Blog · Aug 2026
Why onboarding breaks at ten people
Under ten people, onboarding is a founder sitting next to someone for a week. It works, and it hides the fact that nothing is written down.
The tipping point
The break happens when the person onboarding isn't the person who invented the process. Second-hand tribal knowledge loses the reasons, so new hires learn the steps but not the judgment.
Write these three things down first
- What the role owns — The outcomes this person is accountable for, in one paragraph.
- Week one, by day — Intros, access, shadowing — dated, not aspirational.
- What good looks like at 30 days — One or two numbers, plus a checkpoint conversation.
Keep it alive
A doc nobody updates is worse than no doc. Tie the plan to the role rather than the person, and edit it right after each hire finishes — while you still remember what was confusing.
Run this plan in Runway
Save it as a role template once, then every future hire in that role starts with the same plan and their own progress view.
Start free