the important features are still waiting behind the urgent ones.
A backlog, a roadmap and a way to say yes or no
Product ownership is a standing role rather than a one-off document. Each month you get the artefacts below, kept current, plus a person your developer can call instead of you.
Every request, bug and idea captured as a user story with acceptance criteria, then ranked. You see one ordered list. Your developer picks from the top. Nothing gets built because someone shouted.
A one-page view of what ships in the next release, the one after, and what's parked. Each release has a date range and a reason it exists. We update it every month and tell you when something moves.
UAT is user acceptance testing: checking a release does what the business asked before it goes live. We write the test steps for each story so you, or a staff member, can run through them in an hour and say yes or no with confidence.
Daily questions come to us first. We answer the ones the brief already covers and bring the real decisions to you in a short weekly call. Your developer gets faster answers; you get fewer interruptions.
A short written summary each month: what shipped, what slipped, what's next, and any rule or requirement that needs your sign-off. If the retainer should end or shrink, we'll say so.
Part-time, month to month, from the first week
This runs as a monthly retainer. The first two weeks build the backlog and roadmap; after that it's a steady rhythm of weekly planning, release testing and a monthly review. Cancel with a month's notice.
Take stock
We read whatever exists: old briefs, chat threads, tickets, the agency's proposal. Then we sit with you and your developer for an hour each. By the end of week one we know what's built and what everyone thinks was promised.
Build the backlog
Everything becomes a user story with acceptance criteria, ranked Must, Should, Could or Won't. Any rule that must never break (a union clause, a tax rule, an approval limit) gets written down as a hard requirement rather than left to memory.
Plan the release
We agree the next release with you and your developer: which stories, what date range, what's explicitly out. You get a roadmap page you can show staff or investors.
Test and ship
Before each release we run the UAT test cases and send you a pass / fail list. If something fails, it goes back to the developer with a clear description. You only sign off on releases that pass.
Review and repeat
Monthly summary, backlog re-ranked, roadmap updated. The cycle continues as long as it's useful. Some clients keep it for the whole build; some drop to a lighter touch once the system settles.
ShiftFlow: live at v2.5, zero scheduling grievances
ShiftFlow is a shift scheduler for a retail chain with about 19 employees to schedule. The scheduling and break rules were encoded from the union agreement and written into the backlog as hard requirements, then tested before every release. It's now on version 2.5 and there have been no scheduling grievances since launch.
Read the ShiftFlow case study →Straight answers before you book
How is this different from hiring a product manager?
A full-time product manager makes sense once there's a product team to manage. Most small businesses have one developer or one agency and need a few hours a week of steering, done well. A fractional product owner gives you that without a salary. We've written a longer comparison: fractional product manager vs agency vs full-time.
Will my developer or agency resent this?
In our experience they're relieved. Developers want clear stories, fast answers and a defined way to know when something is finished. Agencies want a client who signs off promptly. We're on your side of the table, but the work goes smoother for everyone when someone holds the backlog.
How many hours a month is it?
It varies with how much is being built. A busy build month needs more planning and testing time than a maintenance month. We agree a range up front and review it each month. Pricing is quoted after a call.
What is UAT and do I have to do it myself?
User acceptance testing is the final check that a release does what the business asked, run by someone on the business side rather than the developer. We write the test cases and can run them. Many owners prefer to run the last pass themselves or hand it to a trusted staff member, because it's the fastest way to see what's about to go live.
We don't have a brief yet. Can you start anyway?
Yes. The first two weeks are about building the backlog, which is a brief in a different shape. If there's nothing written down at all, we'd suggest a build brief first, then roll straight into ownership.
Can we stop when the build is done?
Yes, with a month's notice. You keep the backlog, the roadmap and the test cases. Some clients keep a lighter retainer for ongoing changes; some hand it back to a staff member we've shown the ropes.
Tell us who's building your software and what's stuck. In 30 minutes we'll say whether a fractional product owner would help, and what the first month would look like.