July 23, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Leveling the Field
July 24, 2012 at 7:36 am
Small companies are really cool environments for a number of reasons - I wouldn't trade my experience in them.
Small business to cloud for infrastructure? I'm not sure about that one. Maybe really early in the game when you're first moving from concept to reality.
I'd still worry about my barganing position with a cloud server (none) and what a transition to another cloud offering would look like.
Also the cost is ongoing - you can sell your angel investors on the need for a better server if it isn't performing, but a flat rate cost outlay when your sales aren't ramping up as you expected can give the business people acid reflux.
If the monthly cost of all your servers +data +services is less than the monthly cost of one developer then you can mostly disregard the above.
FWIW,
-Chris C.
July 24, 2012 at 8:36 am
Small companies buying big products often end up with large consulting bills to get that big product to do what they want; they're simply not built for an all-default install to work well (or at all).
Going to the cloud seems even worse; perhaps you can get something stood up quickly, with limited capital costs. However, the company may still end up with large consulting bills to get things working, and then has to handle the increasing ongoing costs as A) rates go up, and B) if usage goes up (perhaps someone accidentally runs a large cross join; in the cloud, you may well pay for that, in CPU, memory, disk IO, and/or network IO fees).
Exit strategy was mentioned, and that's also very critical, and with any product can be expensive.
July 24, 2012 at 9:18 am
Chris.C-977504
I'd still worry about my barganing position with a cloud server (none) and what a transition to another cloud offering would look like.Also the cost is ongoing - you can sell your angel investors on the need for a better server if it isn't performing, but a flat rate cost outlay when your sales aren't ramping up as you expected can give the business people acid reflux.
Nadrek (7/24/2012)
Small companies buying big products often end up with large consulting bills to get that big product to do what they want; they're simply not built for an all-default install to work well (or at all).Going to the cloud seems even worse; perhaps you can get something stood up quickly, with limited capital costs. However, the company may still end up with large consulting bills to get things working, and then has to handle the increasing ongoing costs as A) rates go up, and B) if usage goes up (perhaps someone accidentally runs a large cross join; in the cloud, you may well pay for that, in CPU, memory, disk IO, and/or network IO fees).
Except that dozens of companies I've talked to in the last year or have friends working for are using the cloud for mail, Office-style apps, CRM, and more. Salesforce is a cloud company. Do you really think that it's cheaper for small companies to do this in house? The cost of one IT administrator can be the cost of your software in the cloud for years.
Starts especially (<10 people) can run their stuff in the cloud for the hardware cost of a single server for over a year.
July 24, 2012 at 9:43 am
I am with Steve on this one. Small companies do often start or gravitate to open source products and for the initial IT work can find a very solid cheap solution in the cloud.
I say this because I manage a website that is UBUNTU/Apache/PHP/MySQL/Drupal on a cloud server. The cost of the software was zero. The cost of the production, development, staging, and migration average $6 a month per server, but development time and administration time is not cheap, but the rest of the package is very reasonable.
To do similar with in house hardware and software would be a huge challenge to this very small company. Take the cost of SQL Server and Windows Server alone running on a mid-range HP or Dell server would cost the effort well out of the comfort zone for a company this size. Now if they were an IT outfit this would be different, but where IT is a service and not the main product of the company it is very cost efficient to run cloud and open source. For some it is the only way they can put up and IT server/site until there is more revenue/profit.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
July 24, 2012 at 9:54 am
I work for a large company now, but did consulting work for SMB's for several years and still do some volunteer work for non-profits.
Having internal resources do IT is difficult and takes the focus away from the primary job. Affording a dedicated IT person is impossible in many cases (hence my consulting work).
For startups and really small businesses, I would think that cloud services could be tremendous in that 1) it has low initial costs, 2) it provides a large company presence for very small costs, and 3) startup time can be reduced to days instead of weeks. Additionally, it can scale quickly, but as others have mentioned, when you start doing that, you need to start looking at your payback ratio.
Cheers,
Joe
July 24, 2012 at 10:23 am
:w00t:There are good things about smaller companies and not so good. It just depends on what you want out of the job. For example, here are some things below that tend to be a "con" working for a smaller company. But again, it is relative to what you can deal with too.
1. In smaller companies you aren’t able to delegate as much of your workload, so you may be asked to wear many hats and take on a lot more roles. If you're open to the challenge and like the idea of multitasking, then this could be a great move. However, if change and taking on new responsibilities is not your cup of tea, you may quickly feel like the odd man out and perhaps even over your head very quickly depending on the added responsibilities.
