Why I Stopped Chasing Perfect Systems and Started Building Scalable Ones
When you first start a business or program, it’s easy to believe that the key to success is finding the perfect system. The perfect project management tool, the perfect meeting rhythm, the perfect workflow.
When I started building our volleyball club, we were a small operation - one or two people handling everything. At that size, almost any system works. You can track everything on a spreadsheet, meet whenever needed, and make changes on the fly.
But as the organization grew, something started to break.
The Rule of 3 and 10
Rule of 3 and 10
There’s a business principle called the Rule of 3 and 10, often shared by Hiroshi Mikitani (CEO of Rakuten). It states that everything in a company breaks when it triples in size.
When you grow from 1 to 3 people, or 3 to 10, or 10 to 30 - your systems, communication, and structure all start to fail.
We hit that wall head-on.
The systems I built for two people were suddenly being used by ten or more coaches, parents, and staff. The same spreadsheets and meeting cadences that once worked perfectly now caused frustration and confusion.
Coaches weren’t updating trackers.
Parents were missing information.
And I found myself doing more follow-up than before.
That’s when it clicked - the system wasn’t broken because it was bad. It was broken because it wasn’t designed to scale.
Learning to Scale With People
Instead of chasing the perfect process, I started focusing on people.
I began asking questions:
What’s slowing you down?
Which tools do you actually use?
What would make this easier?
Through those conversations, I discovered what mattered most: clarity, simplicity, and time.
A great example was our meeting structure.
In the early years, I held long weekly meetings with every coach. It worked when there were three of us. But when the staff grew, those meetings started to eat my entire week. Coaches had other jobs and limited hours.
So we changed the system.
We switched to monthly one-hour meetings with clear agendas, and we tracked progress with a simple shared results sheet.
The impact was immediate: fewer meetings, better conversations, and more time to focus on coaching and planning.
Building Systems That Grow With You
What I learned in the sports world applies to every business.
A system isn’t successful because it’s polished - it’s successful because it grows with your people.
When you’re small, build light and flexible systems.
As you grow, add feedback loops so the people using those systems can shape how they evolve.
Now, whether I’m helping a coffee shop migrate to Shopify or working with a youth sports organization to streamline operations, I start the same way - by listening to the people who use the system every day.
Scalable systems aren’t built in isolation.
They’re built through conversation, feedback, and iteration.
And when you get that right, growth doesn’t feel like chaos - it feels like momentum.
