Short answer
An approval workflow is a defined path for getting a decision signed off: who asks, who reviews, who decides, and where the result is recorded. In a small company it replaces 'ask the founder in chat' with a short, repeatable route so the same request gets the same answer.
The parts
A request with the details the reviewer needs, a named approver (and a backup), a time limit for the answer, and a record of the decision with the date and the reason.
Why it matters for answers
When a founder approves an answer once, a bot or a shared FAQ can repeat it without asking again. Without an approval step, a bot repeats whatever it finds, including guesses and old chat messages.
Keep it light
For a team of five to fifty, one form and one approver per area is enough. If asking takes more than a few minutes, people skip the process.
A small example
A salesperson asks whether they can offer a 10 percent discount on a large project. The request goes to the person who owns pricing, who answers yes or no with a reason and the date. That answer is saved once as an approved answer, so the next person who asks gets the same answer without waiting.
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Common questions
One named person per area, with a backup, so a request never waits on someone who is away.
Set a number of business days and keep to it. A slow approval trains people to go around it.