Frequently asked questions.

The Small Business MBA is a free all-in-one membership for business owners. It bundles every Notebook of a COO course (operations, marketing, finance, leadership, and AI), live financial tools like automated P&Ls, an operator community, and new programs added each month into one place to learn systems, run your numbers, and grow your business. See everything inside.

Free forever. No contract, cancel anytime.

Every course, live financial tools, the operator community, and new programs, services, and tools added each month. One membership covers all of it, free.

Any business owner, whether you're just starting out or already running an established operation, who wants one place for the education, tools, and community to run and grow the business.

Yes. Every course is included in the free membership at no extra cost. There are no separate course fees.

A traditional MBA costs tens of thousands of dollars and teaches theory. The Small Business MBA is free and teaches the practical systems, tools, and operating playbook you actually use to run and grow a business, built by operators.

Yes. It is free, with no contract. Cancel anytime.

No. It's built for owners at any stage and starts with the fundamentals before moving into advanced systems.

We give business owners everything they need to run and grow in one place. The Small Business MBA is our free all-in-one membership: every course, live financial tools, an operator community, and new programs each month. For owners who want done-for-you implementation, we also offer fractional COO, CMO, and CFO services that install the operating layer (SOPs, KPI dashboards, hiring scorecards, financial cadence) inside your business.

JT, who spent 15 years in the C-suite as COO, CMO, and CFO, scaling companies from $500K to $1B+ across multiple industries. Notebook of a COO exists because operators in the $300k to $5M+ range deserve embedded executive support without a $250K full-time hire or a six-month consulting engagement that ends in a slide deck. Read more about JT.

A coach hands you frameworks and asks Socratic questions. A consultant produces a deck. A course gives you videos to watch. We install the work alongside you. SOPs get written and handed off. Dashboards get stood up. Hiring sequences run. Financial cadences become real meetings on the calendar. Three to six months in, the operating layer exists in your business, not in a slide deck on your hard drive.

Yes. The Small Business MBA, the Operator Hub and the Operator Quickstart were the old shape, and they were all paid. That is gone. Everything worth keeping moved into the Small Business MBA, which is now free: every module, the operator tools, the workbooks and the private operator community. The printable field guides are free too. See the Small Business MBA.

The boring infrastructure that lets a business scale without breaking. Documented standard operating procedures so the work doesn't live in your head. KPI dashboards so you can see what's actually happening. A hiring scorecard so you stop hiring on vibes. A monthly financial cadence so you know your numbers before you need them. Capacity planning so you grow without burning out the team. Most operators know they need this. They don't have time to build it while running the day-to-day.

Fractional COO, CMO and CFO engagements are scoped on a free Build Call, so you pay for the work your business needs and nothing else. See how working with JT works.

Any minimum term is set out in your written proposal, agreed on the Build Call, before you pay anything. Honest reason: the operating layer takes 3 to 6 months to install. Anything shorter is theater. We won't take the money for it.

Yes. Fractional engagements cover COO, CMO and CFO work, and the mix is set out in your written proposal. It can change as the business does.

Short, focused projects, like planning the next quarter or getting a business ready to sell, can still be scoped on a free Build Call when they fit. They are no longer sold as fixed packages.

Month 1 is Discovery and Audit. We get full access to your numbers, team structure, customer mix, processes. By end of month one, you have a written audit plus a ranked install plan. Months 2 through 5 are install: operating system modules go in one at a time, in the order the audit prescribed, each handed off with documentation. Month 6 is handoff: you run the operating system without us, with optional monthly check-ins or quarterly reviews after.

Yes. Every engagement includes a mutual NDA and a written services agreement that covers scope, deliverables, payment terms, IP ownership (everything we build with you is yours), and exit terms.

We run a 30-day check-in at the end of month one. If either side thinks the fit is wrong, we end the engagement and you pay only for time used to that point. After month one, contracts are honored to the minimum term. Most engagements that get past the 30-day mark renew or upgrade.

Not on completed work. We refund for any time not yet performed if either side ends an engagement. An AI agent's setup fee is refunded in full if you stop before the kickoff call.

