Chief of Field
The Vital Asset for Startup Traction
The Chief of Field role launched in 2024 to address a critical challenge in the startup ecosystem: the limited capacity of founders to simultaneously develop products, build companies, and manage business-critical relationships.
As the startup ecosystem continues to evolve, “connective tissue roles” like the Chief of Field that combine fractional leadership with agile expertise will increase in value. This new role not only addresses current challenges faced by startups but also anticipates future trends in work, leadership, and market dynamics.
The Chief of Field represents an evolved approach to addressing known challenges in startup growth and market penetration. With this fractional enablement, founders stay in Founder Mode by maintaining focus on product and company development.
The Chief of Field’s Purpose
Founders want to build products and have to build companies. Both limit their capacity to advance the relationships, ecosystems, and market feedback loops required for traction. The Chief of Field role exists to extend founder bandwidth externally with core stakeholders like prospects, clients, investors, media, partners, and talent.
This role considers these realities:
In-person events became crucial for establishing credibility and forging connections, as people seek relief from the digital deluge and online uniformity.
Founders now must become brand ambassadors or influencers, using various platforms to champion their company's mission and value.
Shifting workplace dynamics and Artificial Intelligence advancements have transformed full-time hiring into a very high-stakes, costly endeavor.
Experienced fractional leaders can be better, faster, and cheaper than relatively junior full-time hires who require heavier management and development.
Without a Chief of Field, founders are forced to make distracting trade-offs with significant opportunity costs to growth.
Chief of Field In Action
The Chief of Field works by being:
Agile, resourceful, and fractional:
A defined tour of duty reduces the risks of new full-time hires while augmenting existing ones.
They serve the company like connective tissue does the body.
Experienced market developers with strong, relevant professional networks:
They are essentially relational Product Marketers - the intersection of Product, Sales, and Marketing.
They understand the levers, frameworks, and personas required to expedite traction.
Balanced across multiple company engagements:
This flywheels their exposure to valuable ideas and people.
Their value compounds through economies of scope.
Focused on founder augmentation:
It's more effective to atomize field deliverables then compensate for completion.
They are not incentivized like coin-operated Sales leaders or fractional CMOs, avoiding distraction from the explorative nature of their missions.
The Chief of Field’s Impact
Partnering with a Chief of Field allows founders to think outside of the box and focus on jobs-to-be-done. They are not drive-by consultants or specialized advisors, they are scrappy GSD generalists who learn and recalibrate quickly. Therefore, they will constantly evolve their expertise and do the actual work required to prepare for and succeed in-field.
Activity categories often include:
Market feedback loops: Translating conversations with core stakeholders and targeted research into intelligence that advances internal operations, Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy, and product roadmaps.
In-person events (global): Representing founders and/or the company at events for market development and business development.
Enterprise success: Serving as the executive champion for relationships with high-priority clients and partners.
GTM process optimization: Identifying operational growth blockers and opportunities, then solutioning improvements with functional teams.
Relationship and brand building: Developing the strategy and actioning the tactics to elevate founder and company brand online and in-person.