Why has your startup slowed down? A 5-minute Scaling Checkup
The Scaling Checkup: what's slowing you down, and the move to test first
A free 5-minute checkup for startup leadership teams: which of four scaling problems is slowing you down, and what to try this week. No email.
Your company has grown. More people, more money, more customers. And somehow everything takes longer.
The “quick question” in Slack that isn’t quick. The decision that’s been waiting on you since last Tuesday. The same question answered three different ways to three different people. Everyone’s working hard, and the company still feels slower than it did at twenty people.
Most leadership teams respond by working harder or adding process. That rarely helps, because the slowdown usually comes from one or two specific problems, and the fix depends on which one it is.
The Scaling Checkup helps you find it. In about five minutes, you’ll answer 24 quick questions about how your company has actually worked over the last six weeks. You’ll see which problems are slowing you down, what’s working well, and moves to test this week.
Free, about five minutes, no email needed. Even better: ask your leadership team to take it too, and compare.
What the checkup looks at
Growing companies tend to slow down for one of four reasons. From the inside they look alike: everything feels slow, so everything gets blamed. But each needs a different fix, and fixing the wrong one wastes months. The checkup uses what’s actually been happening to point at the one most worth working on first.
Founder Bottleneck. Decisions queue at the top. You’ve tried delegating, but work keeps coming back for approval or rework, because the context, the authority or a clear strategy didn’t go with it.
Agreement, Not Alignment. Everyone nods in the meeting. Then the same disagreement comes back during the week, because the agreement never survived a real trade-off.
Urgent Takes Over. The priorities are agreed and the OKRs are set. A few weeks later, urgent work has pushed them aside, because nothing was stopped to make room.
The Market Moved. The plan rests on assumptions about customers that were true a year ago. When the numbers disappoint, the instinct is to push the plan harder, which makes things worse if the assumption has changed.
It also checks how much your company relies on last-minute rescues. If that’s high, your result starts there, because heroics hide the real problem.
What you’ll get
Which problems are slowing you down, strongest first, and what’s working well
How much your team has been relying on last-minute rescues
Concrete moves to test this week
Your result straight away, and a link to share the quiz with your team
How it works
Every question asks about something you’ll have seen, like a decision reopened after the meeting or urgent work pushing out a priority. Answer for how things have actually worked, not how they’re meant to.
You’ll see your result straight away.
Even better with your leadership team
Ask each member of your leadership team to take it separately, then compare results. If you each see a different problem, you’ve found the conversation you need to have.
Who it’s for
Founders, CEOs and leadership teams in growing companies, especially Series A to C, once you’ve found product-market fit.
Why I made this
When I walk into a scaling company that’s slowed down, the first thing I notice is what’s under the surface: blame, stress and frustration. Then I see where it comes from. Leaders nod in the meeting and don’t really buy in. The strategy is unclear, or it changes depending on who you ask. And decisions wait, because nobody’s sure who can make them. This checkup gives you a head start on finding which of these is slowing you down.
Free 5-minute quiz
The Scaling Checkup
24 quick questions about how your company has worked over the last six weeks. Answer for how things have actually worked, not how the org chart says they should.
It takes about five minutes, and you'll see your result straight away. It shows where the drag is, what's working well, and small steps to try with your team.
Want a closer look?
The checkup shows you where to look. The Strategy and Execution Diagnostic is the same question asked properly: I talk to your leaders one by one, find where decisions and work get stuck, and tell you what I found, in plain words.
Created by
Richard Russell
Coach for founders and leadership teams