2. In a smaller company, blunders are really magnified.. So, realize that there'll be times you might feel you're under a microscope and every hiccup you make could be magnified and agonized over. Been there done that. It's much easier to get canned in a smaller company because of this. You are on a much smaller "blame" list in a small company.
3. You might risk getting yourself pegged as a generalist, or a "Jack-of-all-trades" in a smaller company. If the company does well, this may not matter. However, should the company fail after a few years, you'll be on the market again and you may have lost your edge. Particularly, if you had a specific technical specialty going in to that small company.
4. In a smaller company, if things go badly and expectations aren’t met, and if the bottom line is negatively impacted, you’re an easier scapegoat. You’re apt to get blamed for the company’s failures because your fingerprints are more likely to be associated with the company’s problems and losses. I think they call this "getting thrown under the bus." and it happens a lot at small companies in my expereince.
5. Also, smaller companies tend to be run by families or very old friends. So, the politics, dysfunctionality, corruption, "good ole boy' syndrome, and cliques and groups can be quite something to deal with on a daily basis. I'm not saying that larger companies don't have this, but in smaller companies, it can be more of a acute daily dynamic to deal with than you planned on. For example, I have seen smaller companies where the family owners are yelling and screaming at people to make deadlines all the time. That is not usually tolerated in larger companies as a general rule today. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
July 24, 2012 at 11:38 am
I've been working at the same place (14 years now) since getting out of school and it's what what you might call a big small company or a small big company (~800 people) depending on your cup of tea.
It's great to read about your experiences in small companies. I've always wondered what it was like.
Thanks!
___________________________________
I love you but you're standing on my foot.
July 24, 2012 at 12:06 pm
I agree with what Steve is saying and would take it a step further to extend that cost-saving logic and focus-on-your-core-business logic to not just small companies, but mid-size and larger ones, or at least departments and divisions of larger companies.
It's not like mid-size and large companies, just because they are bigger, have stashes of extra money they are looking to spend if they don't really need to. Granted, in some cases they may need to, because of their size (perhaps) or security/regulatory requirements (perhaps) or their unique (perhaps) business model/requirements which current cloud-based offerings can't satisfy. But more and more of them are finding that cloud-based solutions serve their needs very well. Meanwhile, new SaaS providers are continually emerging and existing ones are adding to their offerings to fill any requirement gaps that may currently exist.
I think it's just a matter of time before most mid-size and large companies move more and more of their applications to the cloud, even if they do have a large IT budget, have historically spent a lot of that on in-house applications, and even if they currently have a mindset that is not inclined toward cloud offerings. Even the largest companies don't exist in a vacuum - the economic and competitive pressures they face will eventually cause them to reconsider how they are spending their money.
The applications that do stay in-house are going to be the ones that truly meet their own unique business requirements or confer some type of competitive advantage they can't get from Cloud/SaaS offerings.
July 24, 2012 at 12:28 pm
TravisDBA (7/24/2012)
:w00t:1. In smaller companies you aren’t able to delegate as much of your workload, so you may be asked to wear many hats and take on a lot more roles.
2. In a smaller company, blunders are really magnified.
3. You might risk getting yourself pegged as a generalist, or a "Jack-of-all-trades" in a smaller company. If the company does well, this may not matter.
4. In a smaller company, if things go badly and expectations aren’t met, and if the bottom line is negatively impacted, you’re an easier scapegoat.
5. Also, smaller companies tend to be run by families or very old friends.
Travis - I love what you have stated here and it is all true. I will not argue but I find much the same in larger companies or situations.
1. Delegation depends on another resource being ready to stand in. There is no guarantee in a large business that this is possible. It is not about the number of employees or the size of the task. It is more the employee to work ratio. It varies from place to place, and small to large.
2. Blunders are always magnified. In a small company if you make say a round factor error that is .4% of the total revenue you might be talking four thousand off but for the large company you might see this balloon up to four hundred thousand. Both would get bad press.
3. With so much to do and so few to do it in a larger company that you also run the risk of being seen as a generalist.
4. IT = scapegoat no matter what company it is large or small. And we are often seen as too expensive for what we do. Highest paid non-management, often first cut.
5. Larger companies can be run by families, very old friends, cliques, or the latest FAD management trend. If you are not in the "In Crowd" you might find yourself toast.
Again I love your points. I think we can apply them to larger companies as well.
M.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
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