You Don't Have to Bring People Along: A Framework for Startup Decision-Making

Can we please kill the meeting before the meeting?

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The graveyard of failed startups is filled with companies that had plenty of cash, brilliant people, and solid products. What killed them? Long before they ran out of money— they ran out of urgency.

While they were busy holding inclusive town halls and seeking decision-by-consensus, their competitors were shipping. While they crafted the perfect decision-making process, their market window closed. And while they prided themselves on how "collaborative" their culture was, their burn rate remained decidedly uncollaborative.

Let me be brutally clear: even if your company has tens of millions of dollars in the bank, you still need to operate as if you're in survival mode. Because guess what? You are.

The market doesn't give a damn about your bank balance. Your competitors don't. Your customers definitely don't. The second you stop moving with urgency—the moment you forget that every decision matters—you've already started circling the drain.

I've watched too many cash-rich startups strut toward their own funerals, burning through ridiculous amounts of money while patting themselves on the back about their "inclusive decision-making processes." By the time they smell the smoke, the house is already on fire.

The Four Levels of Organizational Decision-Making

John Boyd—the military strategist behind the OODA loop—said it best: "To win, we need to operate at a faster tempo than our adversaries." What works in dogfights works in startups, too. To keep that tempo up, you need to get clear on the four levels where your org makes decisions:

1. Political: The big stuff—values, culture, why you exist

2. Strategic: Where you're headed—market position, competitive edge, long-term bets

3. Operational: How you'll get there—resources, processes, team structure

4. Tactical: The daily grind—execution details and implementation

Each level runs on its own clock and needs different inputs. Get this hierarchy straight, and you're halfway to making decisions that don't suck.

The Consensus Trap: Why Bringing Everyone Along Can Kill You

Here's the fairy tale most startups tell themselves: for big decisions, you need to bring everyone along. Build consensus. Make sure everyone feels heard and valued.

That’s wrong. And it will kill your company.

The problem isn't just that consensus-building moves at a glacial pace (though it absolutely does). The real issue is that it fundamentally misses what a startup actually is: a mad scramble to find a viable business model while the clock is ticking and resources are bleeding out. In this pressure cooker, waiting until everyone's comfortable means watching opportunities vanish in your rearview mirror.

Bezos nailed it in his 2016 letter to shareholders:

"Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you're probably being slow."

And slow is dead, even with a fat bank account.

The Right Level, Right Person, Right Speed Framework

Forget consensus. Here's what startups actually need:

1. Determine the Right Level

Not all decisions deserve equal treatment. First, figure out if what you're deciding is political, strategic, operational, or tactical. This isn't about how important something is—it's about scope and time horizon.

• Political decisions (values, mission): Top-level stuff, with some broad input

• Strategic decisions (market entry, product direction): Leadership's job

• Operational decisions (processes, resources): Give these to your team leads

• Tactical decisions (day-to-day execution): Push these as far down the org chart as possible

Always remember: The person closest to the problem usually has the best solution.

2. Identify the Right Person

Once you know the level, name a DRI (Directly Responsible Individual). Apple uses this approach because it works. We also used it at GitLab. Your DRI isn't always the person with the fanciest title—it's the person with:

• The right context (they're in the thick of it)

• The actual know-how (not just seniority)

• Skin in the game (they'll own the consequences)

This kills the soul-crushing committee debates and the even worse "wait, I thought YOU were doing that" scenarios that plague startups.

It also helps prevent the HiPPO problem—where the Highest Paid Person's Opinion automatically wins. We've all been there: you're in a meeting, everyone seems aligned on a direction, and then some executive who hasn't been involved in the details swoops in with "Well, I think we should do X instead," and suddenly everyone falls in line.

That's not decision-making. That's corporate theater. And it's poison for startups.

When the HiPPO always wins "because I said so"¹ rather than because they're genuinely the right person to make the call, you create a culture where data doesn't matter, context doesn't matter, and expertise doesn't matter. All that matters is org chart position. The result? People stop thinking critically, stop taking ownership, and your startup's decision velocity crashes.

True DRIs aren't assigned based on salary bands or job titles. They're identified based on who has the best view of the problem and will feel the impact of the decision most directly.

3. Move at the Right Speed

Some decisions need different speeds:

• One-way door decisions (can't easily undo, massive impact): Take a beat to think

• Two-way door decisions (reversible, smaller impact): Move your ass

As Bezos put it:

"Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors. If you've made a suboptimal [two-way door] decision, you don't have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through."

