Wouldn't it be simpler so identify which size worked well for you without thinking about management much (probably up to 20ish) and then splitting the company i

Wouldn't it be simpler so identify which size worked well for you without thinking about management much (probably up to 20ish) and then splitting the company into teams of max. that size? Sure for some types of businesses that won't work but it'll work for a lot of them. As an aside: my gut feeling is that many startups tend to over hire as it's sort of a status symbol to have more employees. I mean look at how many people were needed to build and scale WhatsApp. Is your startup really doing something that is technically more complicated or harder to scale?