What are the best operating systems to choose when scaling up?

Over the years, I’ve watched over 50 mid-stage startups try to implement operating systems, such as EOS, Scaling Up, and others. The patterns I’ve witnessed are nothing like you would expect from reading books. Some only work well for a while, some require deeper thinking, and some options are high risk but high reward.

Obviously, the question every founder or CEO wants to know is which team is best. But the real question is which system matches your team's current capability and your timeline for systematic execution. The right operating system accelerates your growth, while the wrong one creates slowdowns that compound over time. Ultimately, consistency beats sophistication.

To help founders answer this critical question, we’ve taken a closer look at four of the best approaches in hopes of showing their strengths, weaknesses, and situations when it might be the right choice for your startup. We’ll also look at the possibility of building a customized system designed specifically for your startup.

Keep It Simple with EOS

EOS works because it's simple enough to implement without a PhD in organizational design. Core components like a Traction Organizer, rocks, and an accountability chart can be up and running in 8-12 weeks with a decent facilitator. I’ve seen this work best with startups with 15-50 people and $4M to $15M in revenue. These mid-stage startups have teams that need structure but don't have the luxury of spending six months designing the perfect system.

Implement Within 90 Days

A $7M SAAS company I worked with implemented EOS, and within 90 days, they had weekly Level 10 meetings running across three teams, quarterly rocks defined, and a functioning scorecard. The founder told me it was the first time in 18 months that his leadership team finished a meeting having actually resolved issues instead of just surfacing them.

Limitations Hit When You Get Too Big

Unfortunately, limitations start to show up when a startup hits 75-100 people and $20M-25 in revenue. This is when you start to see constraints on something so easy to adopt. What accelerated your execution at $10M starts to slow you down at $25M. The one-page strategic plan feels too thin when you're managing multiple product lines. The quarterly rocks framework can't handle the complexity of coordinating 8-10 functional leaders with interdependent priorities.

Teams that stick with EOS past that point are forced to make heavy modifications. This means you're not actually running EOS anymore, but rather "EOS plus our customizations." If you can make it work, that's fine. But it defeats the original value proposition of having a standardized system.

Scaling Up Offers More Depth

Scaling Up is harder to implement but scales better with organizational complexity because the framework has more depth. The catch is that you need more executive capability to implement it well. EOS you can implement with a solid facilitator and a willing team. Scaling Up requires your leadership team to think strategically about the business, not just execute their functions.

Have a Plan in Place

I’ve seen this work best with mid-stage startups that are around $10M revenue and have ambitious growth targets and leadership teams. These teams need strategic frameworks that handle market complexity, capital allocation, and multi-year planning.

I remember when an $18M revenue manufacturing company adopted Scaling Up. It took them five months to get the strategic plan right and another three months to get the quarterly and annual planning cycles running smoothly. It took eight months of implementation before they felt like the system was working.

However, 12 months in, they were running better than most companies with $30M revenue. They had clear strategic priorities cascading through the organization, function leaders who could articulate how their work connected to company strategy, and quarterly planning that actually drove resource allocation decisions.

Expect Slowdowns If You’re Not Ready

Failure with Scaling Up happens when teams try to implement everything at once. They get overwhelmed by all the frameworks and tools. Then they revert to whatever they were doing before. This is because the comprehensiveness that makes Scaling Up powerful at scale creates slowdowns for teams that aren't ready for it.

The Classic OKR Approach

While not a formal operating system, using objectives and key results (OKRs) has become a popular framework for startups. I’ve seen many startups succeed with this approach. It can work wonders when a startup has plenty of ideas and ambition. At the same time, it requires discipline because you have to avoid setting too many goals or being too ambitious with your objectives.

Create Alignment and Accountability

Using OKRs is best for startups that are looking to create strong alignment across their teams and improve accountability. Ideally, the OKRs will be widely known and transparent, building trust throughout the organization. Ultimately, if a startup is using OKRs properly, the product team, sales team, and other functions throughout the company will essentially be forced to coordinate with one another, which is how you know there is alignment.

