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Failcon SprocketGroup Presentation
- 1. Stop Fighting Fires By: Trishan Arul, Joe Markert & Dr. Marc Applebaum October 25, 2010
- 2. 2 www.thesprocketgroup.com Introduction • Tweet & Answer (T&A) Format • Tweet your own “fires” using #FailCon #Fires hashtags • Address as many as possible during workshop, focusing on fires with similar themes • Start tweeting now! • Who are We? • Who are You?
- 3. 3 www.thesprocketgroup.com Joe Markert – FunctionOne IT • IT Services, Consulting – We are your IT Department, Virtual CIO/CTO • @FunctionOneIT • www.FunctionOneIT.com • joe@functiononeit.com
- 4. 4 www.thesprocketgroup.com IT Fire # 1 – Business Continuity • Fire / Symptom: • Data Loss due to hard drive failure, human error or other disaster • It’s not “if” it will happen, it’s when • Fuel / Root Cause: • No backup plan in place, “I’m too busy, I’ll do it later” • No redundancy in disaster recovery planning • No offsite storage as part of solution
- 5. 5 www.thesprocketgroup.com IT Fire #1 - Putting out the fire… • Water / Solutions: • Ask yourself, what would I do if I lost my data tomorrow? • Desperate: USB drive (probably already have one) • Cheap: Acronis, MozyPro.com, Jungle Disk, Time Machine • Ideal: Ensure both onsite and offsite hands-free backup is occurring. Limit human intervention beyond regular testing of backups. Lean towards whole system backups.
- 6. 6 www.thesprocketgroup.com IT Fire #2 – “I can do IT myself!” • Fire / Symptom: • Founders, CEO or Valuable Talent acting as internal IT staff • Internal goals or deadlines not being met due to IT distractions • Fuel / Root Cause: • “It’s cheaper to do it myself!” • We don’t need no stinkin’ IT! • External IT support is too expensive!
- 7. 7 www.thesprocketgroup.com IT Fire #2, Yes you can, but it costs… • Water / Solutions: • Do the math: % of time spent on IT, multiply against key salary • Example: 35% of $120K = $42K • “Cheap”: Trade equity for services • Ideal: Hire 3rd Party solutions firm/consultant to monitor, manage, maintain your systems, provide guidance • Ensure vendor has depth in personnel • Free yourself to focus on the core!
- 8. 8 www.thesprocketgroup.com IT Fire #3 – Security • Fire / Symptom: • Hackers took down our website! • Worse: Hackers took down our client’s website!! • Disastrous: Hackers took down our bank account! • Fuel / Root Cause: • Open Source components not updated • Lax, or absence of, security policies
- 9. 9 www.thesprocketgroup.com IT Fire #3 - Security • Water / Solutions: • Ensure open source components are kept up to date • Set internal security policy and have everyone sign off • Passwords, use of personal accounts, social networking, etc • Ideal: Ensure the solution means, “I will never have to deal with this again!”
