Description

The Specialized stage is when you get serious about departmental specialization and building out a robust management layer. You’re no longer a scrappy small startup. You now have entire teams for marketing, sales, product, dev, and customer success, plus a decent chunk of supporting functions. Everyone is busy, and you realize you can’t manage day-to-day details across all teams anymore.

Day-to-day life in the Specialized stage feels more complex. You have departmental goals, budgets, and a deeper sense of accountability at every level. You’re managing not just tasks but managers of teams. You also face new challenges like aligning larger groups, dealing with occasional silos, and trying to keep everyone focused on the same north star.Emotionally, this stage can be both liberating and stressful for the CEO. It’s liberating because you can finally delegate day-to-day decisions to capable department heads. It’s stressful because if any department strays, it can wreak havoc on revenue, brand reputation, or morale. In my experience, having strong departmental leaders who maintain clear lines of communication is the difference between a well-oiled machine and a chaotic sprawl.