Imagine this scenario: Your startup is working on a revolutionary flying time machine and an updated design iteration of the landing gear subsystem is ready. Or is it? Someone else made late-night changes and uploaded a new file on Slack you didn’t see. You build 4 new retractable wheels from an outdated PDF. Now the prototype’s wrong. Another cost. Another slip in your schedule that your investors will notice.
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We have covered why internal chaos is one of the biggest threats startups face. Today, we go deeper: What silently feeds that chaos is the friction your tools create—and most startups don’t even realize it’s happening.
Best-of-Breed: The Comfortable Mistake
On paper, using the “best” tool for every task sounds smart. Best CAD system here; best project manager there; best cloud storage somewhere else. You’re being efficient, right? Well… not really.
In practice, this turns your process into a patchwork monster. Each tool speaks its own language or, in the worst cases, is subjected to unnecessary, error-prone conversions. Versions get renamed. Context gets lost. Every day, your team spends energy just to hold the process together.
The 3 Hidden Costs of Fragmentation
1. Version Control Hell
Multiple systems and scattered file copies make it painfully easy to lose track of the latest design. Is this the approved design—or the draft from two iterations ago? This is how costly mistakes happen.
A unified platform—like 3DEXPERIENCE on the cloud—solves this by maintaining a single data model. Everyone, everywhere, works from the same rea-time version. No confusion. No duplicates. As Joan Orus, QEV Technologies COO puts it: “One of the biggest things our engineers appreciate about the new platform is the guarantee that when they access information about a product or go to work on a design, they know they’re looking at the most recent version.” [Read QEV Technologies customer story]
2. Feedback Fog
Feedback is the fuel of improvement—but only if it reaches the right people at the right time. In fast-moving startups, feedback often gets lost in disconnected channels: A comment buried in someone’s inbox, a marked-up PDF sitting in a personal drive, a WhatsApp message forgotten by next week. The result? Changes are made based on incomplete input, and the risk of misalignment grows.
With a unified cloud environment, feedback becomes part of the innovation process—not an afterthought buried in emails or files. Every comment, decision, and approval are tied directly to the model, so when someone tweaks a component, the platform instantly flags the change and notifies the team. This built‑in, context‑aware feedback loop ensures everyone sees the impact of each update in real time, enabling truly collaborative, on‑the‑fly decision‑making.
As Harbinger’s CEO and co-founder John Harris explained: “We have regular meetings where we look at the vehicle and discuss the implications of moving a chassis or battery element. If we were all working separately in siloed applications, it would be impossible to do anything live. Thanks to the platform, we can see everything and make those informed trade-offs on the spot.” [Read Harbinger customer story].
3. Decision Delays
In startups, speed is survival. Yet decisions—especially on design changes or technical issues—are too often stalled because approvals are trapped in emails, spreadsheets, or disjointed task lists. When the path to a decision is unclear, teams hesitate, waiting for clarification or sign-off. The result: Wasted time, lost momentum and creeping delays that silently drain a startup’s runway.
On a unified cloud platform, everyone sees updates and notifications as they happen. Change requests, design modifications, and decisions flow through a single, shared environment—no more chasing updates across tools or wondering who needs to approve what. Built-in workflows manage sign-offs, track progress, and keep decision-making moving without bottlenecks.
As a lead engineer from Vertical Aerospace shared: “My experience of change management is that it’s usually spread across multiple platforms. But we’re handling all the end-to-end data management on 3DEXPERIENCE. In our decision meetings we can send actions out to people via the platform, record the sessions and the workflow supports that. We also will be able to set up signatory loops for key people to sign off documentation.” [Read Vertical Aerospace customer story]
From Clarity to Product Breakthrough
What happens when friction disappears? Your team’s energy shifts—from file chasing to real problem-solving. From guessing to knowing. From risk-avoidance to confident decision-making. That’s when product breakthroughs happen: A tighter, clearer path from concept to market. This is how startup innovation speeds up—not in silos, but in sync.
The Startup Offer: Big-Company Power, Startup Agility
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is built to handle the complexity of the world’s most demanding industries: automotive, aerospace, high-tech and many more. Through our 3DEXPERIENCE for Startups offer, your team can now access the same power—priced for the startup journey. No compromise. No need to settle for cobbled-together tools that slow you down. Because the greatest threat to your innovation isn’t the market—it’s the invisible friction you can fix, today.
👉 Explore the 3DEXPERIENCE for Startups offer at www.3ds.com/cloud/startups
Image source: Marcelo Avila under the the Creative Commons Zero license
Pierre is a Marketing Director at Dassault Systèmes. He has been working in the high-tech industry over the past 20 years. His experience spans development, consulting, product management, and marketing roles in small to very large companies. Pierre also holds a BCompSc and a MBA.