- 11. 11 www.thesprocketgroup.com Dr. Marc Applebaum Coach & Organizational Development Consultant • @iapplebaum • marc@marcapplebaum.com • (415) 424-0215
- 12. 12 www.thesprocketgroup.com Organizational Problems Putting out organizational fires is-- • Conceptually easy, but • Emotionally difficult
- 15. 15 www.thesprocketgroup.com Organizational Problem-- • Fire / Symptom: • Burnout—the founder is in constant motion but feels ineffective • Gridlock--no decision gets made without the founder • Fuel / Root Cause: • Founder is involved in every decision • No effective division of labor • Pervasive feeling of chaos
- 16. 16 www.thesprocketgroup.com Organizational problems Water / Solutions: • Define the key roles in your business • Delegate: your job can’t be “doing everything” • Put a org structure in place that’s clear & adaptable • Hold people accountable so you can build a trustworthy team
- 17. 17 www.thesprocketgroup.com Organizational Fire #2 -hiring blind Fire / Symptoms: • You hired key employees in a hurry—they seemed good, but now they’re underperforming and you’re not getting what you need Fuel / Root Causes: • You were too rushed to carefully vet people during the interviews • It’s hard to know who you’re getting until you’ve worked with them
- 18. 18 www.thesprocketgroup.com Organizational fire #2 -hiring blind Water / Solutions: • Use an agreed-upon job description—not just gut feel—to vet people • Whenever possible screen people by giving them a trial project or assignment • When you hire, use a short probationary period to quickly identify who’s working and who isn’t—and act on that information
- 19. 19 www.thesprocketgroup.com Organizational Fire #3—“decisions” that don’t work Fire / Symptoms: • Actions you thought were agreed to aren’t being acted on, and the clock is ticking… • People are confused and frustrated about what you want them to do Fuel / Root Causes: • Your decision-making process is broken • People haven’t bought into shared ground rules
- 20. 20 www.thesprocketgroup.com Putting out the fire… Water / Solutions Reach agreement on-- • Who is involved in making important decisions • What your process is for making and communicating decisions • A shared commitment to regular meetings for making decisions
- 22. 22 www.thesprocketgroup.com Trishan Arul – Arul & Associates • Finance & Accounting – Part Time CFO services or complete outsourcing of accounting funtion • @tarul or trishan@arulandassociates.com • http://www.arulandassociates.com • (415) 448-7736
- 23. 23 www.thesprocketgroup.com Accounting Fire #1 - No #’s • Fire / Symptom: • Need financial statements NOW and don’t have them • Requests from investor, creditor, bank, partner, etc • Fuel / Root Cause: • No bookkeeping at all • “Shoebox” accounting • Only tracking cash • Don’t know what a financial statement is!
- 24. 24 www.thesprocketgroup.com Accounting Fire #1 - Get Control • Water / Solutions: • Find a quick & easy way to track the basics (2 hrs/wk) • Free: outright.com; Intuit Quickbooks Online • Cheap: QB Online; xero.com; lessaccounting.com • Desperate: Use Mint.com to track just cash & CC • Ideal: Assign responsibility to an employee (get help to start) or outsource
- 25. 25 www.thesprocketgroup.com Accounting Fire #2 - No Budget • Fire / Symptom: • Always out of money • Don’t know if you can afford to buy X • Fuel / Root Cause: • No budget in place • Have not put “investment” into company • Water / Solutions: • Make a simple budget (personal & business) & stick to it • Put $ in a separate account
- 26. 26 www.thesprocketgroup.com Accounting Fire #3 - No Personal $ • Fire / Symptom: • Can’t pay your personal bills which are company costs • Fuel / Root Cause: • Mixing personal & business expenses • Water / Solutions: • Segregate business & personal (bank and/or CC accts) • Use debit card on business bank account • Set up auto bill pay with your bank – 20%+ interest & late fees add up quick!
- 28. 28 www.thesprocketgroup.com T&A - Tweet & Answer • Tweet your own “fires” using #FailCon #Fires hashtags • Keep Tweeting, we will gather issues into similar groups and address them • You can also just say it out loud
- 29. 29 www.thesprocketgroup.com Thank You! • Trishan Arul – Arul & Associates @tarultrishan@arulandassociates.com (415) 448-7736 • Dr. Marc Applebaum @iapplebaum marc@marcapplebaum.com (415) 424-0215 • Joe Markert – Function One IT @functiononeit joe@functiononeit.com (415) 962-1585
Notas del editor
- - Veterans of multiple startups but no big exits, keep hoping! Different areas of expertise; all work with small & medium businesses, in some cases primarily startups, to make their lives easier -> we don't code, we don't sell, we do things in the background so the founders, engineers, and other employees can do what they do best having worked with lots of startups, good/bad/ugly, and things we'd rather not remember but often there are recurring issues or fires that pop up -> you won't be the first to have a problem, and you won't be the last, but hopefully you'll learn something at FailCon so that you can solve your current problems and avoid future ones - get to the root cause of the problem! Who is in the room? SKILL: engineers/sales/marketing/operations/other BUSINESS:"founders"/working at a startup/working at small business/big business/in school INDUSTRY: Web 2.0/Hardware/Software/Service/Non-tech