The Short Answer
Documentation is how startups scale knowledge beyond what can be transmitted verbally from person to person. Good documentation dramatically reduces meetings by providing answers that people can find themselves, accelerates onboarding by giving new hires the context they need to contribute quickly, prevents the same discussions from happening repeatedly because the reasoning is captured, and enables async work across time zones by creating persistent, searchable knowledge. But documentation needs to be maintained to be valuable—stale, outdated docs are actually worse than no docs because people trust them.
Write things down once so you don't have to explain them a hundred times. The hour spent documenting something important pays back many times over in reduced interruptions, faster onboarding, and better decisions.
Why Documentation Matters in Startups
In the earliest days of a startup, documentation feels completely unnecessary—everyone's in the same room, shared context is naturally high, and you can just ask someone if you need information. Why waste time writing things down when you could be building product? But this changes faster than you think, and by the time you realize you need documentation, you're already behind.
By the time you're 10 people, there's too much to keep in everyone's heads. Context that early employees take for granted isn't obvious to new hires. By 20 people, new hires take months to get up to speed without documentation, senior people spend significant time answering the same questions repeatedly, and institutional knowledge walks out the door every time someone leaves.
Documentation is how you scale knowledge beyond what can be transmitted verbally from person to person. It creates institutional memory that persists even when the people who originally created that knowledge move on. It enables async work because people can find answers without interrupting colleagues. It reduces meetings because context is written down rather than explained repeatedly in synchronous gatherings.
But documentation has a dark side that you need to understand: stale, outdated documentation is actually worse than no documentation at all. When people trust docs and act on incorrect information, they make bad decisions, waste time, and lose confidence in the documentation system overall. Successful documentation requires not just creating docs but actively maintaining them as your understanding, processes, and products evolve.
This guide covers how to build documentation practices that provide real value without becoming a bureaucratic burden—pragmatic documentation that helps you move faster rather than slowing you down with overhead.
Documentation Principles
These foundational principles should guide your approach to documentation. They're the difference between docs that help and docs that gather dust:
Write for Your Future Self
When documenting, assume the reader is you in six months—you've forgotten the context and need to understand quickly. This perspective helps you include the right level of detail and context.
Good Enough is Good Enough
Perfect documentation that never gets written helps no one. A rough doc that captures the key points is infinitely more valuable than a polished doc you never have time to create. Start with 'good enough' and improve over time.
Maintenance is Part of the Job
Stale documentation is actively harmful. Build review and update into your processes. When you notice something out of date, fix it. Delete docs that are no longer relevant.
Findability Matters
Documentation is only useful if people can find it. Invest in organization, naming conventions, and search. A doc that exists but can't be found is as good as non-existent.
Templates Reduce Friction
Create templates for common document types. Templates make documentation faster to create, more consistent, and easier to consume. They lower the barrier to documenting things.
Ownership and Accountability
Important documents should have owners responsible for keeping them accurate. Without ownership, documentation decays. The owner doesn't write everything but ensures accuracy.
Essential Documentation Types
These documentation types provide the most value for most startups:
Onboarding Documentation
Everything new hires need to get up to speed—company context, tooling setup, team norms, key processes
Examples: Welcome guide, tool setup checklist, org chart, glossary of terms
How-To Guides
Step-by-step instructions for recurring tasks and processes
Examples: How to deploy, how to file expenses, how to request time off, how to run a meeting type
Decision Records
Capture important decisions, the options considered, and reasoning—creates institutional memory
Examples: Why we chose this tech stack, pricing decision rationale, org structure changes
Reference Documentation
Technical or process reference that people consult when needed
Examples: API docs, product specs, security policies, style guides
Meeting Notes
Capture decisions, discussion points, and action items from meetings
Examples: Team meeting notes, planning session outcomes, 1:1 notes
Project Documentation
Context and information about specific projects—goals, status, decisions, learnings
Examples: Project briefs, post-mortems, launch plans
Documentation Best Practices
Apply these practices to create documentation that actually gets used:
Start with a Template
Create templates for your common document types. Templates reduce the friction of starting and ensure consistency. Include prompts for the information that should be covered.
Keep It Scannable
Use headers, bullet points, and short paragraphs. People scan before they read. A wall of text is intimidating and won't get read. Make key information easy to find at a glance.
Include the Why
Don't just document what, document why. Understanding the reasoning helps people apply information appropriately and make good decisions when circumstances differ.
Date and Version
Include when docs were last updated and by whom. This helps readers assess whether information is current. For frequently updated docs, consider a changelog.
Link, Don't Duplicate
When referencing information that exists elsewhere, link to it rather than copying it. Duplicated information gets out of sync. Single source of truth is easier to maintain.
Archive Rather Than Delete
When documentation becomes obsolete, archive it rather than deleting it. Historical context is often valuable for understanding why things are the way they are.
Documentation Tools
Choose a documentation tool that your team will actually use consistently:
Edworking Docs
Integrated with tasks and chat—documentation in context where work happens
Notion
Flexible, powerful, combines docs with databases—popular choice for startups
Confluence
Enterprise-grade wiki, strong for larger or more structured teams
GitBook
Beautiful documentation, great for technical docs and public-facing content
Google Docs
Simple, familiar, good collaboration—often sufficient for early-stage
Slite
Designed for internal knowledge bases, clean and simple
Building a Documentation Culture
Tools and templates matter, but culture is what determines whether documentation actually gets created and maintained. You can have the best documentation platform in the world and still end up with empty wikis if documentation isn't valued and practiced.
Documentation culture starts with leadership. If founders and executives write things down, share context in documents, and reference docs in discussions, the team learns that documentation is valued and expected. If leaders communicate verbally and never document, that becomes the cultural norm.
Make documentation part of the definition of done. A feature isn't shipped until it's documented. A decision isn't made until the reasoning is captured. A meeting didn't happen if there are no notes. This sounds heavy, but it becomes natural with practice.
Celebrate good documentation. When someone writes a great doc that saves others time, acknowledge it publicly. When new hires get up to speed quickly because documentation is good, credit the doc authors. Positive reinforcement shapes behavior.
Key Takeaways
- Documentation is how you scale knowledge beyond verbal transmission from person to person
- Good documentation reduces meetings, dramatically accelerates onboarding, and enables async work across time zones
- Stale documentation is worse than no documentation—maintenance is essential and must be built into processes
- Write for your future self who's forgotten all context and needs to understand quickly
- Good enough is good enough—perfect docs that never get written help absolutely no one
- Invest heavily in findability through organization, naming conventions, and search capabilities
- Use templates to reduce friction, increase consistency, and lower the barrier to documentation
- Assign owners to important docs to ensure they stay accurate over time
- Build a documentation culture where writing things down is expected, valued, and practiced from leadership on down
