“We have backups.” In IT operations, these three words are sometimes reassuring. Sometimes they’re one of the most misleading things a company can say.Because the question isn’t whether backups exist. The question is whether they work — whether, in the event of a real incident, you can actually restore your data from them, how long …
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 …
Read more “What Your First 30 Days With a Fractional IT Consultant Actually Looks Like”
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)”
Software engineers are familiar with technical debt — the accumulated cost of shortcuts, quick fixes, and deferred improvements in code. The debt doesn’t cause problems immediately. But it compounds. And eventually, paying it down becomes unavoidable. IT operations has the same dynamic. I call it IT debt. What IT Debt Looks Like IT debt is …
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”
If you’re building out your IT stack, one of the most consequential decisions you’ll make is choosing an identity provider (IdP) — the platform that manages who your employees are, how they authenticate, and what they can access. The right choice saves you significant time and creates the foundation for scalable, secure IT operations. The …
Read more “Okta vs JumpCloud vs Microsoft Entra: Which Identity Provider Is Right for Your Startup?”
In 2024-2025, the single most common cause of a business data breach was still compromised credentials. Not sophisticated zero-day exploits. Not nation-state actors. Someone reused their LinkedIn password for their work email, LinkedIn got breached, and attackers tried those credentials on other services. It worked. Password security is not glamorous. It doesn’t involve cutting-edge technology …
Read more “Password Security for Startups: The Simple Fixes That Block 80% of Breaches”
Nobody wants to think about a security incident until they’re in the middle of one. That’s the problem. Because when a breach happens — or is suspected — the first 60 minutes are the most important. The decisions made in that window determine whether the incident is contained and managed professionally, or whether it becomes …
Read more “Incident Response for Startups: What to Do in the First 60 Minutes After a Breach”
There’s a moment in IT that feels almost like magic the first time you see it. A brand new MacBook, still in the box, is handed to a new employee. They open it. They turn it on. They enter their company email address. And within 20 minutes, all of their apps are installed, all of …
Read more “Zero-Touch Laptop Deployment: How to Set Up Every New Hire’s Computer Before They Arrive”
Nobody wants to think about a security incident until they’re in the middle of one. That’s the problem. Because when a breach happens — or is suspected — the first 60 minutes are the most important. The decisions made in that window determine whether the incident is contained and managed professionally, or whether it becomes …
Read more “Incident Response for Startups: What to Do in the First 60 Minutes After a Breach”