Samantha Golay-Smith Built WorkFractional to Get Founders Exit-Ready

Most founder-led businesses share a quiet problem: the founder is the bottleneck. The revenue is there, but the operation cannot scale past her calendar, the team waits on her to decide, and an exit feels impossible when the business is essentially her. Samantha Golay-Smith built her company to close that gap.

Samantha Golay-Smith is the founder of WorkFractional, where she works as a fractional Head of Operations for founder-led businesses and advises on sell-side M&A for companies doing more than $1 million in revenue. She came up through executive recruiting at Netflix and Google, then ran operations as Head of Operations at Wombi. A member of the Entreprenista League, Sam is building the practice she wished existed, one that meets founders across the whole build, scale, and sell arc.

From FAANG recruiting to the engine room

Sam spent years in executive recruiting at Netflix and Google before moving into operations. At Wombi, as Head of Operations, she was captivated by the work of building scrappily and creating operations that could run without heroics. The results were concrete. She built the sales SOPs that boosted their close rate by 20%, and launched a B2B2C channel that grew to roughly 80% of revenue.

Why she left to build a business

Two things pulled Sam out on her own. She loves the actual work of starting something, scaling it, and handing a founder an operating system that runs. And she wanted to learn the exit side of the lifecycle, the part most operators never touch.

The final push was burnout. After 3 years hyper-scaling a startup, she watched the pace exist to satisfy investors in a boardroom rather than the team doing the work. “I knew I’d work just as hard on my own,” she says. “I just wanted that work to go to the people building the thing.”

The exit edge

WorkFractional is built around a simple insight: The work that makes a business run without its founder is the same work that makes it worth more to a buyer. Documented systems, a team that does not depend on the founder, and clean operations all raise the multiple.

When a founder is ready to sell, Sam advises on sell-side M&A, so there is a clear path to the next step instead of a cold start.

Launching through relationships

Sam wanted her business to grow on referrals. She did some cold LinkedIn outreach and texted her most brilliant founder friends first, who were thrilled for her and far too busy to dig in. One introduction became her first fractional client, and the rest came from networking and building her own go-to-market. She landed her first two clients in less than 30 days.

The flywheel ahead

Sam’s vision is a flywheel. Fractional work serves more women-owned businesses. tThose businesses build and scale past $1 million in EBITDA, and they become strong M&A sellers when the founder is ready.

Six months in, she is clear on what has mattered most: “Community will actually change your entire experience of entrepreneurship,” she says. “Find it. Treasure it.”

You can connect with Sam on LinkedIn and learn about fractional operations and exit-readiness at WorkFractional

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If Sam's belief that a business should be able to run, and sell, without its founder resonates, the Entreprenista League is a community of women founders who value connection, shared experience, and practical business insight as they grow. Learn more about the Entreprenista League right here.