Operating Partner, Consumer (Fractional)

About Palm Venture Studios

Palm Venture Studios provides second-chance capital and hands-on operational support to promising startups. In the past 24 months, we've acquired meaningful interest in 30+ impact-driven companies—from farm-to-fridge grocery to matchmaking and from men’s wellness to solving the medical debt crisis and beyond.

We're a family office with a remarkable track record (35 companies, 30+ add-ons, 18 exits, 21x ROIC) and are looking for an Operating Partner to help turn these missions into durable consumer businesses, fast.

The Opportunity

This is a part-time role for someone who is ready to be all in. We're looking for someone who is eager to help build out an impact-driven studio—perhaps an exited founder, an active angel, or a serial operator who misses the work but not the grind of doing it alone. You'll work hands-on with CEOs across the portfolio guiding strategic direction, digging into the details, and serving as a primary mentor and advisor.

Responsibilities

• Own the operating rhythm — a structured cadence of virtual CEO group support sessions, 1:1 advisory, portfolio reviews, and hands-on support between meetings, designed in partnership with a top executive coach
• Leverage your expertise, your network, and Palm's network to help founders move through the milestones that matter in D2C — ranging from validating the business thesis, to finding first customers, to nailing message-market fit, to proving unit economics, and scaling channels profitably.
• Interface with Palm leadership to share insights, proactively flag concerns, and inform portfolio-wide strategy and platform evolution
• Spot gaps in resources, expertise, and/or experience and connect CEOs to the right resources fast, whether that’s Palm’s platform teams (legal, finance, recruiting), or a difference-making industry expert.
• Coach founder-CEOs at regular cadence and as-needed, providing hands-on support — making decisions with balanced urgency and psychological safety.

Success Means

• CEOs achieve their milestones — and their missions — faster and with more joy and ease because of your partnership. This will show up in their performance, and in how they speak about you.
• Palm principals get leverage. That means better visibility into portfolio health, clearer inputs for decision-making, a platform that evolves because of what you bring back from the field, and a network that grows richer through yours.

About You

You're an Austin-based serial consumer business builder who's been the operator in the room across diverse startups—before and after product-market fit—multiple times. You've lived the milestones our founders are pursuing from aligning plan to thesis, to finding first customers, to nailing message-market fit, to scaling channels profitably.

Requirements

• Been the operator in the room—Founder, CEO, COO, CMO, or Head of Sales—across multiple consumer startups, pre- and post-PMF.
• Scaled a brand from first customer through profitable channel at 2x+ ROAS.
• Architected the growth engine—acquisition, retention, brand positioning, CAC—plus the underlying mechanics: pricing, merchandising, forecasting, inventory, and cash flow.
• Built a "battle-tested" rolodex of experts they've called on when things got sideways.
• Coached founders through messy decisions with equal parts urgency and psychological safety.

Benefits

• A Leveraged Way to Help Compelling Companies Win. The highest possible leverage on your time - helping other CEOs working on compelling things win.
• Challenge, Variety, Fun. A diverse portfolio of companies at different stages, not one problem on repeat.
• Equity, Board Trajectory, Expanded Scope. Relationships that open doors to future stakes, formal board roles, and more full-time work with Palm.
• Network and Community. A tight, Austin-centered community of founders, investors and operators, backed by Palm's 30-year track record and startup studio infrastructure.

Want to build with us?

Put your hat in the ring!