I support IT for a London agency of about 60 people. Macs, Microsoft 365, Slack, identity in Entra ID. The tools were fine. The problem sat between them. What I found Joining and leaving the company was not written down. It worked because the right person happened to remember. That holds at 20 people. It …
Read more “Nobody had written down how people join and leave”
Ask a growing company a simple question: how many people work here? You’d expect one answer. In most audits I run, I get four or five. On a recent user access audit for a company of around 80 people, every system told a different story: None of these numbers is dramatic on its own. Together, …
This is where most founders stall, and the reason is arithmetic. A full-time senior IT lead at 35 people is a significant salary for a role that, once built properly, is genuinely part time. Founders sense that mismatch. So the decision gets deferred, and the work keeps spreading sideways. But the choice is not between …
No milestone triggered this post. No anniversary, no big launch. Just five years behind me and enough distance to see the shape of them clearly. Here is what I learned, and where it came from. Tide: Building IT From Zero I joined Tide as employee 39. There was no exactly IT department to speak of.That …
Read more “Five Years In: What 2021 to 2026 Taught Me About IT and Business”
Every IT career looks tidy on a CV. Job title, dates, bullet points. What it does not show is the moment you inherit a system nobody documented, or the Friday afternoon when a company of 200 people discovers that the person who set up the domain left eighteen months ago. This is the version with …
Read more “Twelve Years in IT Operations: What I Learned Building It Five Times”
Most founders run their business on trust. They trust that access is controlled, that licenses are used, that laptops are safe. The problem is that trust is not a report. It is a guess. An IT audit turns that guess into a clear picture, usually in under a week. What it covers Identity and access: …
Read more “What do you actually know about your company’s IT?”
Someone left a company I support. Laptop handed back, farewell drinks done, name off the org chart. Three weeks later, their account was still active. Email working. Client folders still syncing to a personal machine. Their login still sitting in a password manager nobody had audited. Nobody did this on purpose. There was simply no …
Read more “The Leaver Who Still Had Access Three Weeks Later”
If you’re a founder, CEO, or COO running a company between 20 and 100 people, you’ve probably had this thought at some point: I have no idea what my IT person actually does all day. You see them in Slack. You hear about tickets being closed. You approve their tool subscriptions and licence renewals. You …
Read more “Your IT Team Has Been Busy. But Has It Been Useful?”
Scaling SaaS companies lose enterprise deals to security questionnaires they can’t answer. Here’s exactly what buyers ask, why “let me check” loses deals, and the 4-week fix that doesn’t require a full-time IT hire. Focus keyword: SaaS security questionnaire Your product is ready for enterprise customers. Your sales team has finally booked the meeting with …
Read more “The Security Questionnaire That Kills SaaS Deals (And the 4-Week Fix)”
Introduction At some point in a company’s growth, IT becomes too important to ignore and too expensive to fully staff. This is the point where many founders either overhire — bringing on a full-time IT Manager before the workload justifies it — or underhire — giving the responsibility to someone whose primary job is something …
Read more “Fractional IT vs Full-Time Hire: What Actually Makes Sense for a 20-100 Person Company”