I might need to find a better example.... Do you have an example of a process that is not needed in the beginning, and needed one year down the road that is less obvious?

I think (good, thorough) documentation is probably a good example. Unnecessary early, when everything is in flux, but critical later, when there's too much for one person to know.

Yeah, docs is a good one.

Starting out a lot of people dump info in a wiki, but as they get bigger, proper docs (with actual doc writers) is a must.