Goal Setting
How we set and track goals at Hardal - quarterly, annually, and daily.
Goals exist to focus effort, not to create a reporting burden. If your goal process generates more meetings than output, something's wrong.
Company-level goals
The founders set annual company goals - usually expressed as ARR milestones, customer count, and one or two strategic priorities. These are shared with the whole team.
Quarterly, we review whether we're on track and adjust priorities if the market or our product situation has changed. We don't treat quarterly goals as sacred. If something stopped being the most important thing to work on, we say so.
Team and individual goals
Each team (product, growth, customer success) sets goals that connect to the company goals. We try to keep these to three or fewer per quarter. More than three usually means you're listing tasks, not setting goals.
A good goal:
- Has a clear outcome, not just an activity ("launch mobile attribution beta with 3 customers using it" vs. "work on mobile attribution")
- Is ambitious but realistic - you should be 70% confident you can hit it, not 100%
- Has an obvious measure of success
A bad goal:
- Is vague ("improve customer satisfaction")
- Is just a task ("write documentation")
- Can be gamed ("have 5 calls per week")
How we track goals
We review company and team goals monthly in a brief team meeting. The format is simple: what did we ship, what are we working on, what's blocked.
We don't do elaborate OKR spreadsheets or scoring ceremonies. We're small enough that people can see what everyone's working on in Linear and Slack.
When goals change
If your goal stops making sense - because the market shifted, a customer gave you new information, or we shipped something that made the original goal irrelevant - update the goal. Don't silently work on something else.
Tell your manager and write down what changed and why. This is useful context for the team and helps us get better at setting goals that survive contact with reality.
Individual focus
Each person should know at any given time: what is the one most important thing I could do this week to move the company forward?
If you don't know the answer, ask. If you ask and still don't know, something is wrong with how we're setting context.
At the start of each quarter
- The founders share company goals and context for the quarter
- Each team discusses their goals and confirms they connect to the company goals
- Each person confirms what they're personally accountable for
The whole process should take less than a week of calendar time and shouldn't require more than two meetings per person.