The cadence of quarterly OKRs can also help a startup find its rhythm. There are clear goals, a plan for how to achieve them, and the ability to review the company’s success each quarter and make adjustments from there. In many instances, it creates a data-driven approach, which can also add transparency and build trust.

At times, even a quarterly cadence leaves too much time in between OKR reviews. With many startups I work with, I strongly suggest a weekly meeting in which the top five OKRs are reviewed and given a status of red, yellow, or green. This helps to monitor progress closely and identify the goals that aren’t on track to be met long before the end of the quarter. If one is red, the team can decide what action to take. By following this weekly cadence, OKRs turn into a management tool rather than just wishful thinking.

Goals Must Have a Purpose

The potential problems with OKRs include setting too many, setting the wrong ones, or setting goals for the wrong reasons. I have often seen startups set too many OKRs each quarter. In one instance, a startup somehow had 700 OKRs spread across all departments and individual contributors. They also tried to review each of them at a monthly meeting.

Needless to say, this was a dysfunctional approach that I fixed by consolidating everything to just five company-wide OKRs. I insisted that they not have any departmental OKRs until they could prove that they could meet the five company-wide OKRs. Likewise, each department had to show execution discipline before it could set sub-department goals. That startup never went back to individual OKRs, and it was better off for it.

Typically, I suggest that startups begin with three quarterly OKRs and then work their way up to five after proving that they can handle three. If you can handle five company-wide OKRs, then it may be acceptable to do department-specific goals. The key takeaway is that OKRs shouldn’t cascade until there is a proven track record of execution at the highest level.

Goals Should Be Realistic but Not Easy

One final key to OKRs is finding the sweet spot between goals that are unrealistic and goals that are too easy to accomplish. First, when you set unrealistic goals, they mean nothing. Startups with inexperienced leaders may want to avoid OKRs because they may not know how to set the right OKRs. Keep in mind that setting goals and hitting targets means nothing if they don’t move the whole company forward.

On the other side, I’m always suspicious when I see startups with all green OKRs one quarter after another. This usually means they are picking targets they were on track to hit before the quarter. In working with startups, I’ve often found that green short-term OKRs often lead to red long-term OKRs. It might feel good to hit goals, but again, hitting targets means nothing if it doesn’t move the company closer to its ultimate vision.

In other words, there needs to be a balance between executing short-term OKRs and the long-term vision of the company. I’ve seen startups crush their short-term goals while simultaneously drifting far from the path that will take them to their ultimate destination. The opposite can happen, too, with companies obsessing over what the long term looks like, and they struggle to execute short-term goals. Whether it’s the founder, an outside consultant, or someone else, there should be someone ensuring that there is a connection between quarterly OKRs and the long-term vision.

Focus on the Disciplines of Execution

Another system to consider, but one that’s a little less formal, is the four disciplines of execution (4DX). This is Franklin Covey’s system of focusing on what’s wildly important, acting on lead measures, keeping a scoreboard, and creating a cadence of accountability. Those are the four areas to focus on within this system. This can be particularly useful for startups that are struggling with alignment and execution. It can also be looked at as a complement to other systems, not necessarily its own system.

Stay Sharp and Execute

Often, I see a clear vision but a lack of execution at startups. By following these four disciplines, a company is essentially forced set the right priorities. I often see this when a startup grows to the point that the founder can’t monitor every department closely. This is when it gets hard to stay aligned if there aren’t strong priorities company-wide.

One time, I worked with a financial services company that had a team of 60 people that was trying to boil the ocean with six different brands. This approach was wildly ineffective, so I had them choose one wildly important goal to be their focus.

The company chose assets under management and began to hunt for more assets with their target number in the billions. Eventually, they learned that servicing the revenue those assets generated was more important than the number of assets. The goal stayed the same, but the company’s understanding of it changed. That helped them to find their value to the marketplace, while also learning that one single focus point is better than scattering six different priorities.