Trained AI agents that take work off your plate: a Marketing Director, a Lead Generator, a Sales Director, a Customer Success Director and a Chief of Staff. They make the people you already have faster, and a person always decides. See the agents.

One agent is $2,500 to set up, then $600 a month from the day it goes live. The Marketing Director is $3,500 to set up, then $900 a month. The Operator Team, all five together, is $9,500 to set up, then $2,500 a month.

Fourteen days after you send your intake, and The Operator Team 21 to 30 days after. The monthly fee never starts before it is live.

Nothing it makes publishes, spends money or goes to a customer until you approve it. You can loosen that one task at a time when you are ready.

Custom software built around your business, which replaces the tools you rent. You own the code and the accounts it runs on. The scope, the price range and the timeline are in writing before you pay, and builds are billed at milestones. See the three sizes.

Operators in the $300k to $5M+ annual revenue range who know the operating layer is the next problem to solve. Either stuck (revenue has plateaued and the business runs on you), or actively scaling (revenue is growing but operations are starting to bend under the weight). Bonus fit: you've already tried at least one course, coach, or consultant and found the engagement too shallow to actually move the needle.

Not with fractional engagements. At your stage, the binding constraint isn't the operating layer, it's the business model itself. Customer, offer, pricing, go-to-market. Grab the Foundation Builder Field Guide for free. Come back when you're consistently at $300k+ and operations are the next thing to fix.

Yes. Engagements are conducted over Zoom, async messaging, and shared docs. We work with operators across North America, Europe, and Australia. We schedule weekly 1:1s and async support around your time zone.

The operating layer work is industry-agnostic. We've worked with operators in agencies, professional services, e-commerce, SaaS, healthcare, education, and consumer products. The frameworks transfer. Industry-specific tactics (pricing structures, channel mix, regulatory specifics) get layered in during the Audit phase.

We're not the right shape for that. Coaching is a different category and there are good coaches out there. We're installers. We sit in your business and do the work with you. If what you want is someone to ask you Socratic questions and let you find your own answer, that's coaching, not fractional COO.

Three printable PDFs matched to operator archetypes. Foundation Builder Field Guide (the 4-Box Business Model, customer reality check, pricing floor, 14-day plan). Stuck Operator Diagnostic Guide (3-plateaus framework, numbers audit, hours audit, branched 14-day plan). Scale-Ready Audit Guide (Operator Asset Map, 30-Day-Off Diagnostic, 30-day sellability sprint). All three are free, no opt-in. Grab them here.

A free 3-minute, 12-question diagnostic that places you in one of three archetypes (Foundation Builder, Stuck Operator, Scale-Ready). It routes you to the matching free guide, tells you what I would do next, and sends three short emails over the following nine days. Take it here.

No. Direct PDF downloads, no email required. The opt-in only happens if you take the assessment, which routes you to the right guide automatically and adds you to the matched nurture sequence.

We use it to send your result and three short emails over the following nine days, matched to your archetype. After that we stop unless you ask for more. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and we don't sell or share lists, ever. Full privacy policy.

Weekly short-form podcast for operators. Operator stories, frameworks, war stories from real businesses. 6 to 12 minutes per episode. No fluff, no guest interviews designed to cross-promote, no life-coach intros. Available on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple. Full episode list.

Weekly. New episode drops every Monday morning.

The Season 3 opener "The 7-day disappearance test" is a good starting point. From there, "Stop running a 2019 business in a 2026 market" and "The business no algorithm can replace" round out the recent thinking. The full back catalog is on the podcast page.

Join the free Small Business MBA and post your question in the operator community. JT and other operators answer there. Join free.

Message us inside the Small Business MBA. JT reads every message. Response time is usually within 24 hours on weekdays.

Not currently. The old course-era affiliate program was retired in May 2026 along with the courses. For fractional client referrals, reach out directly. We do credit one month of retainer to existing clients who refer a new fractional engagement that closes.

An AI agent goes live 14 days after you send its intake. For fractional engagements, 2 to 4 weeks after your proposal is accepted, depending on scheduling and current client load. We hold a strict cap on active clients to ensure quality, so there may occasionally be a waitlist.