With the start of Q3 upon us, it’s a great time to review the end of the quarter process. In the pre product/market fit days, there isn’t much process to follow but as the startup grows and scales, it’s important to scale the processes as well. Here are a few ideas to consider:
- Simplified One Page Strategic Plan – The one pager is the overall business alignment doc. Priorities change every quarter, along with the basic metrics, but much of the document stays the same.
- Quarterly Check-ins – Whether it’s monthly or quarterly check-ins, it’s critical to spend time with team members and constantly calibrate. With small startups, it’s more ad hoc and formalizes as the business grows.
- Monthly SaaS Metrics – While the one pager has great high-level info, the monthly SaaS metrics sheet breaks it down into dozens of data points and provides a fine-grained view into the performance of the business.
- Start, Stop, Continue – What’s working well, not working, and needs to change in the business? Just like a scrum meeting, it’s important to evaluate the overall business functions as well.
Figure out what’s right for the startup and continuously evolve the rhythm, data, and priorities.
What else? What are some more ideas to wrap up each quarter?
David Cummings on Startups 
One thought that comes to mind is creating an enterprise architecture model and grooming it each quarter (if not more often). When you diagram out your business architecture and how your products support it, a lot of other necessary tasks become more simple. Assigning roles, justifying SaaS licenses, knowing how accumulating product features fit into the big picture, among others.