"The founder is 100% operational, spending 10 hours a day looking after their existing client base — it's very hard to lift your head out and see the wood for the trees. As an outsider, it's often easier to see the real problem they're solving and articulate it clearly. That's where I can add real value."
What was happening professionally when you decided to start your T2P journey — what were you trying to change or unlock?
Grant Keller, Board Advisor, Qmunity.xyz & Snippit Media: I spent about 15 years in what was a very entrepreneurial environment — building something out of nothing, starting a business, scaling a business. Then I spent the second half of my career in a very corporate environment. Both were interesting in their own ways, but on reflection, I very much enjoyed the entrepreneurial world more. It's what got me excited — being able to build something without the confines, the bureaucracy, and the long timelines to get approvals that come with a corporate environment.
After a 30-year career, I did want a little more flexibility to focus on other things in my life. Advisory felt like a really natural option. It allowed me to step out of the day-to-day while still doing meaningful work, and to focus on other projects and interest areas. Working with Connectd has really helped me bring that to life and manifest it.
If you're building something of your own, you're 100% focused on it most days of the week — and it is one thing. But advisory work, working with three or four different companies in a similar area, brings a bit of variety, which is also really nice. You go a little broader across each venture. You don't have to go as deep, but you contribute value where you can across a couple of opportunities.
How did you go from completing T2P to landing two paid roles — what did the path look like in practice?
Grant Keller: It was a journey. I've probably been doing it for 18 months now, and the pro bono placements were very useful for me. I did two of them shortly after my training. There's a lot of muscle memory that you build after 30 years as an executive — whether in a scale-up or a corporate environment — and I think there's a lot of muscle memory you need to unpick. You're very used to making decisions, seeing them executed, and making sure they're happening the way you want them to. Advisory is very different. The realisation hits that it's somebody else's business. You're there to advise, to help them avoid the pitfalls and all the traps that you've probably fallen into yourself before.
It's a very different role, and the pro bono placements were great for that. They helped you unpick that muscle memory and bring new value — less operational, more strategic. At the end of the day, it's advice that you're providing.
Going through that process was a bit of a transition for me. I spent a lot of time on the Connectd portal, and what really worked was looking for opportunities that I found genuinely interesting — businesses where I felt I could really add value. I understood the market, the clients, the competition, the challenges they'd face, and the mistakes they could potentially make. That for me was the key: going deep on a handful of opportunities rather than going broad and generic across many.
My first outreach was typically through the portal — a very top-line note on my interest in the business, why I thought I could add value, and an advisor résumé. From there, I'd look to set up a face-to-face meeting. For those meetings, the key is to be thorough, be researched, and take it very seriously. That strategy — going deep on a few opportunities — is what really worked. Within the Connectd network, I've converted two opportunities to paid engagements, which I'm currently working on, and I have another one in the pipeline that I'm in conversations with the founder about.
How did you figure out your value proposition and turn that into paid engagements?
Grant Keller: This is something that came out clearly in the Connectd training, and it was really helpful in terms of understanding the value you bring and how to articulate it. Everyone who goes through the T2P programme has probably been an executive for many years and has very broad experience — they could talk about many different things. But I think you really do need to go quite deep and focus on the things that genuinely interest you and the specific vertical where you can add the most value.
For me, it was really about growth — go-to-market strategy, understanding how to position and message in the marketplace, and how to take that message to market through the right channels. That became my USP, and it seems to have worked well. Going very deep in a specific vertical is what made the difference.
I think it's less a case of standing out and more a case of fit — finding the right opportunities where the USP you bring is a match, and where you understand the markets, the challenges, and the clients they're going to be going after. That's really what makes the difference.
What's a concrete outcome you've helped deliver so far to the startups you've worked with?
Grant Keller: I'm working with one of my Connectd clients who has been going for about a year and doing very well — they've hit a point where they've run into some good problems. They're looking for funding because they have a lot of growth opportunities and are trying to figure out where the working capital can come from. What I've been working with them on is building a very clear investor narrative.
As an outsider, it's often easier to understand the real problem they're solving in the marketplace, to clearly see the solution they're bringing to that problem, and to articulate it in a compelling way. As an insider — working day-to-day, spending 10 hours of your day being absolutely operational and looking after your existing client base — it's very hard to lift your head out and see the wood for the trees. So I've been able to help them build a very clear investor narrative. The ultimate output will be the funding they secure from that, and the growth it brings.
My longest-standing client example is in the area I typically focus on: building go-to-market strategy and helping them develop a very practical, executable go-to-market plan.
What's the first thing you'd say to someone trying to land their first paid fractional role?
Grant Keller: It comes back to that earlier point, and it's something the Connectd training brings up clearly and was really valuable for me: finding your value and being able to articulate it clearly. It's very tempting to go out and say, "I can do these 12 things" or "these 20 things." But to really convert opportunity and bring genuine value, you need to think about the two or three areas you can go really deep on, and the one or two markets you are truly comfortable in and understand well. Being able to say that crisply — that's what you need to focus on upfront.
The Connectd platform and portal I've always found very useful. There are a lot of opportunities there, and the trick for me has always been to sift through them carefully and find the ones where I think I can add a lot of value — to really understand the market the founder is working in and the specific challenge they're grappling with. The strategy that's worked for me has always been to research thoroughly and be thoughtful about a handful of opportunities, rather than going after a lot of generic ones where I might or might not be able to bring real value.
Grant Keller, Board Advisor, Qmunity.xyz & Snippit Media
