A startup handbook fails in a predictable way. Someone writes forty pages in one weekend, nobody reads past the first page, and six months later half of it is wrong. The fix is not a better template. It is a smaller handbook that answers the questions people ask every week, with an owner and a date on each answer.
Start from the questions, not the company
- Collect the last thirty questions your team asked you in chat or in meetings.
- Group them into five or six topics, such as time off, expenses, customers and decisions.
- Write one answer per question. If you cannot answer it in five sentences, it is probably two questions.
Give every answer an owner and a date
Each answer should name who keeps it correct and the date it was last confirmed. Without an owner, an answer goes stale quietly. Without a date, nobody can tell whether to trust it. A simple line at the bottom of each answer is enough.
Keep it short enough to search
- Use the question as the heading, so people can find it by typing their problem.
- Keep answers under about 150 words. Link to a longer document only when it is needed.
- Put the most-asked answers first.
Keep it current without a writer
Once a month, read the list of questions that came in and check that each answer is still true. Add the new ones, retire the ones nobody asks, and note any change in one line at the top. Ten minutes a month keeps a handbook alive; a yearly rewrite does not.
Where an AI clone fits
Once the handbook is written, an AI clone built on approved facts can answer those questions in your voice, and say when something is not covered. AskMyStartup is in private beta. You can join the waitlist with your email below.