The Early Warning Playbook: How Elite Founders Detect Problems Before They Escalate

Learn the systematic approach top founders use to spot issues faster than their competitors

TL;DR

1. SCAN: Build a dashboard with 4–5 leading indicators that change before your north star metrics are affected.

2. SIGNAL: Track anomalies ("smoke") in a shared log to identify emerging patterns before issues arise.

3. SOLVE: Use the 5 Whys × Fishbone technique to run 45-minute root cause huddles to find long-term solutions.

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The Macro to Micro Superpower

In 2014, Brian Chesky noticed something peculiar on Airbnb's global cancellation dashboard—a single bright red spot in Barcelona. Most founders would have dismissed it as an anomaly. But Chesky zoomed in.

That data point led him to discover a host with 70 listings systematically canceling bookings from Asian guests. Barcelona accounted for <0.4% of global listings and produced 9% of same-day cancellations.

Within 48 hours, Chesky called the host, implemented a city-wide policy change, and added cancellation pattern detection to Airbnb's trust algorithms.

"We could have missed it if we were only looking at aggregate metrics. That's when I realized the importance of systems that let you see the bigger picture and examine individual trees."

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The Founder's Dilemma

How do you stay strategic yet notice smoke before the fire spreads?

As your startup scales, it transforms from a simple machine into a complex adaptive system—where small issues can silently compound before erupting. Most founders alternate between two failure modes:

• Getting lost in the details

• Floating too high to spot early warnings

The solution? A deliberate three-phase system: Scan → Signal → Solve. Think of it as switching lenses: satellite, smoke alarm, and scalpel.

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Phase One: Zoom Out (The Macro View)

Building Your 10,000-Foot Dashboard

When Discord hit 30 employees in 2018, CEO Jason Citron realized he had lost visibility into the product. His engineering background made him comfortable with code reviews, but user experience issues were overlooked.

"I was either too focused on specific features or too high in quarterly planning. We had no middle layer—no systematic way to spot smoke before the building caught fire."

His solution? The "Smoke Dashboard." It tracked these five leading indicators:

1. Second-day return rate for new users (not just first day)

2. Time to first meaningful connection (not just sign-ups)

3. Server load variance (not only average)

4. Support ticket topic clustering (not just quantity)

5. Feature adoption decay curves (not just initial uptake)

For B2B founders, metrics shift accordingly. Jack Altman of Lattice tracked:

• Time-to-first-team-setup

• Admin dashboard login frequency

These metrics weren’t typical KPIs reported to investors. They were leading indicators—metrics that change before your north star metrics feel the impact.

According to Reforge, startups auditing leading indicators weekly see 18% lower customer churn than those reviewing monthly.

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The Weekly Macro Review Ritual

A dashboard alone isn’t enough. Citron implemented a 30-minute weekly "Smoke Scan" ritual with three key leaders:

1. Review the dashboard for unusual findings.

2. Flag potential issues.

3. Assign quick investigations to verify smoke presence.

"Resist the urge to solve immediately. The ritual is about identifying patterns, not fixing them."

Founder Takeaway #1

• Build your Smoke Dashboard with 4–5 leading indicators.

• Schedule a 30-minute weekly review focused on anomaly detection.

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Phase Two: Spot Smoke (The Signal Layer)

The Three Smoke Indicators

In 2019, Figma’s CEO Dylan Field categorized smoke signals into three types:

1. Quantitative Anomalies: Metrics deviating ±2σ (standard deviations) from baseline. For small samples (<300 events), use a fixed threshold (±15%).

2. Qualitative Chatter: Patterns in Slack mentions, support tickets, or NPS feedback.

3. Intuition Pings: Subtle “something feels off” moments experienced leaders learn to trust.

Field’s team caught a critical issue when their dashboard showed a spike in "rage clicks" in enterprise accounts.

"It was easy to ignore, but we treated it as a warning. We discovered a permission issue affecting collaboration workflows in accounts with over 50 members."

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The Smoke Log

Even small teams benefit from a smoke log. When Savvy Calendar was six people, founder Emily Chen created a Notion-based Smoke Log with four fields:

1. The observation (smoke spotted)

2. The potential impact

3. The investigation owner

4. The next checkpoint date

"A shared log prevents issues from getting lost in Slack. It also creates organizational memory."

Startups running weekly anomaly scans cut resolution times by 28%.

Founder Takeaway #2

• Use a Smoke Log to track anomalies.

• Train your team to distinguish between normal variance and actual smoke.

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Phase Three: Zero In (The Micro Deep Dive)

From Detection to Diagnosis

Two frameworks speed up diagnosis:

• Aviation: The OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

• Medicine: Differential diagnosis—considering all possible causes before deciding.

When Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra noticed onboarding completion dropped by 15%, he ran a Root Cause Huddle:

1. Observe: Document the symptom.

2. Orient: List possible causes.

3. Decide: Narrow down the most likely cause.

4. Act: Implement a targeted fix.

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The 5 Whys × Fishbone

Combine 5 Whys with a Fishbone Diagram to identify causes across:

1. People: Skills, training, communication

2. Process: Workflows, handoffs, documentation

3. Product: Features, interfaces, technical constraints

"Avoid premature conclusions. Generate at least three hypotheses."

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The Scan → Signal → Solve System

SCAN

• Cadence: Weekly (30 min)

• Owner: Founder + 2–3 leaders

• Key Output: Anomaly flags

SIGNAL

• Cadence: Ongoing

• Owner: Any team member

• Key Output: Investigation assignments

SOLVE

• Cadence: As needed (45 min)

• Owner: Issue owner + 2 individuals

• Key Output: Root cause + fix plan

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Common Pitfalls

1. Alert Fatigue

“We tracked everything and got overwhelmed."

2. Analysis Paralysis

“We spent too long perfecting metrics."

3. Lack of Human Input

“Customer conversations often spot issues faster."

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24-Hour Challenge

Identify 3–5 leading indicators for your business. Build a simple dashboard (even in a spreadsheet), share it with your team, and focus on implementation—not perfection.

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