Every company needs documentation. Well... not really.
If you're a startup griding crazy to get your MVP out and get feedback, you couldn't care less about documentation.
If you have a product out and a couple of customers, docs are not that important. You can just ask around your team across the desk or on a Slack channel.
If you found product-market fit, got your first round of funding, and are scaling your team above 10, you probably also don't need that much documentation. You can just throw hours at it because there are so many of you right now compared to 6 months ago.
If you're a series A or B company with a couple of Ms in ARR, documentation starts to look attractive, but you can go without, no doubt.
If you’ve recently gone public, your headcount has crossed 500. There’s still plenty of tribal knowledge hanging around—documentation is an issue, but there are stopgaps. Just bring in more sales reps; after all, revenue fixes everything.
In reality, the path you chose was the least efficient option, and documentation could have delivered the greatest impact you can imagine:
TURN STATIC DOCS INTO INSTANT ANSWERS
Build beautiful knowledge portals that are easy to navigate, search and share
1. clearing misunderstandings among team members;
2. making the founders' vision clearer to themselves and to the whole company;
3. faster customer support answers;
4. faster or automated onboarding of new members;
5. less knowledge churn;
6. increased engineering productivity;
7. more stable run through the years;
8. less hassle in becoming a remote company when a virus hits out of nowhere.
I could go on... but you already know it. Documentation is how we build things.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes—but keep it tiny and useful. A lightweight, living doc set saves rework, reduces Slack pings, and makes it painless to add the next engineer or contractor.
Start with the bare minimum (1–2 pages total):
- README: what the product does, high-level architecture, constraints, and known gaps.
- Quickstart: how to install, run, test, seed data, and common troubleshooters.
- Decision log (short ADRs): a few lines on why you chose X over Y and the date.
- One-page onboarding checklist: accounts, repos, environments, secrets, and daily rituals.
Working cadence:
- Update right after meaningful changes (15–30 minutes). No weekly doc meetings.
- Keep one home (the main repo or a single wiki page) to avoid link hunting.
Skip for MVP:
- Heavy templates, polished diagrams, and process binders. Capture only what you’d otherwise repeat in Slack.
Simple rule: if you typed it twice, document it once.