5 tips for getting your startup started in Coda

A quick-start guide for founders.

Maggie Barnes

Growth at Coda

5 tips for getting your startup started in Coda

By Maggie Barnes

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Congratulations on taking the first step toward growing and scaling your startup on Coda! Building a business from the ground up comes with a unique set of challenges, and our experience working with companies at this exciting stage has made us a trusted partner for several successful startups. Here are five practical tips and insights to help you get started quickly.

1. Create a digital safe for your critical documents.

 Your startup’s success depends in part on maintaining your competitive advantage, which means ensuring the safety and security of confidential information is key. We recommend creating a repository for all of your sensitive documents: think investor tracking, patents or trade secrets, performance reviews, salaries, and competitive strategies. Using Coda’s permissions capabilities, set access to only yourself or a small group of trusted individuals (investors, C-level execs, etc.). Or, create one doc that’s for your eyes only, where you can also add your private thoughts, ideas, and personal notes, and another for a wider set of company higher-ups.

2. Build your team’s knowledge base.

 Don’t leave your employees wondering where your organization’s most important documents are. After all, they’ve got better things to do, like helping you build your business. So, create a one-stop shop for all of your team’s key information, including employee rosters and org charts, HR policies, processes, and public investor updates. You might also add FAQs and links to documents like employee manuals, mission and vision statements, etc. The sky’s the limit! As far as format goes, we’ve seen our customers have a lot of success using the company hub template, which is fully customizable and can include as few or as many resources as your org needs. No matter which template you choose, be sure to set it up with growth in mind. As you scale, you still want your doc to feel like your “home base.” Some quick tips for setting your templates up for scale include:
  • Considering the “who, what, and how” of using this doc.
  • Starting with tables for all of your data.
  • Creating different views for your data and tasks.
Want to learn more about how Coda docs scale with your startup? Check out this guide.

3. Track your top-priority project(s).

 What is your startup’s first order of business? Is it launching a product? Setting and tracking your first quarter OKRs? Scaling your company by adding headcount? Getting to market faster? As you can see from these examples, no matter what your number-one goal is, Coda docs can help you measure your progress and keep your team aligned. We suggest creating a shared planning doc to ensure everyone knows what the main objective is and how you plan to get there. Then, build a centralized tracker where everyone can view the team’s progress.

4. Consider your SaaS spend.

 Every dollar counts when you’re building a business. With templates for everything from knowledge bases to OKR and task tracking, Coda can replace multiple software platforms. For example, mentoring startup Plato was able to save $200K and raise a Series A round by making Coda their tool for expense management, project tracking, and meeting notes. Because Coda is so powerful and flexible, some companies have even built their applications to replace other tools. Outsource.Digital, for example, replaced Jira with its own Coda doc, saving $20K. So, have an honest discussion about which SaaS tools are must-haves and which your org could cut and shift into Coda, considering factors like adoption rates, functionality and features, and cost. And before adding another platform to your tech stack, consider whether you might be able to do it in Coda instead.

5. Join the Coda Slack community.

 Our Slack community is a great place to share ideas, get tips and tricks, and connect with other doc makers. With 200 members, the Coda Slack group is always active and includes experienced users as well as those just getting started on their journey. Join and introduce your startup today!

Start scaling your startup with Coda today.

Start your startup on the right foot with Coda

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