This was the slide deck we used for our recent presentation on handling IT, Finance, HR fires in a start-up or growing business environment. The deck represents some sample fires we presented to get the conversation going and to invite the audience to share their issues in our workgroup setting.
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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?
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Joe Markert – FunctionOne IT
• IT Services, Consulting – We are your IT Department,
Virtual CIO/CTO
• @FunctionOneIT
• www.FunctionOneIT.com
• joe@functiononeit.com
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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
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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.
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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!
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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!
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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
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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!”
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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!
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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
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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
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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!
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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
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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 do 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
