The first 90 days: Bringing order to startup chaos

Fast Company

6 days ago

Over more than a decade of working at early-stage startups and high-growth tech companies, I've seen how the same forces that drive early success can eventually get in the way of scaling. In the early days of a startup, speed is everything. Teams are small and nimble, decision-making is fluid, and early breakthroughs come from people who can move quickly and solve problems on the fly. At this stage, I've seen really small teams accomplish the impossible. When I first joined Uber in LatAm, I was part of a team of four that managed end-to-end operations in Peru, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in annualized bookings.
In a startup's early days, the focus is often singular: growth and speed. Everyone focuses on capturing new users, building product-market fit, and scaling operations. But as companies mature, what worked during the zero-to-one phase starts to break down. Informal, ad hoc processes become bottlenecks. Growing headcount makes alignment harder. Eventually, leaders face a critical challenge: how do you introduce enough structure to support scale without sacrificing the speed and scrappiness that got you there?
Through multiple scaling transitions, I've learned that building structured operating models isn't about creating process for process's sake. As priorities shift from pure growth to a more balanced focus on growth, profitability and customer experience, teams need a shared framework that helps everyone understand where the company is headed and how their work contributes to that goal.
The first and most critical step is aligning on the company's overarching objectives. This may sound obvious, but it's surprisingly common for early-stage companies to operate without clearly defined priorities. Growth typically dominates at first, but as companies scale, priorities become more complex and start competing.
If these shifting priorities aren't clearly communicated, teams may continue operating under old assumptions. Some may still optimize for growth at all costs, while others focus on cost-cutting or operational improvements. I saw this firsthand at Kyte. When we transitioned from a growth mindset to a profitability one, some early employees struggled to grasp the importance of building structure and efficiency after years of focusing on top-line growth.
That's why, especially in the first 90 days as a new leader, it's essential to drive conversations to clarify the company's current focus. What are we optimizing for right now? How do we balance revenue growth, profitability, and customer satisfaction? What trade-offs are we willing to make? What investments are worth making today for long-term payoff?
Once defined, these objectives become a north star that allows teams to prioritize accordingly. They also serve as anchor points for decision-making when trade-offs arise. Just as important, these objectives must be cascaded throughout the company. Every person should understand how their work contributes to achieving these goals.
BUILD GOVERNANCE TO REDUCE COORDINATION OVERHEAD
Once objectives are established, the next challenge is managing company-wide orchestration as headcount grows. Early on, coordination happens organically: people sit together, hop on quick calls, or resolve issues through Slack. But as teams grow past 30, 50, or 100 people, informal coordination becomes unsustainable. Interdependencies and cross-functional conversations multiply, and teams spend more time just trying to stay aligned.
This is where governance comes in. Not as bureaucracy, but as a system that keeps people focused on the right conversations at the right time. Good governance creates structured spaces where teams can surface issues, unblock each other, track progress, and stay aligned. Without it, unstructured meetings proliferate, decisions stall, and execution suffers.
In my experience, effective governance tends to include the following meetings:
Weekly Business Reviews (WBRs): Weekly meeting to assess performance against key metrics, keeping everyone focused on top priorities.
Monthly OKR Reviews: A meeting to track quarterly objectives, recalibrate priorities, and adjust resources as needed.
Functional Syncs: Department-level or cross-functional meetings for tactical coordination on critical initiatives.
Leadership Check-Ins: Regular executive meetings to stay aligned on key decisions and trade-offs.
The goal is to replace reactive coordination with proactive alignment. Done well, governance creates fewer but more effective meetings that help teams move faster, not slower.
RUTHLESSLY PRIORITIZE STRATEGIC INITIATIVES
Even with clear objectives and governance in place, one of the biggest risks in high-growth companies is trying to do too much. In early-stage companies with limited resources, it's easy to launch many initiatives at once. Individually, each may seem worthwhile, but collectively they dilute focus and slow execution.
Once core objectives are defined, leaders should ruthlessly prioritize the top initiatives that will drive the biggest impact. This often means deliberately delaying or deprioritizing worthwhile projects that don't directly support the company's most important goals. That may sound simple, but in practice it requires constant discipline. In the words of Jony Ive, Apple's former Chief Design Officer, 'What focus means is saying 'no' to something that you, with every bone in your body, think is a phenomenal idea […] but you say no to it because you're focusing on something else.'
I've seen these tough choices play out firsthand. At Uber, it meant eventually slowing expansion, leaving markets, and deprioritizing bold bets to focus on profitability. At Kyte, it meant shelving certain product features and narrowing our customer focus to maximize ROI. These were difficult decisions, but freeing up capacity to focus on what mattered most allowed us to stay nimble and set up the business for long-term success.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
High-growth startups are often built on speed and scrappiness, but sustainable growth requires structure. As companies mature, the absence of clear objectives, governance, and prioritization can quickly turn fast-moving companies into unfocused and inefficient ones.
In my experience, new leaders who take the time in their first 90 days to (i) align on company objectives, (ii) build governance to reduce coordination friction, and (iii) ruthlessly prioritize initiatives are better positioned to help their teams scale efficiently without sacrificing agility.
The result isn't bureaucracy, it's clarity and alignment. And that's what allows teams to execute efficiently, even as the business becomes more complex.