Decisions
The Decisions feature is a structured log of the significant choices you make as a founder. It captures context, reasoning, and outcomes — creating a searchable record that prevents your company from repeating past mistakes and helps the AI give you more grounded advice.
Why log decisions?
Most decisions at startups are made quickly and without documentation. Months later, no one remembers why a particular pricing structure was chosen, why a feature was cut, or why a market was deprioritized. This creates repeated debates and missed context.
Barvol's decision log is not bureaucratic documentation — it is a lightweight capture of "what we decided and why" that takes 2 minutes to write and pays dividends for years. The AI uses this log when you ask questions like "Have we ever tried this approach before?" or "Why did we stop pursuing enterprise customers?"
Logging a decision
Open the Decisions page and click "New Decision." Fill in these fields:
- Decision — what you decided, in one clear sentence. "We will pause the mobile app and focus on the web product for Q3."
- Category — Product, Hiring, Revenue, Infrastructure, Strategy, or Other.
- Context — what situation or data led to this decision. What were the options you considered?
- Rationale — why you chose this option over the alternatives.
- Impact — what you expect to change as a result.
- Confidence — Low, Medium, or High. How sure are you this was the right call?
- Review date — optional. Set a future date to revisit and assess how the decision played out.
Reviewing past decisions
The Decisions page lists all logged decisions in reverse chronological order. Use the category filter and search to find specific decisions. Each decision card shows the decision text, category, confidence level, and date.
Click a decision to open the full detail, add a retrospective note (how it actually turned out), or link a related task or goal.
Review reminders
If you set a review date when logging a decision, Barvol will surface a reminder notification on that date prompting you to add a retrospective note. This is how you close the loop and capture whether the decision played out as expected.
Retrospectives are short — just a paragraph. They are far more valuable than the original log entry because they contain actual outcomes, not predictions.
Decisions in the AI chat
Barvol's AI has full access to your decision log. You can ask questions like:
- "Why did we decide to change our pricing model last year?"
- "Show me all decisions related to hiring from the last 6 months."
- "Which decisions did we make with low confidence that turned out well?"
- "What strategic decisions have we made that haven't been reviewed yet?"