Scaling Without Technology Debt : How Early IT Decisions Shape Growth, Risk, and Momentum

Early technology decisions can shape how easily a company grows later.

In this episode of Edge of Excellence, iuvo's Jessica DeForge and Bryon Beilman speak with Ian Findlay, Partner in TechCXO’s Product & Technology practice, about technology debt, IT strategy, and the value of fractional CIO guidance for growing companies.

Ian shares how startups and small to mid-sized businesses often make technology decisions based on what is familiar, fast, or inexpensive in the moment. Those decisions may work when a company has five people, but they can become painful to unwind when the organization is preparing for funding, hiring quickly, expanding operations, or trying to reduce risk.

The conversation explores how early IT choices affect security, collaboration, infrastructure, cloud platforms, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace environments, device management, documentation, and overall business readiness. Ian also explains how IT health assessments help leadership teams understand where they stand and how fractional CIO support can give growing companies senior technology guidance without requiring a full-time executive hire.

This episode is especially relevant for founders, CEOs, COOs, CFOs, biotech and life sciences leaders, startup teams, and business leaders who want to build a stronger technology foundation before growth creates pressure.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

This is the Edge of Excellence, empowering people to take the future. Let's inspire, innovate, and explore together. Welcome to Edge of Excellence. I'm Jessica Forge, and today we're talking about the technology decisions companies make early, often before they realize those decisions will shape how easily they can grow later.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

And I'm Brian Beilman, and joining us today is Ian Finley, partner in TechTXO's product and technology practice. Ian is a Boston-based fractional CIO and technology executive who helps small to mid-sized businesses evaluate their IT systems, reduce risk, plan for growth, and build the right technology foundation. He has built infrastructure across global offices, founded and scaled at an MSP, and now helps companies avoid the kinds of technology decisions that become expensive to fix later. Ian, welcome to the edge of excellence. Thank you. Nice to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Ian, I'd love to start with you just telling us a little bit about yourself and your career path and how you ended up doing fractional CIO work.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Great. Well, so I I've spent a lot of my career working with small companies entirely in technology, beginning in the early 90s. I worked with a couple of IT companies, uh, IT consulting companies, both in Boston and New York City. And then in the mid-90s, uh myself and two other guys started an early web development company, you know, back in the days when there were blink HTML tags. Uh and we were focused on creating websites. Uh, so our firm was focused on creating websites where the content that was rendered on the websites on the pages was templatized and database driven, and you were creating dynamic websites. Um seems like sort of a simple idea today, but at the time in 1996, it was um it was reasonably cutting edge. Um ultimately we sold that company to a London-based tech firm, uh, another consulting company based in London, serving uh mostly financial services businesses in the city. Um and they weren't really sure about the whole internet thing that was whether it was going to take off or not. And so they bought us as a hedge to give them some capabilities that they didn't have. Uh and that sort of lent to a number of uh acquisitions that were sort of typical of the time. So this was in 2099, 2000, where a company was purchased and sold and purchased and sold over the course of about three years a number of times, um, ultimately landing me at a firm called Razorfish, which was a sort of a premier web design and development firm. Uh I stayed Razorfish for a little bit um and then went to a business strategy consulting firm called Monitor Group, uh, where I ran IT for um their technology practice and ultimately then decided to start an MSP. And actually, they weren't called MSPs at the time. Uh the term hadn't been created yet uh in 2005. Um, and then I sold the business in uh 2020. Um uh and then after I sold the business, uh I was searching around for what my next step was um and decided I still had uh still enjoyed the the process of helping companies with their technology and uh and landed on working at a uh fractional firm called TechCXO.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

That is quite a journey. So you've seen technology from several angles. You talked about the dot-com growth, internal CIO work, founding Lightwire, running an MSP, customer success after an acquisition, and now TechCo. So, how has that shaped the way that you look at business technology?

