If nobody else catches it, it becomes your job by default.
The SOP nobody wrote. The tool nobody owns. The Shopify fix, the Airtable base, the Zapier flow that only makes sense in your head. There's a role built specifically to catch all of that before it reaches you.
Caught before it lands on you.
Trusted by teams across
The gap that keeps showing up as your company grows
The Tool Sprawl
A Shopify store, an Airtable base, some Webflow pages, and three Zapier flows, with no single person who understands how they all connect.
The Bottleneck
Every decision still routes through you, not because your team can't handle it, but because nothing's written down anywhere else.
The Contractor Pile-Up
Four different freelancers, four different Slack threads, and nobody coordinating between them but you.
It's called a Second.
A Second is not an assistant and not a co-founder. The term comes from Nathan Young and David Hartman's How to Be Second: a person wired to bridge people, process, and systems, and to activate someone else's vision as fully as if it were their own. They build the systems, run the workflows, and hold the operational floor so the founder can stay in their zone of genius.
Kyren studied Psychology at the University of San Carlos, graduating Cum Laude, and is now completing a Masters in Social Psychology. That background shows up everywhere in the work: she reads teams, spots where things break down between people, and designs systems that people actually follow.
More on the concept in the “What is a Second?” series on the blog.
Kyren Mearr Cabellon
Fractional Second · Generalist Operations Partner
🏆 ClickUp Champion · ZenPilot Certified
🧠 MA Social Psychology (in progress) · University of San Carlos
🌏 Cebu, Philippines · Serving globally
💼 SaaS · Agencies · BPO · E-commerce · Marketplaces
Generalist by design. Admin by accident, never by role.
Give me a Shopify storefront, an Airtable base, a Webflow page, a Zapier flow, or a ClickUp workspace, and I'll figure out how it should work and go build it. That range is the point: I like being useful across dev-adjacent configuration, operations, and project management, not fenced into one lane. What doesn't work is when “generalist” quietly turns into “whoever answers the email and books the meetings.” I'll flex to almost anything except becoming someone's permanent admin.
- You lead. I execute quietly, without needing the spotlight.
- Systems built to outlast any single person, including me.
- Generalist means dev-adjacent config, ops, and PM in the same week, not just whichever task is smallest.
- I'm especially glad when the founder on the other end is a woman building something of her own, though the work itself is open to anyone who needs a real Second.
This is the kind of work I say yes to.
Found on Upwork · Applied · Hired
“We're an early-stage marketplace startup using low-code platforms like Shopify, Airtable, and Webflow. As a small team, we're seeking a web development generalist to help improve our website, manage data, assist in internal workflows, and grow our user base— configuring and maintaining our Shopify store, building pages in Webflow, managing Airtable data, setting up Zapier integrations, and configuring AI agents for automation. Good fit for someone in Project or Product Management with basic IT skills, or a developer who doesn't mind operational tasks and configuring solutions rather than engineering them.”
That's the actual listing, lightly trimmed. I applied, got hired, and I'm still doing that work today: Shopify configuration one week, Airtable data cleanup the next, a Zapier flow or an AI agent automation after that. That range, not a job title, is what the role actually required, and it's the shape of most of my work.
Before “Second as a Service,” the titles were COO, Product Manager, Scrum Master.
From HR generalist to Scrum Master to COO to fractional Second, the through-line has always been the same: take the chaos, build the system, make it stick. ClickUp Champion certified. Five years in Agile environments. Former COO. Very high tolerance for organised chaos.
Every decision backed by data, delivered with a human touch, whether the fix is a broken checkout flow or a stalled product roadmap.
Oct 2024 - Present
Embedded operations partner for founders, building ClickUp systems, SOPs, and project delivery.
Feb 2026 - Present
Product requirements for a SaaS platform serving commercial real estate lenders.
2023 - 2024
Second-in-command to the CEO, owning the strategic roadmap and operational delivery.
2018 - 2023
Five years across HR, project management, and product delivery.
Problems People Usually Bring Me
These are the ones that show up most, not a fixed list of what I'll do. If your problem doesn't fit neatly into one of these, it's probably still exactly the kind I solve.
Sales & Marketing Support
Lead follow-up, campaigns, content calendars, whatever the process is, it gets documented, automated, executed, and supported so it stops depending on someone's memory.
E-Commerce Operations
Product listings, SEO, and website builds that turn a storefront into something that actually sells and gets found, not just something that exists.
Project & Delivery Management
Ideas turned into shipped work, with the coordination and accountability to get there without chaos or missed handoffs.
Systems & Process Documentation
Workflows and SOPs built around whatever tools you already use, so the knowledge lives in the system, not in one person's head.
Is this a fit?
Five quick questions. No email required, just an honest read before either of us spends time on a call.
Question 1 of 5
How clear is the vision for what needs to happen?
More on this in What Seconds Should Not Do.
Three ways to start
Simple, standardised rates whether you need a few hours or a standing Second.
Hourly
5 hour/week minimum
Scoped work, a defined project, or dipping a toe in before going deeper.
Start with hourlyRetainer
20 hours/month included
An ongoing partnership with guaranteed monthly capacity and priority access.
Start with retainerRetainer+
40 hours/month included
For founders ready to hand off a bigger share of the operation.
Start with the 40-hour retainerWhat people say
“Any team would be successful to have Kyren, a leader, effective communicator, team player. She had a knack for keeping everyone calm and productive during intense crunch periods.”
Ann P.
Technical Recruiter, US / AU / APAC Markets
“It's so rare to find a good team captain nowadays. Technical skills and understanding basic concepts of product development 10/10.”
Rodrigo I.
Lead of Software Engineering, GoTeam
“This is my second time working with Kyren. Very patient while I was settling some technical issues and she had to hold her work. Great communication, she understands my requirements very well. Gives updates and executes her work promptly. Will engage her again when needed.”
Dawn L.
Client
Let's find the thing that's quietly become your job.
Book a free discovery call. We'll talk about where you are, what's slowing you down, and what working together could look like.
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