Seat 03
The Running Mate.
Your true second-in-command
The President, COO or Integrator you will build the next decade with. We find them, test the chemistry against you, and install the partnership.
We take a small number of these searches at a time. Fees are scoped to the search and discussed on the call.
They run the company. You go build what is next.
A Running Mate translates what you see into what actually happens. They own the leadership team, the operating rhythm and the number — not as a deputy who checks with you, but as the person the company reports to.
Every visionary who got past his own ceiling had one. It is the least glamorous fact in business and the most consistent.
Done properly, this is the last hire that changes what your life looks like.
Any good recruiter can find you a COO.
The hires fail anyway, far more often than this industry admits. And when they fail it is almost never the résumé — it is chemistry, and it is integration.
The search was never the hard part. Two competent people who cannot decide together will still cost you a year and a leadership team.
So our search is built backwards from that fact. The chemistry instrument and the Installation are not services attached to a placement — they are the product.
Half of this hire is you.
No other firm will raise this before taking your money, so we will. The most common reason a second-in-command fails is that the founder never actually let go of the wheel.
- Can you hand over a decision you would have made differently, and let it stand?
- Can you be argued with in front of your own leadership team?
- Will you stop taking the call that should now go to them?
- Are you willing to be the constraint that gets removed?
If you hesitated on any of those, that is not a disqualification — it is the actual work, and it is inside the engagement rather than left as your homework. A founder who is not ready does not need a better candidate. He needs a different first ninety days.
How the partnership gets built.
- 01
Role Visioning
What this Seat actually owns in your company, decided before anyone is approached — including which decisions stop being yours.
- 02
Covert Discovery
Approached among sitting operators who are not looking. The person you want is running something right now, and your competitors never learn you are searching.
- 03
The Wiring Match
The dual assessment — them and you, together. Not a profile of a good COO, but how the two of you decide, disagree and recover. This is the instrument the whole search is built around.
- 04
Offer design
Base, equity, title and decision rights, built as one thing. Get the decision rights wrong and you have hired a very expensive lieutenant.
The Installation
A multi-month programme that runs after the offer is signed, because signing an offer is not the same as making a partnership hold.
The first-90-days operating agreement
What they own from week one, in writing, so nobody is guessing where the line is.
Decision-rights architecture
Which decisions move, which stay yours, and what happens when the two of you disagree.
Delegation coaching, for you
The half of the work that is yours. Handled with you, not assigned to you.
Partnership-health reviews
Scheduled checks through the first year, while it is still cheap to correct.
It is the reason we are paid on whether the partnership works, not on whether an offer got signed.
We take a small number of these at a time.
And we decline more than we accept. There is no countdown on this page and there never will be — the constraint is real, so it does not need decorating. This Seat deserves the attention, and attention does not scale.
The title follows the scope, not the ego.
Depending on what the Seat genuinely owns, the same search lands as Director of Operations, General Manager, President or Integrator. We will re-level it honestly, including downward, and tell you why.
This matters more than it sounds. Title the Seat above its real scope and you buy the wrong candidates at the wrong comp, and the good ones leave inside a year when they discover the job is smaller than the business card.
What the search costs.
Published for the same reason as everything else on this site: so the conversation is never a price ambush.
- By scope, credited
- $15K–$25K initiation By scope, credited Credited against the fee. Real work happens before you have paid us anything else.
- Of first-year base salary
- 25% of base Of first-year base salary Never total comp. We do not earn more when your hire costs more.
- All-in, most searches
- $50K–$90K+ typical All-in, most searches Against a $200K–$400K+ Seat, which is the real market for a true second-in-command.
Worked example
$250,000
first-year base salary
$62,500
our fee, less the initiation you already paid
The Installation is scoped alongside the search itself, on the call — it varies with how much of the first year the partnership needs, and quoting it blind would be a number we could not stand behind.
What founders ask before they say yes.
Where are your case studies and testimonials?
Two honest answers. First: we launched this firm recently, and we won't rent credibility — no fabricated logos, no "trusted by 10,000 leaders" from a company you've never heard of.
Second, and permanently: discretion is the product. The founders we serve don't want their names on a vendor's website, and ours never will be.
What we show you instead is everything the testimonial pages hide: our exact prices, our exact process, our comp benchmarks, and the questions on this page. Judge the machine.
Why do you charge an initiation fee?
Because covert search and careful matching are real work we do before you've paid us a full month — and because it filters both directions.
You prove you're serious; we prove we are. It's credited to your engagement and refundable if we miss our deadline.
Free consultations attract tourists. We built this for operators.
How fast can you actually move?
Right Hand: matched within 45 days or your initiation back — usually much faster.
Chief of Staff: qualified slate within 90 days or your initiation back.
Running Mate: it takes what it takes. You're choosing the person you'll build the next decade with, and we won't pretend that's a two-week sprint.
Who do you turn away?
Founders under about $10M — not enough delegation load yet, and we'll tell you what to do first.
Anyone who wants a body, not a partnership. And anyone who treats support staff badly — our talent is the product, and we protect it.
If that reads as arrogant, we're probably not your firm.
Who's riding shotgun?
The most consequential hire you will make.
If the fit is real, your first conversation is with our senior partner — not a form-processor, and not a coordinator with a script.
Not sure this is the Seat you need yet? Take the honest read