FREE PLAYBOOK

How I built a $360K/year fractional practice — and the playbook that shows you the system.

Senior data professionals have a ceiling problem. Two clients at $8K/month equals your $180K salary, working fewer days. Three at $10K is $360K/year. The blocker isn’t skill. It’s positioning. Here’s the system, free.

Nick Valiotti — Fractional CDO, PhD
Nick Valiotti
Fractional CDO · PhD · ex-corporate CDO
Author
$3M+
Earned
7 yrs
Practicing
50+
Clients
$17K/mo
Current rate

Same skills. Different structure.

One employer, one salary, one point of failure. Here’s what changes when you restructure how you sell your time.

Employee
Fractional CDO
Income
$180K cap, one salary
2 × $8K = $192K · 3 × $10K = $360K
Schedule
50-hour weeks, commute or Zoom
1-2 days/week per client, you set it
Rate growth
4% raise after annual review
Raise with each new engagement
Risk
One boss, one paycheck
Diversified across clients
Reputation
Building someone else’s story
Building your own brand

Six parts. The full system.

Not theory. The same system that works across 50+ engagements, distilled into what to do today.

Part 1 · Build

Positioning

Three ways data pros sell time. Only one commands $12-20K retainers.

Part 2 · Build

Your ICP

Who actually hires fractional CDOs — and who wastes your time.

Part 3 · Build

The Offer

What you’re really selling, and why it’s not hours.

Part 4 · Market

Pipeline

Warm outreach plus LinkedIn inbound. The two channels that actually work.

Part 5 · Sell

Discovery & Proposals

The diagnostic call. The one-page proposal that closes without negotiation.

Part 6 · Deliver

Month 1

What to do, and what NOT to do, in your first 30 days with a new client.

Built for senior data professionals

Senior Data Engineers

8+ years building pipelines and warehouses. Ready to lead strategy, not just execute.

Analytics Managers

Want to go independent instead of climbing the corporate ladder. Package skills as a premium service.

Data Team Leads

Already managing people. Learn to package leadership into a $10-15K/month fractional practice.

BI Consultants

Great at Metabase, Looker, dbt. Need positioning, pricing, and a sales strategy that fits.

Written by someone doing it now

Nick Valiotti — Fractional CDO

Nick Valiotti

Fractional CDO · Founder, Valiotti Data

PhD in Computer Science 7 years fractional 50+ engagements Currently: Head of Data, Sniffspot
“I started in 2018. My first engagement was $5K/month with a Series A marketplace. They stayed for 14 months. That single client taught me the model — and the system in this playbook is what I’ve built and refined across the 50 engagements since.”

GET THE PLAYBOOK

Read the playbook, free.

50+ pages. Notion doc, no signup. Based on $3M+ earned across 50 engagements. The system, not the theory. Want the 1-on-1 build with feedback? See the Accelerator.