This exemplifies the essence of the 4DX approach. It forces a startup to focus on the “wildly important goals,” creating a more simplified and targeted approach. Even better, this tends to scale well across all areas, which can help to build a clear culture and attitude throughout the company.

Stop the Experimenting

The biggest caveat with the 4DX approach is that it’s not for startups that are still experimenting and figuring out who they are and who they want to be. There must be confirmed product-market fit and a clear vision. Otherwise, the startup could choose the wrong “wildly important goals” or feel the need to change them, which will just slow things down.

The other issue with 4DX is that it’s not a full-scale operating system. For startups with a good vision, it can help to improve their execution tenfold. However, 4DX won’t help with developing a strategy, increasing the talent level within the company, or organizing cross-functional work. If these aspects of the startup haven’t been solidified, the four disciplines of execution aren’t going to help solve them.

Building Your Own

In some cases, teams skip the frameworks entirely and build their own operating system. This works if you have a founder who deeply understands systems thinking and has the discipline to iterate methodically. The obvious advantage is that you can design exactly what you need for your business model, team capability, and growth trajectory. The downside is that you’re designing it from scratch while running the business.

Custom Will be Tough

The instances of customized operating systems working are few and far between. For starters, building the system can take 18 months, if not longer. It will require constant iteration, and even then, there is no guarantee that it will work.

Customizing your system is like shooting for the stars. If it works, it can produce capabilities neither pure EOS nor pure Scaling Up would have provided. But unless the majority of the team has past experience with the same company, such as V2MOM for Salesforce alumni, the chances of making it work are slim.

What Matters More Than the Framework

There are three factors I’ve found that matter far more than the framework. First is the founder’s commitment to the system. If you're not willing to run the cadences, maintain the disciplines, and hold the team accountable, the framework doesn’t matter. I've seen simple frameworks accelerate growth because the founder was relentless about execution. But I've also seen sophisticated frameworks create slowdowns because the founder treated them as optional.

Likewise, a team’s capability to implement is critical. Can your leadership team actually run the system, or does it require constant founder intervention? With a strong leadership team, EOS can work without the founder micromanaging. However, it’s often safer to find an outside coach to implement it. Meanwhile, more sophisticated systems require more sophisticated teams and will surely require outside help.

Finally, look at the timeline to value. How long can you wait before the system starts working? If you need structure in the next 90 days, EOS is probably your answer. If you can invest 6-9 months in implementation for better long-term capability, Scaling Up might be worth it. If you have 12-18 months and the internal capability to design something custom, you’ll give yourself a huge competitive advantage.

How to Actually Decide

To make this decision, ask three questions:

1. What's our current execution capability? Are we at "we need any structure" or "we need sophisticated strategic frameworks"?

2. What's our timeline? Do we need this working in 90 days, or can we invest 6-12 months for better long-term systems?

3. Do we have someone internal who can own this? If not, it’s best to find an external coach who can help implement the system. Frameworks don't implement themselves. Who on your team has the capability and capacity to drive this?

If you haven’t reached $10M, default to EOS unless you have operators who've scaled companies before. Get something simple running, build execution muscle, and upgrade later if needed.

If you're in the $10M-30 range and have an experienced leadership team, Scaling Up will give you more leverage long-term. You just have to plan for a 6-9 month implementation and commit.

Finally, if you have someone internal who understands systems architecture and you're willing to invest 12-18 months, a custom solution could give you an edge. The issue here is that teams tend to overestimate their capability.

The mistake successful startups want to avoid is choosing based on what sounds sophisticated instead of what matches your current capability and timeline. The best operating system is the one your team will actually run consistently for 12+ months, not the one that looks best in the book. Think long and hard about where you are and where you want to go.

If you feel like your startup is ready to hit another gear but you need a little help getting there, get in touch with the Midstage Institute.

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