At our upcoming Founder Forge workshop, I’ll discuss a concept I call organizational breakpoints. I borrow the term from programming, where breakpoints are like stop signs a programmer inserts into code to pause a program from executing at a certain place. Once paused, the programmer can step line by line through code to troubleshoot things like data values and conditional statements. When they’re done, the programmer can either remove the breakpoint and let the program continue executing at its regular speed or stop the execution entirely and make a fix.
Well, organizational breakpoints aren’t that different. They’re milestones in a company’s timeline where it becomes necessary to slow down and inspect a company’s values and needs line by line before stepping back into the full pace of day-to-day business.
The thing about organizational breakpoints, though, is that it’s really difficult for a startup to recognize the time when they’re needed and to realize the value that evaluating a change in slow motion may have at the company for years to come. For example, most companies just starting out should hit a breakpoint when they hire the first couple of employees that aren’t owners. There are a bunch of quick fire decisions about payroll, managing employees, and of course the “oh, shit!” chat about how actually having employees will change the company from being a founder’s party to that of being an employer.
Yet, how many founders explicitly pause to consider how big of an impact good payroll, sound management practices, and worker’s comp insurance will have once they’re 20-30 heads strong? Just like we were, most startups are just thinking about getting through the next couple of months so why put the additional effort in now?
Well, say the company continues to succeed (which hopefully is a part of the grand plan!). Without that extra bit of planning, the team risks growth without proper transparency, buy-in, and organizational controls. That all leads to turnover, poor work, and a gradual departure from a coherent business vision.
If the team is smart about using breakpoints at these critical junctures, it’s more likely to grow as a cohesive unit towards a sound vision. That means when the company grows to a point where it’s inarguably better for the founders to unhinge themselves from day-to-day operations, the trust, experience, and operational infrastructure will already be there.