Six weeks. Five founders. Live, with me.
You built a real product. This is where you build the rest: the positioning, the commercial clock, the go-to-market economics, and the traction narrative for your next raise. Built by you, torn apart and rebuilt weekly, until it survives a boardroom.
Who buys first, and who signs that check?
What has to be true before you can sell unit one, and what happens if that slips six months?
How does unit one actually get sold, and what does that cost?
What evidence says this is a business and not a science project?
Where is the 24-month commercialization plan, on one page?
If any answer is fuzzy, that is the gap this program closes. Most founders answer the first two with confidence and go quiet by the fourth. That silence is expensive in a boardroom. It is cheap here.
Nothing here is homework for its own sake. Every deliverable is something your board and your raise require anyway, and the weeks stack into one integrated plan.
Who buys first, who signs the check, and the narrowest market where you are the obvious choice. Deliverable: a one-page positioning statement.
Every constraint between you and revenue (a certification, manufacturing, a platform, a partner) mapped to timeline and cash. Deliverable: your constraint map with the cash need at each milestone.
Direct, channel, or strategic-led, priced against reality: procurement committees, budget cycles, long closes. Deliverable: your GTM model with real unit economics.
Translate technical milestones into evidence investors fund. Deliverable: the milestone map for your raise, with proof attached to every claim.
Gates one through four assembled into one sequenced, budgeted, 12-to-24-month plan. Deliverable: one page, board format.
You present the full plan. The room attacks it the way a board will. What wobbles gets fixed live. You leave with the plan.
I'm Dave Saunders. Thirty years commercializing products as a CTO, CPO, and co-founder across telecom, cloud, and medical devices, including eight years at Galen Robotics, from Johns Hopkins prototype to FDA De Novo clearance, where we drafted the De Novo language the agency adopted.
My six-month Fractional CPO engagements run $10,000 to $25,000 a month. Plan to Market is the cohort version of the same commercial thinking, for founders who want to build the plan themselves with my hands on it weekly.
40+
products taken to market
De Novo
Galen Robotics, Johns Hopkins prototype to FDA clearance
5
founders per cohort, maximum. Everyone presents, nobody hides.
Six weekly live sessions of 90 minutes, capped at five founders so every session works on your specific plan. Direct access to me between sessions, every deliverable reviewed weekly. All sessions recorded; you keep the recordings.
Charter founders trade two things for the lower price: honest feedback while we run it, and a testimonial at the end if the program earns one.
$4,900
Charter pricing, first cohort only. Lists at $7,900 after this run. Starts when three seats fill; enrollment closes at five.
Finish the six weeks, do the work, and if you don't leave with a board-ready commercialization plan, I keep working with you until you do. Same promise I make on every engagement, and one condition, same as all my work: you show up and do the work.
Or take the call first: 30 minutes, and I'll tell you honestly whether this fits where you are.
Founders with a built or near-built product, pre- or early-commercial, typically raising within the next 12 months. Any sector; hard-tech and regulated products are welcome. It is not for idea-stage companies or founders who want the plan done for them; that is what the six-month engagement is for.
One 90-minute live session per week, plus two to three hours of work between sessions. Every deliverable is something your board and your raise require anyway. This is not homework on top of the job. It is the job, with structure.
Your regulatory or certification path enters the program as a constraint we map onto your roadmap, cash, and raise in week two. Deep pathway strategy stays with your regulatory advisors; I'm not selling that expertise. What you build here is the commercial plan around those constraints, which is the part most regulated founders are missing.
In the six-month Fractional CPO engagement I join your team and run the product function with you. In Plan to Market, you build the plan yourself with my review and pressure-testing every week, alongside four other founders doing the same. Different depth, different price, same commercial thinking. Many founders start here and some go deeper afterward.
Later, at around $2,500, without live access. The charter founders get me live, their specific plan worked on weekly, at $4,900. This version of the program does not repeat at this price.
Need it done with you inside the company instead? That's the six-month Fractional CPO engagement.