Employees in aggregate know the true answers to those things. Employees individually sometimes do, but often do not. For example, if you have a stone-aged development process on an ancient revision of an unsupported language, and you poll your employees, they'll all want change. They'll all want ... different changes/processes/pet programming languages, too.
Seen another way, as a manager who is not involved in the day to day you don’t deal with the same problems that they do. Quite presumptive of you to think that you know what will solve their problems.
Or in other words, rather than doing all the cost-benefit analysis yourself you teach other people to do it. That way in the future they can just do it and you can review.
edit: It's the difference between seeing your employees as toddlers versus intelligent individuals no different from yourself.
They have a point, the more things you need a client to do out of the ordinary the more friction you will get selling them. New UI for them to figure out, new permissions, etc. Depending on your business model as a startup that can be a bad thing.
It seems like you try to enforce a rigid structure but don't provide a quick process to changing or appending to that structure. So intelligent people work around your structure and you have no idea. Seen it at many companies. Generally tied to an inability or in-desire to delegate decision making. Which is different than letting people make decisions, rather it involves creating a structure under which they can make decisions.
Employees have the most view into what would make their job more efficient or engaging. You want them to think of optimizations and you want them to feel engaged enough to try and improve the business. If you don't listen then they will work around you rather than with you. Or just find another job.
Employees want something? Delegate to them the responsibility of building a business case and give them a structure on what that needs to look like. Then they can present it and the team can discuss. Make sure to say yes sometimes even if you think it's sub-optimal since otherwise they'll feel it's a pointless process.