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6. Optimize

Stage: 6

All stages

Stage Overview

What to do: Optimize

Your role: Leader

Headcount: 20 to 49

Leadership Structure: 2 Layers: Full Team of Managers.

Companies at this stage: 2,100,000 (7% of companies.)

Area	Constraints	To Graduate
Product	Improving two products slows down improvements.	Install incremental product improvement process for both products.
Marketing	Ads don't convert as well to colder traffic. CAC goes up.	Implement ad assembly process to increase volume.
Sales	Closing efficiency on core product drops, becomes inconsistent. Refunds go down, but so do closes.	Install sales training system, individual coaching, and team cadence.
Customer Service	Churn increases due to volume and new product.	Create customer segmentation by cohort and activation points.
Information Tech (IT)	New people coming in. Old people living with IP, data, and access.	Cyber security. Malware. Password protection from and for employees. Onboarding and offboarding employees.
Recruiting	The number and type of roles you need exceed your current network (everyone who's good has a job already).	You learn to headhunt higher level roles. Add multiple interviews filtering for different skills.
Human Resources (HR)	You can't get higher level talent because they expect full compensation package (benefits, retirement, etc.)	Setup benefits, retirement and advanced compensation plans.
Finance	You're spending money to grow, but you're not. Money is missing. Where's my return?	Scale up AR/AP. Get more granular financial data. Balance sheet. Begin making quarterly tax payment.

Bottom line: Everything is inefficient.

Graduate by: Grow by doing everything better rather than more.

When you hit “Stage 6. Optimize”

You’ve grown to 20-49 employees! About 2.1 million businesses reach this level. You’re now a “Leader” with a full team of managers under you. The interesting thing about this stage? Your main challenge isn’t doing more—it’s doing everything better. You have two products, but they both need improvement.

The big challenge: everything could be better

The biggest problem at Stage 6 is that having more people doesn’t automatically make things work better. Things are actually getting less efficient. That’s why it’s called the “Optimize” stage—you need to make everything work better, not just bigger. Let’s look at what’s happening...

Products and Marketing
Sales and Customer Service
Tech and Security
People and HR
Money Matters

Products and Marketing

Improving two products at once is slowing everything down
You need a process to improve both products bit by bit
Your ads don’t work as well with colder audiences
Your marketing costs (CAC) are going up
You need a better way to create ads at scale

Sales and Customer Service

Your core product isn’t closing as well as it used to
Sales team needs real training now
Customer churn is increasing because you have more products
You need to group customers by when they joined and how they use products
You need to track more detailed customer success metrics

Tech and Security

New people are joining, others are leaving
Company data and access is at risk
You need real cybersecurity
You need better password protection
You need proper employee onboarding and offboarding for tech

People and HR

You can’t find enough good people through your network
Everyone who’s good already has a job
You need multiple interviews for different skills
High-level talent wants full benefits packages
You need retirement plans and better benefits

Money Matters

You’re spending money on growth but not growing
Money seems to be missing or wasted
You need more detailed financial data
You need a real balance sheet
You need to pay taxes quarterly

Graduating from Stage 6

Your job is to make everything work better. Here's what you need to do:

Fix The Basics

Make your core systems work better
Train your people better
Track everything important
Fix the biggest inefficiencies first

Protect Your Business

Set up proper security
Protect company data
Get proper insurance
Create proper processes

Make Things Measurable

Track important numbers
Measure employee performance
Monitor customer satisfaction
Watch financial metrics

Build For The Future

Create training systems
Set up better benefits
Improve your technology
Make things scalable

The Bottom Line

Stage 6 is about making everything work better, not just bigger. Instead of just adding more people or doing more things, you need to:

Improve existing systems
Make things more efficient
Fix what's broken
Build better processes

Why it's challenging

It’s tempting to just do more instead of better
Fixing things takes time and money
You have to change how things work
People resist change
You have to invest in improvement without immediate payoff

But it's worth it because:

Things start working smoothly
You waste less money
People are more productive
You can grow without breaking things

Remember

The key to Stage 6 is patience. Making things better takes time. You can’t rush optimization. You have to:

Find what’s not working well
Figure out why
Create a better way
Test it
Train people
Monitor results

About 2.1 million businesses have mastered this optimization phase. The successful ones usually:

Focus on one improvement at a time
Measure results carefully
Train people properly
Create good systems
Document everything
Make sure changes stick

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