How to Build a Content Operations Framework That Scales

TL;DR

• Founders cut time on content from 50% → 10% while scaling to 40k+ views/month
• Success came from a systematic Content Ops framework
• Team structure: Head of Content → 2+ Editors → Social Media Manager
• Hire full-time team members aligned with your vision (not juggling freelancers)

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The Breaking Point: When Content Becomes a Business Bottleneck

Every growing business faces this challenge: you know content is crucial for attracting customers and talent, but creating it consistently becomes overwhelming. For Clipflow's founders, Darrell and the team, this reality hit hard when they realized they were spending over 50% of their time on content while everything else in the business slowed down.

The wake-up call came with one particularly epic video that Darrell created. While the quality was outstanding, the time investment was unsustainable. They were producing very few pieces of content despite working 8-hour days on it, and the business was suffering.

Should You Commit to Content Operations?

Before diving into their framework, it's worth asking yourself some critical questions:

Making the Pieces Work Together

Can your business support these key goals:

• Is content a core driver (like sales is to revenue and engineering is to product)?
• Will a content engine reduce Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and speed up go-to-market cycles?
• Does content have cross-functional value, feeding into Sales, Product, and Marketing?

Do You Have the Resources?

Every business is limited by resources - money, skills, or time. Consider:

• Do you have budget to hire at least two dedicated Content Ops roles in the next 3-6 months?
• Do you have enough ongoing content ideas (product updates, customer stories, insights)?
• Is leadership willing to treat content as a business function with KPIs tied to business outcomes, not vanity metrics?

The Business Case for Content

Ask yourself:

• Are you spending heavily on paid channels with diminishing returns?
• Do you need to build trust to drive sales?
• Do you want to be seen as an authority in your niche?
• Are products, offers, or insights going unseen because you can't distribute them effectively?

If you can answer yes to at least two of these questions, Content Operations is likely a high-leverage function for your business.

The Content Operations Framework That Works

Step 1: Find Your Head of Content (The Make-or-Break Hire)

This is your most critical hire. All your effort initially needs to go into finding the right person for this role because it unlocks everything else.

What to look for:

• Someone who gets you, gets the business, and excels at content creation
• Ideally, someone already running their own content successfully
• A person you can "buy into the vision" for the long term

Why this matters: You don't want a revolving door of content faces. You need someone invested in the business who sees how content growth connects to business growth. Consider revenue share, profit share, or equity to create this alignment.

Pro tip: Try to poach someone already successful. Show them how they can achieve bigger growth and impact with your larger vision and company resources.

Step 2: Hire Two Editors (Minimum)

Why two? Redundancy. These people shape the look and feel of all your videos, making them super important to maintain consistency.

Key principles:

• Full-time only: This allows editors to learn your style without jumping between other clients
• Team integration: When working remotely, making editors feel part of your mission is critical
• Consistent quality: You want end-to-end control of the final product

The remote advantage: Hiring remote opens up your talent pool globally and can provide cost advantages while still paying competitively for the region.

Step 3: Add a Social Media Manager

Once your Head of Content and editors are producing quality content consistently, you need someone to handle distribution and repurposing.

Their responsibilities:

• Publishing across all platforms
• Repurposing content into platform-specific formats (LinkedIn carousels, Instagram posts, TikTok shorts, etc.)
• Managing the posting schedule and cross-platform strategy

Why platform-specific matters: Each platform has unique user expectations. LinkedIn loves carousels, Instagram favors visual content, TikTok demands short-form video, and YouTube expects higher production values.

The Transformation Results

After implementing this framework for just 3 months:

• Publishing over 10 long-form videos per week
• 20+ shorts across four channels on all major platforms
• Only 2-3 hours per week of founder time for recording
• Everything else handled by the team

The founders went from spending entire days on single videos to simply showing up, filming, dropping content into their project management system, and walking away. The team handles first and second round revisions, thumbnails, titles, descriptions, and distribution.

Why This Framework Works

It's Built for Business Owners, Not Content Creators

The key insight: they're not content creators trying to build a business - they're business owners using content strategically. This means:

• Content serves business goals (customer education, relationship building, trust development)
• Focus on attracting ideal customers who want to work with them
• Quality over viral metrics

Systems Think Beyond Individual Tasks

Just like building software systems, you can build people systems. The question becomes: "How little input can we provide to get the best results?"

Remote-First Advantages

• Access to global talent pool
• Time zone advantages (content edited overnight, ready for morning review)
• Cost efficiency without sacrificing quality
• Flexibility for team members

What's Next?

If you're stuck spending too much time on content creation instead of running your business, this framework provides a clear path forward:

1. Start with the audit: Map your current content process and identify bottlenecks
2. Commit to the investment: Budget for at least two full-time roles
3. Find your Head of Content first - don't move forward without this key hire
4. Build redundancy into critical functions like editing
5. Scale systematically by adding distribution and repurposing capabilities

The goal isn't to create viral content - it's to build a sustainable system that educates customers, develops relationships, and drives business results while freeing founders to focus on strategy and growth.

Remember: if you put in the time and effort to build the system properly, you can achieve what many think impossible - having others execute your content vision better than you could alone.