The Operating System for Building Hike. Now Open-Sourced.

Scaling Isn’t About Hustle. It’s About Systems.

Building a company is chaos. Especially as a first-time founder/ceo.

The bigger we grew, the more I realized I needed systems — not just for the company, but for myself as a CEO. I didn’t find a ready-made playbook that fit. So I built my own.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to open-source as much as we can. They’re the exact workflows and templates we used inside Hike. You’ll get them in Coda/Google Docs so you can copy, remix, and make them your own.

Here’s what’s coming →

• Operating Cadence (26-13-6-4-2-1 System) → Every founder knows how quickly chaos creeps in. This cadence became our way to keep the whole company rowing in sync.

• Planning & Goal Setting → I learned the hard way that annual plans don’t mean much without a bridge to weekly execution. This system connected the dream to the day-to-day.

• Weekly Business Reviews (WBRs) → Numbers can overwhelm, but the right lens reveals the story. Our WBRs helped us see patterns early — and course-correct before small issues became big ones.

• 1:1 System → I found that the best 1:1s weren’t status updates but moments of trust. A few well-placed “magic questions” changed the depth of my conversations forever.

• Performance Management System → Most performance systems kill culture. We built ours to do the opposite — to reward ownership, candor, and growth while still holding a high bar.

• Recruiting Review → Hiring mistakes are the most expensive mistakes. This review template kept us honest, pushed us to ask the hard questions, and helped us avoid false positives.

• All Hands & QnA → As we scaled, people wanted context and connection. We designed All Hands as storytelling, not reporting — so the team felt part of the journey, not just passengers.

• Hike Code → Our value system that shaped hiring, conversations, and performance reviews — the backbone of alignment and culture at Hike.

• One Page Documents (OPDs) → I used to get buried in decks. OPDs forced clarity: one page, one idea, one decision. It was amazing how much alignment we got and time saved.

• Investor Updates → Investor relationships are built on trust. These updates kept us honest, made investors true partners, and saved us in tough moments.

• Fundraise Tracker → Fundraising is chaos. This tracker was our single source of truth that brought order to the madness and helped us raise hundreds of millions with discipline.

These workflows are the product of countless iterations — some on version 10, others on version 20. My hope is they save you cycles, help you sidestep mistakes we stumbled through, and most importantly, give you the freedom to build your company in a way that feels true to you.

Main posts will be on Substack, with shorter versions on LinkedIn and X.