OKRs for Teams of One (or Five)

OKRs — Objectives and Key Results — were invented by Andy Grove at Intel and later adopted by Google when John Doerr introduced them in 1999. The concept is dead simple: set an Objective (what you want to achieve), then define 2-4 Key Results (how you'll measure progress). If you hit 70% of your key results, you're doing great.

The problem is that OKRs have been ruined by corporate culture. Big companies turn them into bureaucratic nightmares with quarterly reviews, alignment meetings, and 47-page OKR documents. That's not what they're supposed to be.

For small teams, OKRs should fit on a sticky note. A freelance designer we work with uses one OKR per quarter. Last quarter: Objective: "Get enough recurring clients to stop worrying about next month." Key Results: sign 3 retainer clients at $2K+/month, reduce proposal turnaround to 24 hours, get 5 referrals from existing clients. She hit 2 out of 3. That's a good quarter. No meetings. No alignment documents. Just clarity about what matters and a way to know if she's getting there.

Why this matters to you

Small teams and solo founders don't fail because they lack ambition. They fail because they lack focus. When you're wearing every hat — sales, marketing, operations, product — everything feels equally important. OKRs force you to pick one thing that matters most and define what "done" looks like.

The key insight is that OKRs are not to-do lists. They're not a list of tasks to check off. They're outcomes you're aiming for. "Launch website" is a task. "Get 50 qualified leads per month from organic search" is a key result. The difference matters because outcomes give you flexibility in how you get there.

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