The MakeWaves Blog
Practical reads for founders who run the business AND work the business.
Straight talk on operations, SOPs, reporting, and AI that earns its place. No jargon, no hype, just the systems work that turns treading water into forward momentum.
The weekly operating review: 45 minutes that replace the hallway decisions
Most founders make the same decisions over and over, one hallway conversation at a time. One standing weekly review, with one scorecard, one issues list and one owner per issue, makes each decision once, in writing, where everyone can find it.
Go-live is the start of the project, not the end
A new system does not create value on the day it switches on. It creates value once the work around it settles. The outcome is decided by the procedures you write before the cutover and the stabilization you plan after it.
You may need operations leadership before you need a full-time hire
Most founders frame operations help as a choice between hiring a manager and carrying it all themselves. Split the job into presence work and judgment work, and the real choice gets clearer. Three questions show which kind of help your business needs now, and when a full-time hire is the right move.
A purchase order written after the stockout is a receipt
When buying waits until the shelf is empty, the purchase order only records what already went wrong. Proactive purchasing is a weekly rhythm: a written buy list, reviewed on a set day, built from real lead times. How to set one up, and why it gets better every week.
Your first AI workflow should be the most boring job in the building
Most founders pick their first AI project by excitement, and it usually stalls. The better first candidate is the dull, repetitive task your team already does the same way every time. Four tests for choosing it, and why a human stays in the loop.
Your AI is only as good as what your company wrote down
A general AI tool knows a great deal about business and nothing about yours. What it can do for your company depends on what your company has written down, and on whether that writing is true. The same procedure that trains a new hire is what an assistant answers from.
What a company Knowledge Vault is, and what it is not
A Knowledge Vault is your company’s knowledge base in one organized home that you control. It is not a shared drive, not a wiki nobody opens, and not another subscription. Here is what goes in one, what makes it different from a folder of documents, and how to tell if you are ready for one.
Where your company’s knowledge goes when it evaporates
Nobody deletes what a business knows. It leaves quietly, through four ordinary doors, and each one looks like a normal week. Here is where the knowledge goes, how to tell whether yours is evaporating or compounding, and the one habit that changes the direction.
Why your operational fixes keep reverting
A new process works for six weeks, then a busy month arrives and the old way quietly comes back. Fixes revert for three predictable reasons. Four things have to ship with every rebuilt system so your team owns it after the person who built it steps away.
Before you replace your software, find out what it already does
Most software replacements start with frustration, not a requirements list. A five-part review of process, requirements, data, users and implementation burden tells you whether the tool you already pay for can do the job, and what to demand from a new one if it cannot.
Industry Reads
See all readsMost small businesses now use AI, but few have built it into how the work runs
A Babson College survey of small business program graduates, reported by Fortune, finds 86 percent now use AI, yet only 15 percent say it is fully part of their core operations, and 77 percent want more training. For a founder-run business, closing that gap starts before the tool: an assistant can only follow a process someone has defined and written down, so documenting how the work actually runs comes first.
Most organizations say their data is not ready for the AI they want
New research covered by CDO Magazine finds data problems delayed or derailed AI projects at 86 percent of organizations, and only 39 percent have data that is digitized, structured and ready to use. Data scattered across disconnected systems was a leading obstacle. A founder-run business has fewer systems to untangle, so deciding where each record lives and what each field means is far easier before an AI project than in the middle of one.
Freight costs are rising fastest for the smallest buyers
Bank of America's payments data shows freight and logistics spending growing about four times faster at firms under $5 million in revenue than at mid-sized firms, and the report suggests small buyers are more exposed to spot rates. Inventory transactions per firm are also climbing faster than spend. For a founder-run business, that rewards proactive purchasing: reorder points and supplier lead times written down, so orders go out on schedule instead of on rush freight.