Stage 3: Village (100s of Employees)

The Village stage is where blitzscaling gets real. With hundreds of employees, the company undergoes a fundamental transformation: the founder can no longer know everyone by name, let alone manage them directly. This is the stage where companies either build the infrastructure to support continued growth or collapse under their own weight.

The Management Layer

The most significant change at the Village stage is the introduction of management layers. The founder is no longer managing individual contributors; they’re managing managers. This requires a completely different skill set and mindset.

“At the Village stage, you must transition from being a player to being a coach. Your job is no longer to score goals; it’s to build a team that scores goals.” — Reid Hoffman

Managing Managers

Key shifts when managing managers:

• Trust and delegate: You must give managers real authority and resist the urge to micromanage
• Hire experienced leaders: Bring in people who have managed teams before
• Create alignment: Ensure all managers are rowing in the same direction
• Develop talent: Invest in growing your managers’ skills
• Measure outcomes: Judge managers by their teams’ results, not their individual output

Building Infrastructure

The Village stage requires serious investment in organizational infrastructure. The informal systems that worked for a tribe will break at village scale.

Critical Infrastructure

• HR and recruiting: Formal hiring processes, onboarding programs, performance reviews
• Finance: Budgeting, financial planning, expense controls
• Legal: Compliance, contracts, intellectual property protection
• IT and operations: Scalable systems, security, disaster recovery
• Communications: Internal communications channels, all-hands meetings, documentation

The Infrastructure Paradox

Here’s the paradox: you need to build infrastructure fast enough to support growth, but not so elaborately that it slows you down. Over-engineering your processes at this stage is just as dangerous as under-engineering them. Build what you need now, and plan to rebuild it later.

Specialization and Teams

At the Village stage, generalists give way to specialists. You need dedicated teams for engineering, product, marketing, sales, customer success, and other functions. This creates new challenges around coordination and communication.

“The transition from generalists to specialists is one of the most painful moments in a blitzscaling company’s life. The versatile early employees who built the company may not be the right people to run specialized teams.” — Chris Yeh

Team Structure

• Functional teams: Organized by discipline (engineering, marketing, sales)
• Cross-functional squads: Small teams with representatives from multiple functions, focused on specific products or features
• The right balance: Most blitzscaling companies use a hybrid, with functional reporting lines and cross-functional project teams

Scaling Culture Deliberately

Culture that was organic at the Tribe stage must become deliberate at the Village stage. You can no longer rely on osmosis to transmit values and norms to new employees.

Culture Scaling Tactics

• Write it down: Codify your values, principles, and cultural expectations
• Onboarding programs: Ensure every new hire understands the culture from day one
• Culture carriers: Identify and empower people who embody your culture
• Rituals and traditions: Create shared experiences that reinforce cultural identity
• Address violations: Act decisively when behavior contradicts your stated values

Common Pitfalls at Village Stage

What Goes Wrong

• Communication breakdown: Information stops flowing as teams become siloed
• Loss of speed: New processes slow decision-making
• Cultural dilution: Rapid hiring weakens the cultural fabric
• Key person departure: Early employees leave as the company changes
• Technical debt: Infrastructure groans under the weight of rapid growth

Key Takeaways

• The Village stage requires transitioning from managing people to managing managers
• Organizational infrastructure (HR, finance, legal, IT) must be built rapidly but not over-engineered
• Generalists give way to specialists, creating new coordination challenges
• Culture must be codified and transmitted deliberately through onboarding and clear documentation
• Communication breakdown and cultural dilution are the biggest threats at this stage