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Yeah, it's a good question. Um I I obviously the the needs of companies in sort of different stages of their maturation can differ sometimes significantly, but I've sort of always believed that generally speaking, there's a very common set of needs that all companies, regardless of size, have. And these needs can should be sort of the foundation of what their technology stack and the their technology platform is. And there's nuance between a manufacturing company or a law firm and the sort of specialized tools and technology that they might need for that specific part of their business, but there's a common base. Uh and you really kind of need to get that common base right. Um what are those? So they need cost-effective systems that aren't overly complicated, you know, frankly, that work. Um not just the laptops and the desktops that they use, but also the software applications and the other technologies as well. These base needs kind of should be bulletproof. Uh, you know, they need to be able to send and receive email. I mean, this sounds silly, but uh they need to have reliable access to the internet to create, to store, and to share files, to print, uh, although we're printing a lot less these days. Um for a lot of companies, that's kind of like the majority of what they need. And then there's the the um specific technology that that maybe uh their business is unique to their business versus uh what other companies uh and frequently, although they frequently don't realize it, they probably need more security than what they likely have today. Um, and this is especially in the backdrop uh with the backdrop of you know the the environment that we live in today. But uh ideally for many of these companies that security lives really in the in the background, it's operating in the background, and it's not a big intrusion on what they're doing through the day. But many companies sort of miss that part that they they don't pay enough attention to at least a baseline of security tools and processes that they should have. But it's important that uh for many of these companies that it's not intrusive. Uh so we're not trying to create Fort Knox, but we're trying to at least put some guardrails that are that are far fairly basic and straightforward. Um, you know, these base needs shouldn't be hard to deliver, but many early stage companies they kind of carry over the technology that that they had and the the technical approach that they had when they first started. And and then they start over time, they start to wonder why are the staff complaining about when stuff doesn't work? Uh and why are they why are they getting flack from their staff that the staff can't do their job because the internet's uh breaking down? Um and so the this sort of comes to an observation that that is that uh companies need to uh they would do they would do well to um on some periodic basis, annually, biannually, um, sort of reassess is the is the technology approach that they're taking today, is it still valid? Is it still good? Is it still serving their their needs? Um and uh and should they do anything about it? Um but frequently what they they they don't make those assessments and they sort of operate on a hey, if it isn't broken, don't fix it approach. Uh and this approach works for a while, but I I think it sort of can leave a company scrambling to fix problems, like when all of a sudden enough problems materialize uh that they realize, wait a second, here, um, we've been doing it the same way for too long, and and now it's not serving our business.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, something you said really resonated with me there about, you know, when we have people do startups or something, or even small, just start a business and they bring in what they used to know, like, hey, we used to use this software to do this thing. And then uh, and so I think that that is that is a challenge for sure. I would see that as we see that in our business too. But one thing I found like refreshing is that some of the software that's out there now, maybe like things like Microsoft 365, there's a bunch of them like that. The things they provide now used to be enterprise class 15 solutions all glued together for and you can get this in one package. There so a lot of the baselines uh are much better than they used to be, but you have to know to use them, you have to know how to set them up. There's a lot of good security and technology out there if you know uh if you know uh where to look. So and so I'm sure somebody like you can guide them along that, hey, listen, I know that you that that was the way you when you started your company 10 years ago, and now you get this new one, that was probably great. But now let's go this direction and you're gonna see a very cost-effective and secure platform.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Well, and it's it's that's an interesting. I mean, I I couldn't agree with you more. That the the tools and capabilities that companies have available to them at at what I think are astonishingly cost effective is really quite remarkable. Um I'm I'm always struggled, uh struck by a couple couple of things. One um when companies sort of insist on uh duplicating capabilities uh that are available in let's say they're uh they're licensed in Google Workspace or they're licensed in um Microsoft 365, uh, and they still insist on uh licensing Slack, for example, um, when in either one of those other platforms the capabilities of the base capabilities of messaging and uh screen sharing and video calling are available to them for as part of their existing package. But because there's someone in the organization who had a who had a positive experience with Slack or some other tool um in the past, they license Slack and they're spending money that maybe they sh could be spending that money someplace else to have a do uh a service and a capability that's duplicative of something that they've already got inbuilt in the license that they've got. And then the other thing, uh Byron, that you that you touched on, um one of the mistakes I see companies making is when they do license, say Google Workspace or uh Microsoft 365, is an assumption that those platforms are secure out of the box. And the the reality is that they're they're not. So that that we have we put a lot of trust into these companies, um, uh let's call it Microsoft, and uh, and we put a lot of our our companies' information and our intellectual property and store it in these these systems, um, assuming that out of the box they're safe and secure, and and the reality is that they're they're not. And uh so you we we want to make sure that if if that decision has been made, okay, we're gonna use Microsoft 365, that we do an evaluation of of how is it configured and what what are the uh sections of that platform that need to be shored up and make sure that they are so that so that it actually is secure.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah, no, definitely. So I'd love for you to chat with us a little bit about the kind of work that you're doing today with companies as a fractional CIO or head of their corporate IT.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Sure. So uh so my firm, TechCXO, uh, we provide fractional executives throughout the executive suite. So um chief marketing officers, head of sale, uh CFOs. Um I'm a fractional CIO or head of corporate IT. And the work that I do is really falls into two buckets. Um, one is I function as a as a enduring head of corporate IT or fractional CIO for a number of different companies. Um, how much time I spend with each company really depends on what their needs are. And that's kind of the the uh attractive part of uh engaging with a fractional executive, is that uh you can get as much or as little of that person as as your need or as your business needs. And that amount may change depending on you know where your business is today, uh if it's going through an inflection point, you're acquiring a company, um, you're going through a project, um, whatever. So uh that's a big portion of what I do. And then the other uh bucket of activities that I get engaged with is really um uh doing assessments for uh for companies. And these are what we refer to as IT health assessments, technology health assessments. Uh and in those assessments, they're sort of uh they're sort of boxed projects. Uh and during those assessments, we take a look at uh the technology platform as a whole, and that's uh obviously the the systems, the networks and servers, and the desktops and laptops, and are they in in good shape? Are there any risks associated with them? Uh the cloud platform that they have, same thing. Is that in good shape? Are there any risks associated? Uh, but also the the internal sort of systems and processes, and uh what does the onboarding and offboarding process look like for the for the organization? Um what does the uh how is your IT team performing? Uh is that an IT term team? Is that an internal team? Is that an external team like an MSP? Uh is it a combination of the two? And how are they performing? Are they doing their job well? Um is their service desk responsive to the needs of your of your staff? Are they um uh are they making good recommendations and um and it is the cost of that a reasonable cost? So that's this the the other bucket of activities that that I get engaged with. Uh and that typically that project those projects typically yield a um a report that has as you might expect, a set of recommendations. Here's the assessment, here's a set of recommendations. Um, and it's something that the company can take and uh implement the recommendations themselves. They don't need me to do it. If they want to use me, then totally happy to help.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Cool. So you are essentially providing a solution to the to the issue that we were you know just previously talking about, where companies are kind of needing but not necessarily doing this reassessment as they're growing, and you can kind of step in to help give them that viewpoint and um give them suggestions about things that they can be doing to improve.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah, I think that that's right. And I I think the other um the the nuanced part of that type of an engagement is let let's say, for example, you have a an organization has an an internal IT team or a a third party like an MSP. Um I think there's a lot of value in having a neutral third party come in and take a look uh under the covers, if you will, yeah, and give an opinion about um how those teams are performing. It's very hard, uh if we're being honest, it's very hard for uh anyone to self-assess, right? Whatever the job is. It's very hard to self-assess honestly and uh and um and make a decision about whether you're doing a good job or not. Um, especially since many of these, many of whether it's most of the time, whether it's internal or an external uh company, they they are doing what they think is right, right? Um but maybe that's not necessarily the right path uh for the organization. And it's helpful to have a uh someone else come in and have a fresh set of eyes, if you will, uh who says, you know, that that's a good approach. That was a good approach. Uh and this happens more frequently than I than I care to um admit. Uh it that was a good approach 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Um and a lot of times, and this happens mostly with internal IT teams or internal IT people, uh, their approach to how technology is delivered hasn't evolved over time. Uh so they're still creating IT architectures and and IT systems and platforms that are grounded in a uh in a an approach that was maybe 15 or 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah, that sounds uh isn't that the definition of technical debt, right? So uh you know don't worry about it, it's still running, but it's vulnerable or it doesn't, it's not optimized and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

