Consulting Cto

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MISSION: To help technology management and senior management in young companies through the challenges they face in their technology organization. My name is Jon Tulk and I am the Consulting CTO. My mission is to help technology management and senior management in young companies through the challenges they face in their technology organization. Young growing companies face unique challenges. Most of these derive directly from the stage the company is in: Struggling to build products, services, revenue streams, and internal processes. All at the same time and with limited resources. Here are some of the challenges I commonly see. I could go on. Do any of these sound familiar? A direct result of the fact that most startup companies are cash-strapped. People are working long hours and not spending enough time on the bigger picture. It's just a phase and you plan to grow out of it. The sooner the better. Before people burn out. You need to set priorities wisely, focus on projects that get you to the next growth goal, and hire the best people possible. -The need to build networks and systems on a shoestring budget. The size of the shoestring varies depending on the nature of the business and how much revenue is coming in. The challenge is to spend the right amount for the networks, servers, desktop systems, and software that support the business. Spending too little can be more inefficient than spending too much. -Not enough management experience. Early hiring probably focused on a few leaders and a number of young, energetic, bright, individual contributors. There may be few, if any, in the management team with long years of experience at growing and managing organizations, setting technology direction, putting in place the minimal processes that will ensure long-term success. -Lack of planning. When everyone's running as fast as they can to work on core development or support issues, little or no time gets put into planning. This leads directly to wasted time--one thing a small company can't afford. Oddly, the plans that do get written--under duress--are usually the ones that show potential investors what you would do with money if they gave it to you. Useful for raising investment, mostly useless for dealing with current reality. -Lack of policies, procedures, and standards. This is an interesting problem--a two-edged sword. Policies and procedures add overhead that very small companies may think they can't afford. But not addressing this leaves the company at the mercy of the individual contributors. They may do an exceptional job--or they may not. Either way, there is no guarantee of repeatability. The important thing is to install the right policies at the right time and to instill a culture that welcomes creation of repeatable processes as they become possible. -Strategic technology decisions. Can you afford to let these happen by default? Choices made for technology platforms in the formative stages of a company often live far longer than anyone would imagine. You need to get as many of these correct as possible up front to pave the way for smooth growth into the future, otherwise you'll be needing to change horses in mid-stream later on. This is partly a matter of good long-term technology choices and partly a matter of a strategy that allows for necessary, expected change with minimal impact as the company grows. -Need for excellence in hiring. Every hire counts; more so in a small company than in a large one. You need to attract, hire, and keep the best people the company can afford. This takes time, effort, and process. It is not a hard problem to solve but it is critical to your success. -Need to support investment activities. You need to do those things necessary to attract investment--whether it be creation of presentations, selection of technologies, planning and budgeting, staffing, and meeting with investors. These will take time and attention away from critical core development and support issues. You need to integrate these with normal activities as much as possible to minimize the distraction factor.

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