When a company begins to grow, leaders often scramble to put processes in place. On the surface, this looks like progress. After all, systems mean structure… right? But, here’s the catch: a half-built process can be worse than no process at all. The Illusion of Structure At first...
When you’re in growth mode, every opportunity can look like the right one. A new client wants in. A partnership sounds promising. A shiny new market or product line is just waiting to be explored. It’s easy to equate scaling with saying “yes” as often as...
When companies hit growth mode, the instinct is often to layer on more… More tools More approvals More processes More dashboards It feels like the “responsible” (and reasonable) thing to do. After all, complexity looks like structure. Not so fast. In reality, complexity slows you down. It eats away at...
One of the biggest fears CEOs face when scaling is this: Will we lose the very thing that made us successful in the first place? In the early days, your edge is clear. It comes from: Speed—decisions are made in hours, not weeks Culture—small, tight-knit teams where alignment...
When your company is young, you’re obsessed with survival. Every KPI you track is designed to answer one question: Can we keep going? That’s why early-stage metrics often focus on: Initial Sales—Are people actually buying? Runway—How many months of cash do we have left? Product Adoption—Are users engaging with...
Instinct is powerful. It’s what sparks the first product idea, helps you spot an opportunity no one else sees, and pushes you to take the leap when logic says “play it safe.” In the early days of a business, gut feel is often enough. You’re close...
It’s a common reaction when growth starts to stretch a business thin: “We’re overwhelmed—let’s hire more people.” The team is slammed. Deadlines are slipping. The to-do list feels endless. On the surface, increasing headcount seems like the obvious solution. But, here’s the hard truth: Throwing people...
There’s no denying it… Top-line revenue growth looks great on a slide deck. It’s the headline you share in company all-hands, the number that turns investor heads, and the story that makes its way into press releases. And for good reason—revenue is exciting. It signals traction,...
Open your calendar—go ahead, really look at it. What you see there is more revealing than any KPI dashboard or culture survey. It shows, in black-and-white blocks, exactly where your company’s growth is getting bottlenecked. Let’s take the calendar test: How many hours are filled with tactical status...
In the early stages of building a business, speed matters more than structure. You figure things out as you go. You patch together systems, improvise workflows, and create quick solutions because you need momentum. And it works. But then… At some point, every company hits a...