I would so one of the challenges for companies is that um those that approach can uh that approach can be multiplied over time. So for example, uh you have a you may have an approach uh an IT leader whose approach is very um uh internal, uh non non-cloud centric, for example. Um cloud's a big word, but uh non-cloud centric. Uh they the company evolves over time, and now all of a sudden all of their IT systems are really old. Uh and the IT leader goes to the um goes to the leadership and says, hey, we got a whole bunch of old stuff, uh servers, networking, storage. Um we need new stuff. Uh and so they put forth to the the uh to the leadership, you know, a proposal that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment, new investment in the same old architecture that they had before. And the what does the leadership know? I mean, this this is their IT guy, right? Uh, and this is what the guy says that we should do, so we're gonna go ahead and do it. Meanwhile, that may not be the best use of a quarter million dollars or a hundred thousand dollars or whatever the number is. Uh, there may be a much different approach that provides them with significantly better security, significantly better resilience, um, much lower capex uh and you know allows them to sort of move forward in a more modern um and capable and secure way. Um but without that sort of without that other set of eyes making some uh suggestions, uh alternative suggestions, uh you're likely to see them just say, okay, sounds good. You know, this is what this is what you said. So we trust you.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Yeah, that's uh I I it's interesting because I we again we see that a lot. Part of it's the culture of the company, part of it's uh I guess the the leadership uh being uh the the the IT, leadership in IT, and then be able to push the right solutions, and that's what you are there for. Uh strangely, I think we've we would call it like sometimes there's a second mover advantage, like, okay, we didn't do anything for a long time, and but instead of doing like you said, now we have an opportunity to just go straight to the cloud, which is gonna be avoid all that stuff. If they if they just know to think about that. So it sounds like you can if you know if you're you're in there early or you're in there at the right time, you can guide them and save them not only money, but really move them like like light years ahead.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Yeah, and depending on the industry, um uh that can be a big advantage. Uh, I mean, there are still a number of in industries in our in the United States that uh are not very tech technology sophisticated, uh technically sophisticated. Uh and those could be you know, it might be construction or manufacturing. Uh and if you can bring a set of technology, um, and we're I think that we're seeing this very much with the introduction of our uh artificial intelligence into a lot of businesses, those sort of those sort of companies that are willing to adopt some of those models when they're when their competitors are very stayed in their technical approach can absolutely have a significant advantage.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

