As you know, there’s more than enough challenges that any startup has to deal with. Well, that, and a lot of startups are basically built in a state of low-level winging it, and yeah, that’s part of the charm until it really isn’t. Well, in the early days, everyone’s doing twelve jobs, everything’s urgent, and half the business is running on quick decisions, shared docs, and pure optimism.  You get the point, it’s amazing, but it’s like a nightmare all at the same time. 

But yeah, for the most part here, something gets saved somewhere, somebody says they’ll sort it later, and everybody moves on because there’s…

• A launch to deal with
• A pitch deck to finish
• A customer issue that feels louder in the moment
• A new development in the company

Fair enough. That’s startup life for ya. But of course, there’s compliance.

And no matter how busy or chaotic the whole ‘growth era” is for a startup, well, it doesn’t mean anything because your startup shouldn’t be unorganized in the first place…

It should be well-compliant in the first place, and so that scrappiness is just a bad feeling overall.

Your Records Shouldn’t be Living a Double Life

And what does this even mean, though?

Well, this is actually one of the biggest startup weak spots, and honestly, it’s so common it’s almost embarrassing.

But sure, most people in startups are still new at what they’re doing, so maybe some slack there. Anyway, files are in one platform, messages are in another, contracts are in somebody’s inbox, and key decisions are buried inside a Slack thread from six months ago with a title like “quick thought”.

You get the idea of all this clutter?

While sure, maybe at first here, that setup can look manageable right up until somebody actually needs information fast.

Like, it doesn’t matter the reason here either, because then it turns into a digital scavenger hunt, well, at least not like this. So it’s probably for the best to look into an extra tool (yes, even if you’re on a tight budget) that can help fix this, because no, it doesn’t matter if you’re saving money by searching everything manually, cause at the end of the day, that’s time being wasted, therefore that’s still a resource being wasted. 

So, when under pressure, you might want to look into eDiscovery solutions to make that process far less painful. Because yeah, “it’s probably in there somewhere” isn’t exactly the kind of sentence that inspires confidence when things are already tense.

You Need Policies in Place

But startups aren’t supposed to be boring and corporate, though!

Well, like it or not, you still need to focus on the boring things, things like policies, procedures, and that includes recordkeeping rules too. Everybody hears that and instantly wants to go back to talking about growth hacks and product updates instead.

But of course, those boring things are exactly what stop a small problem from turning into a much bigger one later.

Growth Makes Mess Look Worse

Okay, it’s probably for the best to just keep in mind here that messy startup habits can hide pretty well when there are four people, and everybody remembers everything because they were all in the room when it happened.

Now, with that part said, though, once the team grows, that stops working. 

Then there are more people, more tools, more messages, more customers, more expectations, and more chances for something to get lost, mishandled, or misunderstood.

Therefore, that creates so many weak spots, hence why policies need to be put into place. Once you grow, it’s going to be so hard to catch up.