F2F #63: Review often, but... how often?

We, founders love systems… until we hate systems.

We set up routines to survive chaos and navigate the uncertainty that is entrepreneurship: inbox zero, daily LinkedIn replies, a perfect weekly planning ritual, delegating certain tasks, strict meeting rules, whatever keeps the engine running. And then, slowly, without realizing, the system starts running us.

A year later, you’re still doing something because "that’s how we do it", even though the company, the market, and your role have evolved twice since then.

So the question isn’t whether you should review how you do things - You should. Constantly.

The real question is: what cadence keeps you sharp without turning your life into an endless productivity audit?

Your methodology gets stale

What brought you from point A to B isn't going to bring you from B to C, and that is something that I am still learning, twelve years after creating MarsBased.

At the beginning of the company, I was very chaotic and unpredictable. Maybe that's why we landed very unusual clients and we took off sooner than expected. I was contacting people left and right through all the channels with little to no strategy. However, I strongly doubt this would work nowadays, with 30 employees. That would be a huge risk.

A couple of years into business, I realised that I was generating a lot of business but I was creating two problems for the company: 1) The information mostly resided in my head and I was often not aligned with my co-founders or they weren't sufficiently informed and 2) There was no traceability or track record of what happened, so I couldn't go back to revisit old notes.

Most people will be like "sounds like you need a CRM" but no, I just needed a method.

I then went for five years being the strictest person in the company, writing down every Friday two weekly reports for the entire team:

• A sales report, with all the deals past Qualification stage, with relevant information like deal size, technologies, current/new customer, company size, contact and other relevant insights.
• A meetings report, with a recap of all the calls and meetings I had that week and what was discussed there.

That turned me into a routines person. I audited myself weekly in front of the whole team. This forced accountability made me choose my meetings better and work towards outcomes that wouldn't put me into shame. It forced me to focus. Sales went up as a result.

Now, a few years later, I had already built the habit and I realised that the team wasn't really reading the reports. Instead of writing them, I could take a couple more calls or do more stuff for the company. In fact, I had more work than ever because we had grown from 5 people to 15, so I stopped writing the reports and - guess what - no one complained.

I have dozens of examples like that. Just because you've been doing something for a few years, it doesn't mean that you have to keep doing it. What once was useful and the best for the company might now be a waste of time.

It's not about doing less

No, on the contrary, it's about doing what matters.

For instance, now I answer to everyone who writes on LinkedIn or on my email.

Do I have more time now? Absolutely not. But I want to project "you are seen" to messages that have some kind of effort. I will still archive the generic AI-generated ones.

Whereas five years ago I decided to eliminate all of my recurring meetings, I now have more than ever because I find myself unblocking more stuff this way. I didn't have that much of a team then, so I could be more independent. Now, I need to sync up with 10 people every week because we're 30 people and I have direct reports now.

That’s not inconsistency. That’s evolution.

What is the right cadence?

Evolution without review becomes drift. Reviewing things too often signals lack of direction to your team. Reviewing them too late bears other problems.

In my opinion, there are two kinds of reviews you need:

1) Triggered reviews (reactive)

These happen when pain appears. Typically:

• You feel resentment toward a task you used to enjoy.
• Your calendar becomes too much.
• You’re avoiding something repeatedly.
• You notice a growing gap between "what should be happening" and "what is happening".

Triggered reviews are necessary because they catch the moment a system stops serving you but they’re not sufficient, because pain usually shows up when the habit is already costing you energy, money, speed, or clarity. Or all of them.

2) Scheduled reviews (proactive)

These are light, recurring check-ins that help to prevent drift early. It’s you asking, regularly: "Is this still the best way to do this, for who we are right now?"

The problem with proactive reviews is that most of the time they feel like a nice-to-have, and if you're swamped with work, you will end up postponing them indefinitely. At least, that's what I do.

But when I have a moment of clarity, usually during low season of business activity (winter break, summer holidays), I tend to work on these.

As for the cadence, not all habits deserve the same review frequency.

For me, it is a blend of these two things:

• Does this affect other people?
• Have I given it a proper chance?

For instance, if it only affects me, I might be more flexible on whether I have given it a proper chance at working or not.

Example: I switch 2x a year my weekly routines and daily planning because I have to adapt to family, school and stuff like that. I make it so that I don't impact anyone else, so if I have to switch more often than that, no harm is done.

Example #2: A more drastic example is changing the tool you use for time tracking. It affects no one else, but there's a switching cost (integrations, down payments, etc.) that is easily compensated by the new tool working better for you.

On the other hand, if something affects other people, I try not to change it unless I have given it all.

Example: A marketing strategy can't be changed too often lest you confuse your team, clients and audiences. If you change too often, you will not see the mid- and long-term effects or you will attribute them to the wrong experiments.

Example #2: Language courses are very easy to give up, and blame the tool, the methodology or the time of the day you take them (too tired at night, not enough awake in the early morning), but most people give up on them before actually giving their best shot and truly taking the time and effort for a consistent and sufficiently long period of time.

Now, that would be all, if it weren't for...

Watch out for "identity habits"

Some habits stick around not because they work, but because they’re tied to your identity. You (and other people) think that they define you.

At a certain point, I felt like I was doing certain things for the company, but it was to prove myself I could do something. In other people, it can feed their egos, in my case it helped me with my insecurities.

Examples:

• "I reply to all emails".
• "I have time for coffee for everyone".
• "I am the one keeping the boards organised".
• "I always have a word of advice for everyone who asks".

These are dangerous because they feel noble, so it feels wrong doing the contrary. It feels like you're a villain if you turn them around: no time for anyone, never answering back, etc. What a horrible human being!

But companies aren’t built on founder identity, they’re built on founder leverage. Chances are that if you stick for too long to an identity habit, you end up becoming either a caricature of yourself or you won't grow past this old version of yourself.

My take on a "default cadence" for founders

I tend to do the following:

• Monthly: light personal ops review (tools, tone, words, tweaking habits - not adding/removing them).
• Quarterly: team/company process review. Change annual goals if they lose sense. Add/remove personal habits.
• Yearly: deep rethink of principles, and life goals. Money strategy.

The job of a founder isn’t just to build systems. It’s to outgrow them.