So we've touched on early stage companies making technology decisions that work in the moment, but don't necessarily scale well. Is this something that early stage companies can avoid? And how? Is it just a matter of getting someone like your Yourself in early to help kind of choose technology that's going to help them scale. Like how do early stage companies avoid something like this?

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Early stage companies are interesting beasts, right? I sort of feel like without being aware that there are people who can help, I I think that the mistakes are the mistakes that early stage companies make are very honest mistakes. Sometimes they implement a tech technical platform because of cost. But I think most frequently the the drivers of like say you're a biotech company and uh you're a the person who's founding the company is going to typically be a scientist of some sort, right? Um and they have an idea, uh maybe they're gonna self-fund it for a little bit while they work on their idea, and they they the company itself is them is that scientist, and maybe one or five other people, you know, something on that's that scale. And really what the the technical driver, the drivers for the technical decisions end up being, it's what the founders are familiar with. Sometimes like that can be generational, right? So a younger scientist may be more comfortable with it. Let's just let's say it's a Mac and a Google environment, because that's what they had in school. Right. Uh, and that's what they had in university. And and so this is what they're they've got in their hands today. Well, might as well just let's continue on because it worked well for them in those environments. Um, and so it's a lot of the decisions are it's it's that it's what they're comfortable with, it's what they know, uh, and how also how quickly can they get up and running and get a team, maybe again, two to five people working collaboratively together. Well, this is something that they know, so it's it's something that they can get going quickly, so that's an easy decision. Um, and and their focus is really on that sort of creation process. They're not thinking about their technology, it's they're thinking about their what it is that they're making. Um, and again, that's that's great. That's like that's an honest approach. Um in the what they they're not really thinking about where are the files that we're working on being stored and are they being backed up and is there any security of anything? Yeah, it's certainly not important because if the idea that they're creating doesn't take off, who cares? Right. So that's really what their focus is. Um the other thing is like working with an awful, and Byron, I'm sure you're so familiar with startups are funny because there's a there's a super high tolerance for working around technical problems. It's kind of like a it's kind of like a badge of honor for startups, right? You know, like hey, I I need to print over here, and and we've got the wireless printer, and it's not working. I for whatever reason, I can't print to it. So I'm not gonna fix the problem. I'm gonna put the file onto a USB thumb drive and I'm gonna walk it over to the printer and stick it into the printer and print off of that, and we'll figure out the problem later. You know, it's like there's a real high tolerance for that kind of kind of thing. Um and I think then what that means is that those decisions sort of perpetuate over time, and you know, the founder of these companies is sort of um the founder is busy working on the thing that they're creating, and they time goes by, right? And as time goes by, another person gets hired, and then another person gets hired, and and they're still thinking about the thing that they're creating, and those people that get hired are now working on the thing that they're creating, and next thing you know, a company might be 20 or 30 people, but they're still operating in the way that they were uh when they were five people or two people. And so inevitably hopefully this growth happens, right? That's what we, as technical advisors, hope and pray, because that's what makes a successful company. Um and the tech that they have basically works, uh, but those problems start to become increasingly intrusive in terms of the technical issues, and and they sort of they have a they begin to have a more outsized impact on the on the business, whether it's it's hiring people or uh or more people or more of the staff are having technical issues because there's more people in a small room using a single home wireless wireless access point, and uh and they can't have stable Zoom calls or whatever. And it's just because of growth. Um, and then all of a sudden uh it the problems sort of come to a head a head, and and the the founder or now they have a COO or um a head of HR even pick up their head and they say, wait a second, here, we've got a lot of complaints, and and now we have people who are not being productive because we have all these technical problems. And the reason is because we're still using the same approach that we uh that we were using when we're two people.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

