A process is a decision you don't want to make twice

I used to think processes were for big companies.

Org charts. Manuals nobody reads. Someone whose job is writing down how everyone else does theirs.

Small companies, I thought, had something better. Common sense. And a founder who knows everything.

That second part is the problem.

The founder as a filing cabinet

When a company is two people, every answer lives in someone's head. How much do we charge for this. What's included. Who answers that email. What we do when a client asks for "just a small change".

It works. Until you notice how much of your week goes on deciding things you've already decided.

Not new decisions. Reruns.

And reruns are expensive, because every time you decide again, you might decide differently. Tired at night, generous on a Friday, a bit stricter on a Monday. Same question, three answers. The client doesn't see a company. They see a mood.

A process is just a decision you don't want to make twice. Written down so you can't.

That's the only definition I need. No software, no consultants. A sentence in a document that says: this is how we do it, and we've stopped arguing about it.

The ones we already had

Looking back, Foxnice has had processes for years. We just didn't call them that.

When we set our maintenance rates in 2020, 89 € for a client and 49 € for an agency, we weren't only setting a price. We were removing a conversation. Nobody had to negotiate from scratch every time.

When we decided that the money from services pays for our products, that was a process too. It answers in advance a question that would otherwise come back every month: do we take this project, or do we give the time to the product?

And this January we start the year as an SL. A new company, the same two people. The change made one thing obvious to me: what isn't written down doesn't move with you. Someone has to remember it all over again.

What I'm trying now

I don't want a manual. I wouldn't read it either.

What I want is shorter. The rule: the second time I catch myself deciding something, the decision gets written down. One line. Somewhere Yeray can see it.

If he disagrees, good. Better to argue once, in writing, than to disagree quietly for years.

I suspect the result will be a boring document. That's the point. The exciting part of a company should be what you haven't decided yet. Not what you keep deciding.

There's a freedom argument in here too, as usual. I started Foxnice with 300 € and nobody to answer to. That freedom means very little if I can't step away from my desk because every answer lives in my head.

A process isn't bureaucracy. It's the founder getting out of the way.

I used to think processes were for big companies.

Now I think they're what lets a small one stay small. And free.

P.S. The obvious next step would be a process for writing processes. I've decided not to. Once.