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”
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 …
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Introduction Cybersecurity discussions at the enterprise level involve zero-trust architecture, SOC teams, and SIEM platforms. For a 50-person SaaS company, none of that is the relevant conversation. The relevant conversation is whether basic controls are in place — because in most cases, they are not. This guide covers the most common cybersecurity gaps I encounter …
Read more “SMB Cybersecurity in 2026: The Basics That Still Get Ignored”
Introduction There is a gap in almost every fast-growing SMB. It sits somewhere between 20 and 100 employees. The company is too big for the founder or office manager to handle IT on the side, but too small to justify hiring a full-time IT Manager at £50,000-65,000 per year. This gap is where IT problems …
Read more “The IT Staffing Gap: Why Scaling SMBs Get Stuck Between DIY and Full-Time”
GDPR compliance is often framed as a legal problem — something for lawyers and data protection officers to worry about. And there is a legal dimension to it. But most of the practical work of GDPR compliance isn’t legal. It’s IT. It’s about knowing where personal data lives, controlling who can access it, and having …
Read more “GDPR and Your IT Stack: What You Actually Need to Have in Place”
For most growing companies, Slack is where work happens. It’s where decisions are made, information is shared, and teams coordinate. It’s the connective tissue of the organisation. It’s also one of the most underexamined security surfaces in most IT audits. Not because it’s particularly vulnerable — Slack is a well-built product with strong security features. …
Read more “The Slack Security Audit: What to Check and What to Fix in Your Company’s Most-Used Tool”
One of the most common questions I get from founders considering fractional IT is: “What does the engagement actually look like? What will you do?” It’s a fair question. IT is an area where it can be hard to visualise what value looks like before you see it. Here’s an honest, detailed account of what …
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There’s a piece of software that costs less than £10 per person per month, immediately improves your company’s security posture, and pays for itself within weeks through time saved and risk reduced. Almost every company should have it. Many don’t. The password manager. The Problem It Solves Without a password manager, companies share credentials the …
Read more “Why Every Startup Needs a Password Manager (And Which One to Choose)”
The phone call came on a Tuesday afternoon. “We have a call with a potential enterprise customer on Friday. They’ve sent us a security questionnaire. They want to see our documentation.” It was the company’s first serious enterprise opportunity. The customer was a large financial services firm with strict vendor onboarding requirements. The questionnaire covered: …
Read more “72 Hours to Enterprise Security Documentation: What We Built and What We Learned”