You've described it very well. And I think there's a good thing about what you said though. I mean, for the companies, like if the founders focused, you want the founders to focus on what they're doing, their technology. You don't want them focused on IT, but eventually somebody in the group, maybe some talented scientist who dabbles with IT, or his brother knows some IT, whatever. There's some there's some correlation there. Typical there's there's a driver somewhere like this uh before this thing, well, oh geez, we have to be compliant with this. And it's oh, or we have we're looking to get some funding and the and the and there's some due diligence going on, or or we or whatever it may be. Those are typically if they're if you if they're built from the beginning correctly, it'd be like, oh, no problem. But now the longer they go, the more expensive it is, or the more time consuming it is to shift. It's like, hey, make this completely redo this architecture, but you can't disrupt anybody in the process. Let go. That's uh that's really hard to do.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Well, and and I think that this um I think that this example um is one of the is one of the um is an example that sort of reinforces the notion that uh it's it can be incredibly helpful to bring in an IT executive like myself or or someone else to provide some guidance at the earliest stage, right? Uh it it sort of seems silly like to I I think to bring in an IT consultant when you're two people, but two becomes four, four becomes eight. Uh, and the earlier that you bring in um uh an IT consultant to help set some uh help set some parameters, help define some of the the technology approach, uh, can be really, really helpful. I mean look, it's one thing that we know is that we all live today uh and rely so much on the technical systems that we use. And it's very difficult to operate a business without having those systems be reliable and and safe and secure. So if we know that, um, it's kind of like plumbing for a house. I mean, you need to have this stuff work, you need to have it serve the business well. Um and if it's if it's not very, if it's not an expensive prospect uh to bring an IT uh consultant in, why not? I guess that's that's the question that I would ask. It's like um if it sets you up for future success, if you believe in yourself that you're going to grow the company, you might as well get it right to start with, um, as opposed to uh um going down the road and then picking up your head and realizing, wait a second here, uh we need some help. So I think that there's a lot of uh efficacy in in um uh in engaging with an IT consultant ahead of the at the front end of the uh business as opposed to sort of halfway through.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Sure. So we actually had jumped on a call before this recording, a pre-call, and you had mentioned working with a biotech company that was preparing for a raise and expected to hire quickly afterward, but they didn't have the right infrastructure in place. Um so what happens in that kind of situation?

