Guides · Updated October 2026 · by Simon Cook

When to hire a COO

For most consumer founders, a COO hire comes when the business is outgrowing the way they run it. Orders, stock, suppliers and the team all come back to one person, and the brand and product work that only the founder can do starts to slip.

This guide covers what a COO does at a consumer brand, the signals Suma sees when it’s time, whether to start with a Head of Operations, what to pay and what the first 90 days should look like.

What a COO does at a consumer brand

At a consumer brand the COO turns what the founders do by hand into processes the team can run without them. In practice that means stock, fulfilment, supply chain, customer service and the systems and people behind them, plus taking things off the founder’s plate.

A COO usually runs operations alongside a founder who’s still CEO. An MD/GM is a different hire: they run the whole business day to day, including the P&L and often the board relationship, so the founder can focus on brand, product or the next raise, or step back altogether. If the founder intends to step back, the search is for an MD/GM.

The signals

Suma’s view is that most founders need a COO when they’ve become the bottleneck on day-to-day operations. The signals that usually go with it:

A Series A raise. New money means more volume, more hires and less of the founder’s time for operations.
A team past 20 to 30 people. Past that size the founder can’t be the person every operational question goes to.
Selling across several channels. DTC, retail and marketplaces each have their own stock, margins and partners, and running them together is a job in itself.
Supply chain or fulfilment taking over the founder’s week. If the founder is chasing suppliers and couriers, the brand work is waiting.

None of these is a hard rule, and some brands go further with a strong Head of Operations first.

COO or Head of Operations first

A Head of Operations runs the operation as it stands: the warehouse, the couriers, customer service and the day-to-day numbers. A COO also decides how operations should change as the business grows, works across functions and sits close to the board.

If the honest list of what you need is getting orders out on time and fixing the processes that keep breaking, a Head of Operations is usually enough. If the founder needs someone to take whole areas of the business off them and run them through their own leads, that’s a COO.

Is a COO higher than a CEO?

Usually not. A CEO is normally paid more than a COO. The COO usually reports to the CEO and runs operations day to day, while the CEO leads the company, the board and the fundraising. Suma’s benchmarks put a COO at £110,000 to £160,000 at Series A, below the £130,000 to £180,000 a hired CEO earns at the same stage. A COO who’s effectively the founder’s number two can take a founder-level equity grant, but still reports to the CEO.

What to pay

From Suma’s COO salary benchmarks:

Full-time: £80,000 to £120,000 at seed, £110,000 to £160,000 at Series A and £135,000 to £190,000 at Series B. At scale-up and established consumer brands in London, COO salaries run from £150,000 to £350,000 and above.

Fractional: £500 to £1,100 a day at seed and £700 to £1,400 at Series A, usually for one to two days a week.

Equity is in line with a CFO: 0.75% to 2.0% at seed, 0.4% to 1.0% at Series A and 0.25% to 0.75% at Series B. The executive equity guide covers the terms.

The first 90 days

A good COO starts by learning how the business really runs, from stock and fulfilment to customer service and the numbers behind them, and meeting the key suppliers and partners. Early on they agree with the CEO exactly which teams and decisions they own. They fix one or two visible operational problems so the team can see the difference, and by day 90 they have a plan for the next year that the CEO and board have signed off.

Interview questions

A few of the questions Suma uses to test for a scaling COO:

How do you decide what a founder should stop doing? The COO’s job is partly to take things off the founder’s plate. If they can’t have that conversation, they won’t be effective.
What does bad operational infrastructure look like at seed stage and how do you fix it? It tests pattern recognition. A good COO has seen the common failure modes and knows what to prioritise first.
Tell me about a year when operations had to roughly double. What did you change first, and what would you do differently? At a scaling brand the COO runs functions through their own leads, so listen for the systems and people they put in place.

The full set is in the interview guide on the COO salary page, and the executive interview scorecard covers how to compare candidates.

Common questions

When should a startup hire a COO?

Suma’s view, from hiring and placing operations leaders at consumer brands, is that most founders need a COO when they’ve become the bottleneck on day-to-day operations. Common signals are a Series A raise, a team past 20 to 30 people, selling across several channels such as DTC, retail and marketplaces, and supply chain or fulfilment problems taking over the founder’s week. None of these is a hard rule, and some brands go further with a strong Head of Operations first.

Sources: Suma's experience hiring and placing operations leaders.

What should a COO do in the first 90 days?

In the first 90 days, a new COO should learn how the business really runs, agree with the CEO exactly which teams and decisions they own, and fix one or two visible operational problems. At a consumer brand that usually means getting close to stock, fulfilment, customer service and the numbers behind them, and meeting the key suppliers and partners. By day 90 they should have a plan for the next year that the CEO and board have signed off.