Why Your Startup Needs SOPs (Even If It's Just You)
Let’s get the obvious objection out of the way: “We’re too small for SOPs.”
I hear it all the time. And I get it — when there are three of you in a Slack channel making decisions at the speed of caffeine, writing things down feels like overhead. But here’s the thing: SOPs aren’t about bureaucracy. They’re about freedom.
What SOPs Actually Are
Forget the corporate image of three-ring binders collecting dust. A good SOP is just a clear answer to the question: “How do we do this thing?”
It can be a Notion page. A Loom video. A bulleted list in a Google Doc. The format doesn’t matter — the clarity does.
The Real Cost of Not Having Them
Without documented processes, you become the process. Every question routes through you. Every new hire takes twice as long to ramp up. Every time you go on vacation (do you even go on vacation?), things stall.
Here’s what I see when I work with teams who don’t have SOPs:
- The same mistakes happening on repeat
- Key person dependency (one person leaves and institutional knowledge walks out the door)
- Inconsistent quality across the same type of work
- Way too much time spent answering “how do I…?” questions
Start With These Three
You don’t need to document everything tomorrow. Start with:
- Your most repeated process. Whatever you do weekly that involves more than two steps? Write it down.
- Your onboarding flow. Even if it’s rough. Especially if it’s rough.
- Your client/customer handoff. The thing that directly impacts how people experience your work.
The Payoff
Teams with good SOPs don’t move slower — they move faster. Because instead of reinventing the wheel every Monday morning, they’re iterating on a wheel that already works.
And when you eventually hire that next person? They’ll hit the ground running instead of playing a month-long game of “ask everyone how things work around here.”
Need help getting your processes documented? Let’s talk. I promise to make it painless.