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Yeah, so that uh I mean, unfortunately, that's this is one particular example of a very common story, right? Um very, very common story. So, you know, this happens to be a uh biotech company in that I'm working with um based in Cambridge, Cambridge Mass. Um there may be 25 employees uh and um have the good news is that they have uh a very effective biotechnology product that's about to uh get um an additional raise of of funding. And the anticipation is in the fourth quarter of this year that this company will more than double in size, right? Um as a function of the funding that they're anticipating receiving. So doubling in size, um and they've they've done the right things in terms of uh bringing in some capable operators, um, which is very helpful. And the operators are looking at the business saying, wait a second, here, uh if we're going to double in size, what do we need to do to make sure that we can we can um add that type of headcount and add it uh effectively? And then not just like the adding part of the headcount, but then all of us work together well on the things that we need to work together well on. And so they start taking a look at, I mean, the obvious things of um of the systems and tooling. So, you know, this is a in a very typical biotech where founders said, okay, uh, I like I like Google um workspace. That's what that's what I noticed. That's what we're gonna use. Uh, everyone go out and get your own computers and at the like literally like at the piggly wiggly, whatever's on sale. So go get uh a laptop and start working, uh get it joined to our Google workspace so you have email and uh and uh very disorganized, right? None of the systems are managed. Uh and that's fine when you have five and five machines, when you have 10 machines. Uh as you start to get bigger, um, not being able to say what machines do we have, um, uh have an inventory, like basic things. Uh do we have antivirus software on them? I don't know. Uh do we? No, I don't think so. Uh so the security part, the management part of the systems themselves, um, the consistency part so that uh the machines behave the same. Um, and then the consistency of things like where are we storing files? Those all all of the basics are uh are not there, but important to have, especially as you start to um scale the business. Um but then also some things that maybe are a little less intuitive. Um so if you're a Google Workspace shop and the vast majority of the work product that you're creating, aside from the lab stuff, right, the rest of it, the work product, is in Microsoft Office documents. And you're storing those Microsoft Office documents in a Google Workspace uh and drive and environment, does that make sense? Um does it work? Yes, it does work. Are you taking advantage of, are you able to do and take advantage of some of the cool capabilities that come with these cloud systems, um, such as co-authoring of documents? And so, you know, my conversation with the leadership was well, what kind of an organization do you want to be? Do you do you want to have the ability to co do things collaboratively, co-author documents, uh, work collectively on this information? The answer is yes. Do you need to live in a good in a Microsoft Office application world? Um, because if you don't, then then Google's your Google's great. Like Google's co-authoring um of work, of documents, of spreadsheets, of is really excellent. But Google doesn't want you to live in a Microsoft Office world, they want you to live in a Google Chrome world, right? So that's their application. If your answer is no, no, no, no, no, we need to live in Microsoft Word, um, Google Sheets is terrible, I need to live in Excel. Uh PowerPoint is the thing I need to, I need to work on. If you're gonna, if you say that I need to work in those um applications, then then you're putting a huge barrier in front of you by needing to store those files in Google Workspace because you're eliminating the ability to work collaboratively with your with your um fellow staff members. So that conversation is really about a decision about how do you want to work. And then if you want to work in one particular way, where best should you be, should you be um working? And so that decision has led to okay, we're gonna do a migration from Google Workspace to a Microsoft 365 cloud so that you're working and you're you're working in the right environment for how you want to work uh and you're setting your organization up uh for success. And we have to do this now because if we wait, this is an interruptive process. It's there's just no way around it. It's interruptive. So if we wait and do it later, it's painful. It's painful now. The company is running it flat out at 110 miles an hour uh to try and deliver the things that they need for the raise. And so this is a difficult conversation uh to say we need to we need to interrupt every single member of the team and and pause them um while we go through this process. But imagine after the raise, are you gonna be working more slowly uh than you are now, or are you gonna be accelerating faster with more people? Is it gonna be more interruptive then, after you're now twice as big uh to uh to do this process, or should we just rip the band-aid off now? And I the the answer is invariably the right decision is typically to rip the band-aid off now and and just take the pain, it's a temporary pain to set yourself up for success and and less pain down the road.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Yeah, I mean that's something you said earlier, too, where you have founders who are uh, you know, there's scientists or obvious most of them have PhDs in these days for like the life science and stuff like that. But founders sometimes themselves are not engaged with with IT, and so you get they have somebody else. And so I guess that the one of the challenges you may have, and and many people have, is trying to uh help them know that you're driving the mission and and and finding a way to communicate to them because you're maybe you're dealing with somebody else to say oh or or the most capable IT person in the group. And you know, founders are often, you know, in their 60-hour week, say like IT is only uh just make it work or whatever. So I I can imagine that uh I mean I guess is it you you have any methods or or or thoughts on how to bring get it to the top so it works down, or or is this a more of a bottom-up approach?

SPEAKER_02 39:04

No, I I mean I I I think um it's a it's a good question. I I think that they in in let's just use this as the um as the example. Uh the founder and and the CEO of this biotech is exactly as you described, right? They're focused on the thing that they're creating, they're focused on the mission of the company. Um and they're also focused um in a very positive way on ensuring that the the team is driving hard and fast to complete that mission because they know what's at stake. They know that that uh that in order for the company to succeed, they need to hit XYZ benchmarks in order to raise the next round, uh, and then hit more benchmarks in order to raise the next round. Um, and so having that conversation with them that says in order for the team to be the most effective, these are the things that we need to do. And these changes that we need to make in order for them to, in order for us to set them up for success, are going to be interruptive. And and the initial reaction is we cannot, we cannot interrupt what they're doing today. And you just have to try and articulate, I get it, I totally get it. We're gonna try and change the tires as we're speeding down the highway as as easily as we can. But imagine if this is in a is in a sedan, it's now an 18-wheeler because we're 16. Uh we're we're we're we're double the size, and we're trying to change the tires on an 18-wheeler and not a on a four uh uh four-door passenger sedan. How much more difficult is that going to be? And and and inevitably, you know, hopefully reason reason takes hold and uh and they see what you're saying, right? Uh, and they take the path of uh the least amount of pain, even though there is pain. Uh it's uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Yeah, no, I I love the image that you created for me using the uh analogy with the vehicles. That's uh a really good way to put it. So, Ian, when you evaluate a company's IT environment, what are you typically looking at first? Or does it depend on what stage the company's at and their maturity?

