How a Four-Person Studio Ships
Some notes on the operational scaffolding that lets a small team ship work without burning out.
I joined Cascade two years ago as the first non-billable hire. The team was four people and they were shipping good work, but they were also routinely working weekends to do it. My first six months were about figuring out where the friction was — and almost none of it was in the creative work.
The biggest wins, ranked:
- Project intake. A one-page intake form, filled out before any scoping call. Saves an hour per prospect, every time.
- Standing weekly check-ins. 25 minutes, every Monday. Status, blockers, what's coming. No agenda creep.
- An end-of-project retrospective. 45 minutes, two weeks after shipping. What went well, what we'd change, what we learned about the client. We use it to update our process docs.
None of this is novel. The thing that matters is that we actually do it.