How to Build Systems Before They're Broken

At around 20 people, something breaks.

You can't move as fast. Decision-making gets slower. People step on each other. Information doesn't flow. You have 5 meetings about why someone should have been in the first meeting.

Most founders see this as a problem with people. "I need to hire stronger people. The team isn't scaling with the company."

The real problem is usually systems.

When you have 5 people, everything lives in Slack and the founder's head. Someone gets stuck? Ask the founder. Where do we stand on the partnership with that vendor? The founder knows. What's the hiring plan for the next quarter? The founder decided it this morning.

This works until it doesn't. At 5 people, you can scale people. At 20 people, you can't. The founder's head becomes the bottleneck.

The Difference Between Process and Bureaucracy

Before I go further, a clarification: I'm not talking about bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy is process that creates friction. "Request a form, get it approved by committee, wait 3 weeks." Bureaucracy kills startups.

Systems are process that creates clarity. "Here's how we do hiring. Here's our product roadmap process. Here's how we decide on major contracts." Systems should reduce friction, not add it.

Most founders conflate the two and end up in one of two states:

State 1: No systems. Everything is ad-hoc. Fast, but chaotic. People are frustrated because they don't know what's happening.

State 2: Too many systems. Everything is documented and approved. Slow, but predictable. People are frustrated because nothing gets done.

The right place is State 1.5: Systems for what matters, chaos for what doesn't.

What Matters?

Start with these:

1. Hiring: How do we recruit, screen, interview, and onboard? Write it down. Train people to do it. This scales you.

2. Decision-making: For big decisions, how do we decide? Who needs to be in the room? What timeline? Document it.

3. Money: How are we spending? Who can spend? What needs approval? Budget quarterly. Re-forecast monthly.

4. Communication: When do we sync? Whole company? By team? When do we communicate decisions? How do we share information?

5. Product: What's the roadmap? How do we take customer feedback? How do we decide what to build? Most product chaos comes from not having a clear answer here.

You don't need to document "how we hold meetings" or "how we do Slack." That's bureaucracy.

You do need to document "here's how we decide what to build" or "here's who approves new hires."

The Implementation

This is the part most founders get wrong. They try to build perfect systems upfront.

"Let me document our entire hiring process before we hire again."

That's good instinct but wrong timing. Document as you go.

Here's how to do it:

1. Notice when something breaks. You interview 30 people and nobody gets through your process cleanly. That's a signal.

2. Look at what happened. What were the steps? What was unclear? What took too long?

3. Write it down, simply. Not a 50-page manual. A page. "Here's how we hire: [5 steps]. Here's who decides. Here's the timeline."

4. Try it with the next hire. Does it work? If yes, keep it. If no, adjust.

5. Share it. New people follow it. Ask them: Does this make sense? What's unclear?

Over time, your implicit processes become explicit. You're not building systems. You're documenting what you're already doing.

The Leverage

Why does this matter?

Because once something is documented, it doesn't need the founder. Your VP of Sales can run recruiting. Your CFO can manage spending approval. Your CTO can own the product process.

Without documentation, everything is founder-dependent. Your company can't scale without you.

With documentation, your company scales through processes. You hire someone to run hiring. You hire someone to manage spending. The founder is free to think about strategy, not to sign every contract.

The companies that scale well aren't the ones with the smartest people. They're the ones where smart people run systems that are clear enough for other smart people to follow.

That starts with documentation. Simple, practical, updated as you learn.

It starts early. By 10 people, you should have the basics documented.