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah, so that's a good question. I mean, it's fairly I I would say um it's it's fairly consistent across companies, whether it's a small company, a mature company. Um you know, uh I just have done uh a couple of evaluations for uh for 30-year-old defense companies, right? Um and very simple, the approach is the same to uh a new startup. And so, you know, we look at, as I said in the beginning, we s we we go through a fairly standardized process. Um we look at the infrastructure, network, servers, laptops, desktops, are there any monitoring systems and tools, uh, the the security of their cloud, internal policies, and whether the policies um what if they have policies, if they do have policies, do those policies support the type of business that they're in? Um a defense company is an interesting example because you have very specific compliance requirements for defense companies. Do you have the policies internally that support those uh the needs for CMMC or or um uh whatever? It doesn't have to be a defense company, but whatever compliance requirements that you might have, uh definitely look at their the performance of their IT team if they have an IT team. If you're a really small company, you may not, um, but that's a call out all by itself, potentially. Um, and I really like to talk to the staff of the company. Um, so I it's sort of an important component to have a conversation with, depending on the size of the business, three to seven, three to ten different employees of the company, because that really can illuminate um uh a voice of the people, if you will, a voice of the customer. Um, IT is a customer uh service business, right? And uh it can illuminate sort of the the voice of uh say you're say the employee is a runs sales for the business or or runs customer success or runs product development. What is what is what are they not able to do from a tech from a technology perspective that they wish they could do? Uh what are the things that they that they find frustrating? Um and uh the lack of sort of enablement. And sometimes you can surface some just incredible areas. Incredibly great ideas, but also some insights into how technology is either serving or not serving the business as it should be.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Can you explain what a score-based IT assessment is and how it helps leadership teams understand where they stand?

SPEAKER_02 44:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's a good question. So as part of the assessments that we do, a component of it is to go through sort of think of it as kind of a mechanical process of sorry, my dog is here. Not very cute. So we go through a process of uh of evaluating about across about 200, 250 different metrics questions. Um and and those questions are typically yes-no questions. So do you have X? Yes, no. Um and as a result, you end up with a score, uh, and the score is fairly black and white. It's let's say it's a score of 50. Uh, and that's what the score is. And and you are able to provide some color as to what drove the score. Maybe 50 is a positive number, maybe 50 is a negative number, or not positive. But one of the benefits is that um it gives you a baseline of where your IT's health is today. Uh, and it also gives you things that you're going to work on in order to improve that baseline. And hopefully, what you do is in a after a period of time, let's call it a year, you rerun the assessment and you get a different score. And hopefully that score is instead of 50, it's now 60 or it's 75, because you've gone ahead and addressed some of the um some of the negatives of your of your uh IT assessment, and you can show improvement over time. So that's one of the the benefits of having a score-based assessment uh is that you can show progress. If you're an IT person, you can demonstrate progress to the leadership of the company and say, look, we're making progress, and you can uh feel confident that over time you're improving the systems and the and the uh platform for the business.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

No, I think that that's great, and that must be super helpful. I'm curious what advice you would give a founder who is still early and thinks, you know, we're just too small to worry about this yet.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Yeah, I I so um I think the advice that I would start with is just lead by lead with some examples of where uh so I'll give you a couple of things. One is lead with some examples um where companies that that don't get advice early in the process the type of trouble that they run into. Um but we don't want to talk in negatives all the time, right? So why don't we we can talk in some positives about uh about how companies that have engaged uh with an IT professional early in the process have succeeded, right? So I I use an example of I think it was in 2008, uh a I was approached by uh a guy, uh the founder of a company, um, and he I he came to me as a as a uh relationship from um his chief operating officer who had worked in another company that I had helped with their IT. So this was in 2008, and this guy's brilliant. Um, and he was just starting a company. There were now three people, I think. Um, and that company was a company called Wordstream. Um he had the he was a think of him as a scientist, a guy, a brilliant guy named Larry Kim. Uh, and he developed a platform and a sort of an idea about um uh about how to manage Google AdWords. So he built a platform, he built a company called Wordstream. Uh Wordstream, when I started working with them, was three people, and really the conversation that we had initially was listen, we're gonna grow this business. And we have we have funding, uh, we have a great idea, we've got a brilliant guy, we're gonna grow this business, and we need to set the business up to support that growth. Uh and I worked with them for uh probably 15 years. Um, they went from three people to 300. Uh, they were eventually bought by um Gannett uh and you know major public company. Uh and I do believe that because of that initial conversation and those initial framing of where he wants where they wanted to take the business, did it go from five people to 300 like that? No. It took it took time and it took multiple iterations, multiple office moves, multiple growth stages, um, multiple COOs. But you know, but a foundational part of that business was that initial conversation and saying, okay, well, here are the things that we need to do today to set ourselves up for success down the road. And I think that that was not an expensive conversation for them to have, right? That was an easy conversation. Uh, not a lot of IT help needed when you're five people, but um, but it really didn't a conversation like that can yield really positive results in terms of supporting growth um over time.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

No, absolutely. That foundation is is so support and um so Ian, I'm curious what excites you most about helping companies in your role?

