The Chaos of Scaling
How startups lose control of their processes
Startups are exhilarating, driven by urgency and creativity, and powered by a tight-knit group of builders. But the same qualities that fuel early success often make it challenging to scale effectively. Founders and early team members, biased toward action, commonly see formal processes as speed bumps rather than safeguards. They prefer minimal structure, believing that their agility and the constant feedback loop of quick, informal conversations will always keep them aligned. However, as a company grows, these approaches create gaps that can spiral into chaos.
Early Growth: The Allure of Minimal Process
Scrappy, But Fragile Communication
In early-stage startups, everyone’s in the same room—literally or figuratively. Conversations are spontaneous, with team members exchanging ideas over coffee, quick calls, or even shared Slack channels. While these interactions provide instant alignment, they are also ephemeral, relying heavily on memory and verbal agreements.
Reluctance Toward Structure
Founders and core teams often resist introducing more structure, reasoning that they’re “too early for that,” or “too small to need it.” Process is seen as something that bogs down big companies, not nimble startups. Yet, this lack of formal structure is already sowing seeds for future chokepoints.
The Turning Point: Growth Demands More
As the team scales, communication starts to fray. With more people involved, different time zones, and remote work, those informal touchpoints become infrequent or outright impossible. This change creates a need for clear, asynchronous documentation and communication, which few startups invest in early (or at all).
When team members can no longer rely on “hallway” talks or spontaneous Slack chats, they miss out on the subtle, ongoing adjustments that kept them aligned. This is especially challenging in distributed teams, where proximity is replaced by process. Without these touchpoints, assumptions multiply, and everyone’s understanding of the “current plan” begins to diverge.
Meeting Overload and Communication Debt
The Meeting Trap
To compensate, many startups fall into a common pattern: they start holding more meetings. Meetings feel like a quick fix, a way to convey real-time context. However, without efficient processes in place, these meetings soon multiply—repeating information, trying to align everyone through direct explanation, and building a pattern of dependency on synchronous conversation.
Communication Debt
With each repeated meeting, the startup accrues what we might call “communication debt”—the unseen toll of over-reliance on verbal explanations that need frequent reiteration. People remember less of what they’re told than what they experience, so team members may need to hear the same message seven times before it sticks. For startups scaling fast, the hours spent in meetings start to become a drain on productivity and a barrier to innovation.
The Solution: Early Investments in Asynchronous Processes
The resistance to structure can be mitigated with well-chosen, lightweight processes. The goal isn’t rigid hierarchy but clarity. Documenting workflows, meeting notes, and even the reasoning behind decisions can create a “source of truth” that aligns people without requiring constant, direct conversations.
Effective asynchronous strategies allow people to absorb information on their own time and refer back when needed. This might include project management software, shared documentation, or even video updates that anyone can watch later. Empowering teams with the tools and training to use these resources reduces the dependency on meetings.
Forge’s Role in Preventing the Chaos
Creating Scalable Processes from Day One
With Forge, we’ve created a platform that’s ready to support growing teams by fostering clear, asynchronous workflows. By aligning both human and digital contributors around a centralized system, Forge is your buffer against chaos.
Supporting Consistency and Clarity
Forge makes it easy to document processes, decisions, and key information in one place, ensuring that even as teams scale, they retain a cohesive understanding of their shared goals. The platform also encourages task prioritization, so startup teams can focus on impactful work instead of firefighting.
If you’d rather work more async in 2025, join our early access list.