"Connectd has a real qualification pathway plus mentorship building, and a group of people already doing this work who I could learn from. That combination is what made me want in."
What brought you to Connectd?
Ayelen Fernandez, Chief Revenue Officer & Fractional Go-to-Market Advisor: I heard about it from a colleague who was already doing fractional and advisory work on the side. What made it stick was that it wasn't just another marketplace, it was the structure and the community. Connectd has a real qualification pathway plus mentorship building, and a group of people already doing this work who I could learn from. That combination is what made me want in.
How has the Academy helped articulate what you already brought to the table?
Ayelen Fernandez: I'm someone who thinks in systems, and the Academy gave me a way to formalise the frameworks I was already using intuitively, while pushing me to build new ones as well.
Two things stuck the most. One is a framework for reading a startup's stage very quickly and translating that into a concrete go-to-market point of view. The second is thinking clearly about deal structure, where my retainer floor sits, and when equity makes sense versus when it's just a sweat equity trap.
I also discovered I genuinely enjoy this part of the work. Reviewing a lot of companies, you start to see patterns very fast, and that pattern recognition is something I now lead with in a pitch.
How did you use the platform to navigate your next steps?
Ayelen Fernandez: Once I had the frame, I stopped treating the platform like a job board and started using it as a filter, matching my rhythm, company stage, and go-to-market gaps against the kind of problems I actually enjoy diagnosing. When I reached out to startups, I didn't lead with a pitch about myself. I led with an observation, something like, "Here is roughly where I think you are, and here is a hypothesis on your go-to-market gaps." That's a much faster way to find out whether there's a real fit for both sides.
What was it about the company that made it feel like the right fit for you to bring value?
Ayelen Fernandez: HeyLina is the placement I've taken on through this pathway so far. They're an AI tool built around psychology and self-awareness, helping people recognise their own patterns before they repeat them, which I found fascinating.
What made me say yes wasn't just the solution. It was a very specific behaviour I saw early on: how fast they turned feedback into a changed decision, and how willing they were to kill an idea they'd been attached to once the evidence pointed elsewhere. That's a real signal for me. The willingness to be wrong is genuinely useful when you're an early-stage startup.
What did you prioritise in the first month to shape the direction, and what trade-offs did you help the team make early on?
Ayelen Fernandez: In the first 30 days, we started with listening, the obvious one. Real conversations with the team and with customers, not just the dashboard, because that alone never fully explains why something isn't working.
That surfaced a gap. The ICP, the ideal customer profile, wasn't as settled as the deck suggested, and product-market fit was more assumed than confirmed. So instead of selling against the profile on paper, we started testing with the customers the conversations actually pointed to, and very carefully, because something you want to avoid is bleeding money at an early stage. Momentum is everything then. Finding the real space without overspending to get there was priority number one in the first 30 days.
What is a conclusion you helped a company reach?
Ayelen Fernandez: Without naming a specific company, there's a pattern I've seen more than once. The team believes they have a channel problem, not enough people coming in, not enough converting fast enough. But when you look closer, the real issue is how quickly a customer can perceive the value of the product once they're in it.
So instead of putting more effort into channels and iterating there, we shift focus to compressing time to value. Teams often fix the visible symptom instead of the actual bottleneck. Spotting that difference is a lot of where the value sits.
How was your experience with the mentorship aspect of the programme?
Ayelen Fernandez: I had an excellent experience with my mentor. She helped me put more frame on everything we'd been building, and she has more experience in that specific area, so our fields were very aligned. That was super interesting and I learned a lot from her. She guided me through the process, and I could reach out to her at different moments along the way. It was a very positive experience.
What advice would you give to a fractional leader venturing down this path?
Ayelen Fernandez: Build your own filter for what a good collaboration looks like for you, and hold to it. Mine comes down to three things: the company stage, which is very important to me, the mission, and the team values. That last one is tricky, because it's the one you can only really read on a call or in conversation, not from a deck.
If it's not a mutual fit, don't force it. That's wasted energy on both sides. When there is a real fit, be extra intentional and go the extra mile, because that's what turns a placement into an actual relationship. Your own filter, and sticking with it, really matters.
What should one keep in mind while trying to land their first fractional role through Connectd?
Ayelen Fernandez: Get specific before you get visible. Don't pitch a title like, "I'm a fractional go-to-market leader." Pitch two or three probable outcomes with a real number attached before you start calling yourself anything. Specificity is what lets a startup evaluate you in five minutes instead of guessing.
The Connectd programme turned my interest in fractional work into a repeatable practice for delivering value.
Ayelen Fernandez, Chief Revenue Officer & Fractional Go-to-Market Advisor