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Oh well, uh there's a selfish part, right? Um I gotta lead with that, gotta be selfish. Uh I mean I think one of the things that I'm sure Byron um can absolutely relate to this, is one of the reasons that I've loved a career as a consultant. Uh, 30 years in in IT consulting um is just the diversity of uh of challenges and and uh the different types of companies and the different issues that they have and the different people that they have. Uh and that diversity is is really engaging. And that's what's fun about consulting. So I'll leave with the the the selfish part of um that's what I enjoyed doing. But you know, the other piece is obviously I feel like you I feel you that I can in my role have a very positive effect on the outcome for companies. Um and uh being able to provide what I think is at least reasonably well-founded advice and guide the organization in in a positive direction. You like to see the outcome and you and you like to see companies grow and succeed as a result. So I would say that's that's it.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Yeah, no, I think that that sounds really rewarding. Brian, before I move into our final question, I want to leave space for you if you have any other questions that you wanted to chat with Ian about.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

No, I think uh it's become clear, you know, that people like Ian, you know, your the stuff you do for companies is really important, especially early is better. Um, and I would say that if even if it's not early, uh, you know, there's a it takes a certain set of experience. I've seen that, done that to uh help people maybe get on the right path, unwind something. So I think this whole conversation's been very enlightening. So I you know, so far I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 52:19

That's been fun.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

Yeah, no, absolutely. So, Ian, we like to ask this as a final question to our first-time guests. And I'd love if you can tell us something interesting about you that people may be surprised to learn.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Uh, that's a good question. Um, well, uh how about one thing? Um my wife and I recently, uh for our 25th anniversary, uh climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Uh big believers in travel and uh and um going out and experiencing the world. And uh, you know, that was that was a recent trip uh that we took and uh and also a good challenge.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Yeah, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Wow, yeah. I've known a few people who have done that and and they've had varied success. Uh I mean it can be very weather can change pretty pr pretty quick quickly. And uh wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 53:13

That's uh that's I give all the credit. I give all the credit to my my wife for sticking through it. Uh having that was her first experience um camping outside. And to have your first experience camping on the side of Mount Kilimanjaro um is is brave.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Good for her and congrats 25 years. That's quite an accomplishment.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

Yeah, she went from from zero to a hundred. You know, there's no minute. Wow, that's amazing. Wow, that's a great memory.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

I I I I won't describe the first evening uh under the the skies uh uh in Africa, but um it was it it was an experience.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

That's cool. That's really cool. I'm sure you got some great pictures too.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Yes, yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, uh Ian, for listeners who want to learn more about Tech CXO or connect with you directly, where would you recommend they go?

SPEAKER_02 54:13

Uh good question. Um uh so certainly you can obviously go to the TechCXO website. We're uh we're a reasonably good-sized company. We're we're about 120 partners, about 240 employees in total uh across the country. Um and uh we do provide, as I say, fractional executives um throughout the executive suite. So uh we really have a compelling offering for um for early stage uh and um even mid-cycle companies. Um so Google TechCXO. Um also you can if you just Google my name, Ian Finley, um you'll find me um uh very easily.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Perfect. And I will link all of that in the show notes as well. Uh thank you so much for joining us today, Ian. Today's conversation reminds us that growth does not only depend on the product, the raise, or the next hire. It also depends on the foundations that make skill possible. The technology decisions that companies make early can either create momentum or create friction. And the right guidance at the right time can make all the difference.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

And as companies grow, technology becomes part of how they manage risk, so their teams protect their work and move faster with confidence. Thanks for listening to Edge of Excellence. Until next time, stay curious. And if you like this episode, be sure to hit the like button on whatever platform because the algorithms help us reach out more people just like you.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Thank you for tuning in to the Edge of Excellence. We hope today's insights empower you to shape your future and rise to your full potential. Let's continue to grow, innovate, and lead, pushing the boundaries of excellence.