Here's a secret: about 95% of startup decisions are two-way doors. You can walk through, see if you like what's on the other side, and if not, turn around and try a different door. But founders get paralyzed treating every decision like it's a one-way door—as if every choice is permanent and existential.

Launching a feature that might flop? Two-way door. Trying a new pricing strategy? Two-way door. Experimenting with a marketing channel? Two-way door.

Pivoting your entire company vision or spending half your runway on an acquisition? One-way door. Those deserve more thought.

Learn to distinguish between the two, and you'll find yourself unstuck and moving forward rapidly on the vast majority of decisions you face.

Implementation: Making This Actually Work

Here's how to make this happen in real life:

1. Build a simple decision matrix: Map out which decisions belong where. Make it dead obvious.
   Atlassian developed the DACI framework (Driver, Approver, Contributors, Informed) to clarify decision-making roles. According to their Team Playbook: "The DACI framework helps teams make group decisions efficiently by assigning clear roles: Driver, Approver, Contributors, and Informed." This framework explicitly maps which decisions belong at which levels and who needs to be involved. We also used this at Netlify when I was there.

2. Give DRIs actual power: Nothing worse than responsibility without authority. Don't do that to people.

   GitLab's company handbook explicitly defines their DRI practice: "A directly responsible individual (DRI) is the single person responsible for delivering a particular result or action." The handbook further explains that DRIs aren't just responsible—they're empowered to make final calls within their domain.

3. Create clear escalation paths: When someone needs to kick a decision upstairs, make it easy and stigma-free.

   Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke describes their decision-making framework as having clear "escalation paths" where decisions reach the right level without stigma. On The Knowledge Project podcast, he explained how they've formalized when and how decisions should move up the chain, making it a normal part of operations rather than a failure.

4. Announce decisions, don't re-litigate them: Once the right person at the right level makes the call, it's done. Communicate it clearly and move on.

   Amazon's famous "disagree and commit" philosophy comes directly from Jeff Bezos' 2016 Letter to Shareholders: "This phrase will save a lot of time. If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there's no consensus, it's helpful to say, 'Look, I know we disagree on this, but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?' By the time you're at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you'll probably get a quick yes."

5. Focus on results, not who got a say: Judge decisions by outcomes, not by how many people were in the meeting.

   Netflix's culture deck explicitly states their philosophy: "We believe that people thrive on being trusted, on freedom, and on being able to make a difference. So we cultivate our culture by trying to attract self-motivating, self-aware people, and then giving them freedom." They judge the decision quality by results, not by consensus.

6. Create decision logs, not just decision rights: Track not just who can decide what, but what was decided and why.

   Basecamp's "Shape Up" methodology includes keeping decision records: "Instead of asking how much time it will take to do some work, we ask: How much time do we want to spend? How much is this idea worth?" They maintain clear documentation of these decisions to prevent revisiting settled issues. At Settle, where I’m a Group Product Manager, I’ve seen our engineering teams do this on a small scale by tracking a decision log on technical specs related to the project we’re working on.

The Balance: Moving Fast Without Breaking Everything

This approach might sound brutal if you've been swimming in consensus culture. But here's the distinction that matters: You don't need to bring everyone along on decisions, but you absolutely must bring them along on vision.

When your team understands the big picture—why you exist and where you're headed—they can stomach not being consulted on every decision because they trust it's serving a mission they believe in.

As a founder or leader, do these four things:

• Make the mission crystal clear

• Draw the boundaries for decision-making

• Trust people to make calls within those boundaries

• Then get the hell out of their way

Survival Isn't Optional

The harsh reality is that startups fail. Most of them. Even the ones with tens of millions in the bank. The ones that survive aren't necessarily the best-funded or even the ones with the best ideas—they're the ones that make good decisions quickly enough to adapt and evolve.

You don't need consensus for every decision. You need a framework that pushes decisions to the right level, identifies the right decision-maker, and moves at the right speed.

Because survival isn't optional. And in the startup world, the fast eat the slow—no matter how much money the slow have in the bank.

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The Extra Point

Inspired by Mel, The Extra Point is a segment where I highlight a brand or product I’ve tried recently with an honest review. We’ll try it and see if it sticks…

Tried these high-protein chocolate bar alternatives over the weekend. The first few bites were weird, but by the end of my part of the bar (we shared it), it had grown on me. I don’t really enjoy chocolate, but I do love the occasional piece of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate on s’mores. I could see this easily subbing in its place.

1. Just in case my kids read this someday: our house is not a startup—it's a dictatorship, and "because I said so" is a good enough reason.