@ccwtech said in How to Grow from a One Man Operation to Two:

Are any speaking from experience in starting a company fresh or is this mostly anecdotal?

I started my company about 5 years ago and have been totally out on my own for a couple years now.

I agree that larger companies have advantages in many ways, but it doesn't mean it's impossible to start and grow your own company.

The OP was asking how to go from a one man shop to two. What that looks like in reality, is going from google voice to a hosted PBX. Yes you now have an additional cost, but now you have two people that can answer the main number. Most of the growth steps look like this.

@irj said in How to Grow from a One Man Operation to Two:

So if they have a home lab and professional experience , you're gonna still pay minimum wage?

If they have professional experience, you have to figure out how valuable that experience is to you. If it's professional experience in something that you don't touch, minimum wage might be appropriate. OTOH they might be able to make more somewhere else, so it's not a good fit. They are worth more - just not to your business.

@storageninja said in How to Grow from a One Man Operation to Two:

I never hired guys with zero experience, because they cost me more than they made me vs. the premium to pay someone for 40 hours and benefits who was... useful and I could bill at $120-140 an hour.

Zero experience means you have to ask about the home lab. If they really have an interest in something they will probably be doing it in their free time. If they have zero professional experience and no lab experience, I wouldn't be interested either.

@storageninja said in What are the highest paying IT careers?:

Get to know employees of the company you want to work for. I was referred by the chief technologist in the BU. That likely went a ways towards making sure I got a call back.
I wrote some blogs that he liked, and met him at a conference. Go to conferences.

good advice here.

With that said, if a skilled employee left, you wouldn't have much of a choice but to look for a skilled employee.

@irj said in How to Grow from a One Man Operation to Two:

Curious on everyone's thoughts on how skilled this first employee should be, and how much they should get paid. Are you cheap like the typical SMB and get someone for $40k? or do you pay for actual talent at $70-100K?

I would say that if you don't want a rotten apple, you don't go to the barrel, you go to the tree. I've hired high school and college students. I'll pay them minimum wage and give them raises as they earn it.

As part of the hiring process, I explain that I can pay them what they are worth as they can do more advanced tasks. One reason I left corporate IT is that in a small company you can hit the ceiling pretty fast. As an MSP if you master the daily task, you have an incentive to automate things.

@bigbear said in How to Grow from a One Man Operation to Two:

Something where customers are actually seeking out solutions the way small offices needed a server, email and netowrk help in the late 90's and early 2000's?

Small businesses still need help with networking, wireless setups, and email. (mostly in the form of o365 migrations.)

@scottalanmiller said in How to Grow from a One Man Operation to Two:

The problem with the 51/49 split is that everyone wants to be the 51%.

Right. If you own 100% because you are a one man shop, I would argue that you don't need someone at your level, you need someone entry level at first. Even years down the line, you may need someone at your technical level or higher, but as the business owner, you need to work on the business, not in the business.

@eddiejennings Is your band a registered 501 c3 ? They don't just give them to all non profit organizations.

Based on my own personal experience, I don't agree with a few points here. I've grown my own MSP business without debt beyond just myself. As a one man shop there are a lot of tasks you can find for an entry level person. Your contract rates don't change, but you don't have to stop what you're doing for the easy tasks.

I also don't think partnerships are a good way to go for businesses of any type. Read about all the case studies and you'll find that a 51% to 49% split is way better than 50/50. At the end of the day there are some decisions that have to be made, and there needs to be a final authority.

@scottalanmiller said in Windows 7 licenses:

Logistics.

So all web based apps and nothing like UPS WorldShip that only runs on Windows?

@scottalanmiller said in Windows 7 licenses:

I get to implement a Windows free workplace starting tonight. Woot!!

What line of work is the workplace in? I like the idea, but everywhere I go it seems that the company has one app that won't run on Linux. It's getting better with so many web based apps, but the second issue is training. I deal with so many companies that would struggle learning how to go from Microsoft Office to Open Office.

@wrx7m said in Windows 7 licenses:

I also had to take 5 pictures EACH of OEM license stickers from 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 Pro, to prove that I was actually using upgrades from OEM.

I had to do the picture thing the first time they audited us.

@gjacobse said in Windows 7 licenses:

Non-Profits make up 10 of my last 13 years

That's what I was thinking.

@gjacobse said in Windows 7 licenses:

What they heck? In all my years - I'm not sure MS has ever looked at my sites...

I haven't had them audit any of my non for profit clients...

@dbeato said in site to site VPN only works with Keep Alive:

@mike-davis said in site to site VPN only works with Keep Alive:

5.9.0.7-17o

That is a pretty old firmware. Update to the latest 5.9.1.7 and 5.9.1.8.

I totally forgot about that. Like I said, this was a spare one I had on hand for testing and I wanted to make sure I could get the tunnel up when I factory reset the one under support since I can't log in to see its settings.

@jaredbusch said in Windows 7 licenses:

Took 2 months of back and forth and sending links to MS documentation.

been there. It was like the level 1 guy would only read what you put in the boxes in the Excel spreadsheet.

Out of a handful of larger clients, I have one that has been getting audited pretty much every 2 years. This last round was great. The client has been buying all their licensing through CDW, so my CDW rep said he would take care of it.

@dbeato said in site to site VPN only works with Keep Alive:

@mike-davis What firmware are you on?

5.9.0.7-17o on the remote side for my test environment. That will be swapped out for one under support. My issue is that I don't have the password to the production one, so my only option is to factory default it and I wanted to make sure if I did, I could get the tunnel back up.

The main is is current firmware since it's under support.