Every business starts with vision — but only those with well-built systems, clear leadership, and intentional scale strategy survive beyond the early stages. If your business has grown past its startup roots, you’re likely starting to feel the strain: confusion around decision-making, over-reliance on founders, and bottlenecks across teams.

At Lateral Solutions, we help businesses evolve past the hustle and into sustainable, scalable growth by focusing on three powerful areas:

1. Optimizing Leadership Structures for Growth

2. Business Process Engineering for Startups

3. The Science of Operational Scalability

Here’s how we work with leaders to build businesses that grow with less friction and more freedom.

1. Optimizing Leadership Structures for Growth

Growing a business isn’t just about hiring more people — it’s about creating clarity and cohesion in leadership. Many companies hit a wall because they keep the same flat structure that worked at the startup stage, even as teams double or triple in size.

Symptoms of a Leadership Structure That’s Holding You Back:

• Founders involved in every major decision

• Poor cross-functional collaboration

• Confused reporting lines and responsibility gaps

• Lack of forward momentum due to misaligned teams

At Lateral Solutions, we help organizations restructure leadership for scale. That means aligning people to purpose, processes to outcomes, and leaders to strategy.

What We Implement:

• Functional org charts that match business goals

• Clear accountability models (RACI, OKRs)

• Communication rhythms (like weekly L10s or monthly ops reviews)

• Delegation systems that let founders step back

“Jon empowered my team to lead and gave me the space to focus on big-picture strategy.”
— Client Stories

Structure enables scale. The right leadership model accelerates decision-making, strengthens accountability, and reduces founder dependence.

2. Business Process Engineering for Startups

Startups are built on agility, but at some point, agility becomes chaos. If you’re constantly reinventing the wheel — in how you deliver, onboard, hire, or market — you’re bleeding time, money, and energy.

Process engineering is the act of turning messy workflows into repeatable systems — without killing your startup’s momentum.

Where Early-Stage Businesses Lose Time and Profit:

• Disorganized client onboarding

• No documented SOPs or workflows

• Key knowledge trapped in one person’s head

• High variability in customer experience

Through our Business Process Engineering for Startups, we help growth-stage businesses implement structure without the bureaucracy.

What We Help You Build:

• Documented workflows using tools like Notion, ClickUp, or Airtable

• Repeatable onboarding flows for clients and employees

• System triggers and automations to reduce manual tasks

• Dashboards that track process performance in real time

“In six months, we cut costs by 10% and grew sales by 12% — all by systematizing our delivery process.”
— Real Results

The sooner you build the right processes, the faster you can scale without burnout.

3. The Science of Operational Scalability

Scalability isn’t just about growth — it’s about growth with control. Many businesses scale revenue, but fall apart operationally because their systems can’t handle the volume. That’s where operational scalability becomes essential.

Key Elements of Scalable Operations:

• Repeatable processes that don’t depend on individuals

• Data infrastructure to support fast decision-making

• Tech stacks that integrate and automate effectively

• A culture that embraces continuous improvement

At Lateral Solutions, we’ve developed the Growth Navigation System — a methodology that blends diagnostics, system design, and leadership coaching to help businesses build the infrastructure needed for scale.

Through our Operational Scalability Programs, we help clients:

• Diagnose current operational constraints

• Identify systems that need to evolve (delivery, sales, finance, HR)

• Create change roadmaps with phased implementation

• Coach leadership to manage complexity with calm

This isn’t theory — it’s based on 20+ years of helping real businesses scale. We’ve seen companies go from disorganized and reactive to focused and systematized in under a year.

What You Can Expect Working With Lateral Solutions

We’re not here to hand you a PDF playbook and walk away. We partner with founders and executive teams to co-create the next version of their company.

Here’s our process:

✅ Phase 1: Discovery & Diagnostics
We conduct an audit of your current team structure, operations, and systems to find friction points.

✅ Phase 2: Strategic Blueprint
You get a customized growth roadmap — tailored to your size, sector, and goals.

✅ Phase 3: Implementation Support
We help install processes, rewire org charts, and ensure systems stick.

✅ Phase 4: Leadership Coaching
We work with founders and execs to grow into their next-level leadership role and avoid burnout as the business scales.

📞 Ready to explore how we could work together? Book a free strategy call.

Get Inspired to Lead with Systems

We believe that systems unlock creativity. That structure drives innovation. And that leaders thrive when they’re not trapped in the day-to-day.

📘 Want to dive deeper? Download the first chapter of The Curious Leader — Jon Bassford’s guide to innovation-driven leadership and sustainable scale.

🎤 Looking to inspire your team or audience? Explore Jon’s speaking engagements and keynotes on systems, leadership, and organizational growth.

💬 Hear more real transformation stories from leaders like you — visit our media hub or explore our blog.