Why Fast-Growth Brands Should Plan Their Tech Stack Like an Exit's Around the Corner
The Illusion of Later
There’s a common trap fast-growing brands fall into: waiting until something breaks before fixing it. When you're scaling at pace, it feels easier to bolt on another tool or throw another person at the problem. The thinking is: "We'll deal with it properly later."
But here’s the truth: by the time you hit $100M+, later is too late. If your systems are fragile, your team is patching gaps manually, and no one knows how anything fits together, you’re not just inefficient, you’re uninvestable. Mature systems don’t just keep the wheels turning. They show potential buyers or investors that this business can run without you.
If you want optionality, to raise, to exit, or just to scale without chaos, you need to treat your tech stack like someone else might have to run it next quarter.
The Real Job of Systems
Too often, systems are seen as a backend fix or an IT concern. But the best brands treat systems as a core strategic asset. Here's what that looks like:
Systems make the founder optional. If you need to explain how every tool fits together, you're the system.
They signal operational maturity. Investors and acquirers want to see that the brand has the structure to keep growing without heroic effort.
Poor systems show up in due diligence. Nothing tanks a valuation faster than a tangled mess of processes held together with duct tape and goodwill.
What Scrambling Actually Looks Like
We’ve seen what "just make it work" really means up close. It looks like a mash-up of tools that don’t talk to each other, with teams relying on endless spreadsheets to track what systems can’t handle. It means manual duplication of effort across departments, missed deadlines, and launches that slip because operations are held together by a thread. It also means teams stretched so thin that when one person leaves, the whole thing teeters.
That’s not a sign of hustle. It’s a red flag.
I discuss this topic, and more, on the Factory Podcast with Tim Richardson.
A Roadmap Is a Moat
We worked with one brand (we’ll keep the name out of it, but they’re now north of $200M in revenue) that had all the ingredients of chaos: fast growth, small team, no internal systems lead.
What they did have was foresight. They knew what got them to $50M wouldn't get them to $200M. They didn’t wait for things to break.
Instead, we built them a clear, sequenced roadmap. We mapped out the people, processes, and systems they’d need to scale sustainably. We didn’t just say "buy an ERP." We helped them:
Define what needed to change first
Pick the right tools and configure them properly
Prep their team for the shift
Go live with confidence
That kind of roadmap is a moat. It lets you move faster and smarter.
You Don’t Need to Be a CTO, But You Need One in Spirit
Most fast-growth brands don’t have a VP of Systems. That’s fine. You don’t need one full-time.
But you do need someone who’s been there before, someone who can help you:
Build a strategy that aligns with how you want to scale
Avoid expensive mistakes and dead ends
Balance short-term speed with long-term sustainability
Bringing in outside help before you need it isn’t a luxury. It’s how you avoid being the brand that spends 12 months and seven figures trying to untangle the mess.
Five Signs You’re Thinking About Systems Too Late
Your team still runs core operations off spreadsheets
You're duplicating effort across departments
Slack is your main integration layer
You've postponed your systems project three times
You've hired people to paper over broken processes
Build Like Someone Else Will Run It
You don’t need to be planning for an exit. But if you build your systems like you might exit next quarter, you’ll make better decisions.
You’ll think longer-term. You’ll avoid duct-tape fixes. You’ll reduce risk and create space for your team to operate without panic.
Whether you want to raise, sell, or just keep growing, investing in the right systems now is how you keep your options open.
Because "later" comes faster than you think.