Operations diagnostics
2 weeks · 4 sessions + access to numbers
Bottleneck map and a 90-day plan with owners and deadlines.
€1,500 fixed
DiscussFractional COO · ex-COO ProductLab
I get founders out of day-to-day operations
I build the operating system that runs without you: unit leaders, weekly cadence, management accounting, AI in the loop.
Book a 30-minute session
Free. You leave with 2–3 concrete steps.
- years in operations
- 10+
- years in operations
- people in current teams I co-founded
- 38
- people in current teams I co-founded
- people managed at ProductLab
- 120+
- people managed at ProductLab
MB
The company grows, and you are its bottleneck
- Every decision goes through you. Vacation means remote work.
- No numbers by Monday: what you earned last week, where you lost.
- No second-in-command in any unit — nobody to hand routine to.
- Hiring, procurement, conflicts — all back in your calendar.
- Not a single hour a week left for strategy.
One more manager won't fix this. You need an operating system.
Method: four steps
- 1
Diagnostics
Two weeks inside your processes and numbers — sessions with you plus access to accounts.
Deliverable — bottleneck map and a 90-day plan
- 2
Weekly cadence
Planning meeting, numbers by Monday morning, weekly deal review.
Deliverable — a working management cycle
- 3
Unit leaders
I grow or hire a second-in-command for every unit.
Deliverable — an owner for each unit
- 4
Accounting & AI
Management accounting and automation where routine eats hours.
Deliverable — a cockpit with numbers, no manual work
Cases
×1.9
deals per quarter: Q2 → Q4 2025
E-commerce: online retail, Belarus
Co-founder · since 2025
Situation
A company from scratch: sales through a team of managers working paid leads from ads. Leads are bought at auction — money barely buys more of them, so growth has to come from conversion. Deal revenue comes from several sources, and true margin shows up late.
What I did
- Launched the company with a partner and ran it for 14 months: sales team from 1 to 10 people by August 2025
- Management accounting: margin per deal recalculated daily, reconciled with bookkeeping monthly
- Daily sales review: margin per lead and conversion per manager, yesterday's report arrives every morning on its own
- In April 2026 handed operations to a CEO; kept hiring, analytics, finance and unit economics
Result
- Q2 → Q4 2025: deals 277 → 527, revenue ×1.9, margin ×1.7
- 1,300+ deals in 2025, 2,600+ overall
- Growth continued under the CEO: Q3 2026 revenue ×2.2 vs Q2 2025 — a result of the team we built
97
releases of our own CRM
VitAi World — product studio
Co-Founder & COO
Situation
The studio didn't exist: no legal entity, no processes. The goal — an AI product factory that doesn't depend on the founders.
What I did
- Built a team of 12
- Operating frame: sprints, release cycle, accounting
- Took the HTP residency application from zero: charter, business plan, defense
- Our own CRM for an e-com company I co-founded: leads, sales, telephony, incentives, procurement, an AI assistant for management. The daily analytics from the first case runs on its API
- Building several lines of business, one of them VitAi Production
Result
- HTP resident 8 weeks after incorporation: applied on the day the company was registered
- 3 products in production, releases ship without the founders
- CRM: 97 releases; since July 2026, 18–30 releases a month
30 minutes — and you have a map of first steps
Book a 30-minute sessionAbout
Ten years in operations and running them — with my own hands, then through people, departments and whole companies.
Early in my career: Mapbox's Minsk R&D center, four and a half years running office operations. In 2022 Mapbox ranked 59th on Fast Company's Best Workplaces for Innovators. Then COO at ProductLab, an e-com company: 120+ people.
Since 2023 I have been advising founders: marketplace e-com, corporate training, helping build a skill-based iGaming product that raised an investment round. In 2024–2025 I ran AppsHub, a mobile games studio working with SayGames, CrazyLabs and Estoty.
Today I'm a co-founder of an e-com company in Belarus, the product studio VitAi World and the HeadUp app. Same path everywhere: hands-on first, then processes, then hiring — and I move a level up. Consulting is the same method, applied to your company.
2010–2015
Law (economic law), Belarusian State University
2018–2022
Mapbox, Minsk R&D — office operations
2022–2023
ProductLab, e-com — COO, 120+ people
since 2023
Advising founders: e-com, training, iGaming
2024–2025
AppsHub — mobile games studio, head
2025
Co-founder of an e-com company; HeadUp — a screen-time app
2026
VitAi World — co-founder, HTP resident
What people say
«Managed operational processes effectively.»
Mapbox colleague
LinkedIn recommendation · LinkedIn
30-minute session
Tell me where operations are stuck. You leave with 2–3 concrete steps — even if we never work together.
I reply within 24 hours.
Or directly: LinkedIn · Telegram · maksim.bakanau@gmail.com