Fractional CRO
A fractional CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) is a part-time revenue leader who aligns sales, marketing, and customer success under a unified revenue strategy. While a CGO focuses broadly on growth (including product, operations, and infrastructure), a CRO typically focuses specifically on the revenue engine — pipeline generation, sales effectiveness, and customer retention.
Why Fractional CRO Matters for SaaS Companies
Revenue is the result of sales, marketing, and customer success working together. When these functions operate in silos, leads fall through cracks, customers are handed off poorly, and revenue underperforms. A fractional CRO creates alignment — shared metrics, integrated processes, and a single revenue strategy. For Seed to Series B companies, this alignment is the difference between a working go-to-market and an expensive mess.
An Operator's Take
The CRO role and CGO role overlap significantly at the early stage. The distinction matters more at Series C+ when specialization makes sense. At Seed to Series B, what you need is someone who can look at the entire revenue lifecycle — from first touch through retention — and build systems that make it work. Whether you call that person a CRO or CGO matters less than whether they can both strategize and execute. I have worn both titles at different companies. The work was the same.
Common Mistakes
What I see go wrong at Seed to Series B companies.
Hiring a CRO when what you need is a VP of Sales. A CRO oversees the full revenue lifecycle. If your problem is specifically sales execution, a sales leader is a better fit.
Expecting a CRO to personally close deals. The CRO builds the machine — strategy, process, tools, metrics. Reps close deals.
Confusing CRO with CMO. CMOs focus on brand, demand generation, and marketing. CROs focus on the full revenue funnel including sales and retention.
What to Do This Week
Concrete steps you can take right now.
Assess where your revenue bottleneck is: is it lead generation (marketing problem), conversion (sales problem), or retention (CS problem)? If it spans all three, you need CRO-level thinking.
Define what 'revenue leadership' means for your stage. At Seed-A, it might be building the first sales process. At Series B, it might be scaling an existing engine.
Read the comparison guides to understand how CRO-level leadership compares to hiring an agency or full-time executive.
Related Resources
Try These Tools
Further Reading
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a CRO and CGO?
A CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) focuses on the revenue engine: sales, marketing, and customer success alignment. A CGO (Chief Growth Officer) focuses more broadly on all growth levers including product, operations, pricing, and infrastructure. At the early stage, the roles overlap significantly. At scale, the CRO tends to own go-to-market while the CGO owns growth strategy and cross-functional initiatives.
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