After scaling to 300 employees created more problems than it solved, Briq's founder now believes headcount is a poor measure of success. He argues that ARR per employee is the true "flex," promoting capital efficiency and focus over a bloated team size.
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The operating model for SaaS has inverted post-2021. Previously, growth came at the cost of declining efficiency ('200% headcount to grow 100%'). The new benchmark is to achieve hyper-efficiency at the margin, demanding teams grow revenue at double the rate of their headcount expansion.
OnlyFans achieves extreme capital efficiency by hiring only senior and junior talent, removing the "squidgy layer of middle management." This structure values individual contributors over managerial empire-building, ensuring everyone stays close to the business and makes decisions quickly, with a team of just 42 full-time employees.
Contradicting the common startup goal of scaling headcount, the founders now actively question how small they can keep their team. They see a direct link between adding people, increasing process, and slowing down, leveraging a small, elite team as a core part of their high-velocity strategy.
Gamma's CEO resists the pressure to scale headcount aggressively, arguing that doubling the team size does not guarantee double the speed. He believes a smaller, more agile team can change direction faster, which is more valuable than raw speed in a rapidly evolving market.
A unique dynamic in the AI era is that product-led traction can be so explosive that it surpasses a startup's capacity to hire. This creates a situation of forced capital efficiency where companies generate significant revenue before they can even build out large teams to spend it.
Drawing from experience at big tech, Surge AI's founder believes large organizations slow down top performers with distractions. By building a super-small, elite team, companies can achieve more with less overhead, a principle proven by Surge's own success.
Staying lean is a deliberate product strategy. Bigger teams may build more features and go-to-market motions, but smaller, focused teams are better at creating simpler, more intuitive user experiences. Focus, not capital, is the key constraint for simplicity.
Gamma scaled to a $2B valuation with only 50 people by innovating on org design, not just product. They prioritize hiring generalists over specialists and use a 'player-coach' model instead of a traditional management layer. This keeps the team lean, agile, and close to the actual work.
