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Join me on my journey as I share my insights and experiences on all things Apple, Business and Entrepreneurship!
Join me on my journey as I share my insights and experiences on all things Apple, Business and Entrepreneurship!
I did have a question because of what you mentioned in your inability to work on the business because of what you were doing, so now that you’ve. Done this. Has that provided a chance for you to step back perhaps from tech support in some way and allow some of, I don’t know, Interlaced staff to take some of that burden from you? Or is that not part of the game yet? So we just finished the integration of the ticketing systems, which was the biggest roadblock and hurdle...
Yeah, I think that the hurdle that I wasn’t as ready for, and the thing that kind of took me off guard was I came into the team. And I had built this thing and I was very comfortable where I was as the business owner operator, and I just assumed that I would continue to feel that level of comfort in continuing to build my book of business. I think that when you’re working in a large group, in a large team, especially one as large as Interlaced, it’s...
Especially when a lot of clients might have a cynical expectation that when a company that’s going just fine merges with another company, it’s out of greed or some like business reasons that doesn’t necessarily benefit them. That might be they may be prone to thinking that, so you definitely want to go even above and beyond to make sure that they’re still feeling taken care of and understanding that this is in their interest to have better coverage and more standard offerings and better support in general. So that’s...
Jon, in some of your strategic planning, now that the merger has fully taken place, as Joe mentioned earlier in the conversation, it’s always a challenge to expand your team, grow your team, and it’s, yeah, there’s a financial burden there. Was there a roadmap for you that was provided? By your buyer that said, look, once we do this acquisition, we’re gonna give you the ability to hire on three, five people. So we’re not only gonna allow you to add more clients in the DC area, but we’re...
So how does that break down geographically and how do you put the hat on of VP of Technology and Cybersecurity at Interlaced versus Running Grove and is there a process you’re heading toward where. Everything is under one umbrella ultimately. Owner operators tend to become very bad employees because they are just aren’t used to working under a construct that they don’t have any control over. So I certainly went through that and still am going through that sort of transition. The one thing that’s been very helpful in...
What we’re moving towards is a more unified company. We are acquisition number two. For this company. So they actually acquired a company in the Los Angeles called 318 318. Might sound familiar to some of your viewers because I believe Charles Edge worked there as the CTO back in the day and funny story, I guess people are still calling looking for Charles to this day. So they were acquisition number one, and then we were acquisition number two, so they were acquired about a year prior to us...
The last question on that I have is, what do you do for those off hours? Do you have a expressed service level agreement or any kind of after hours support, or is it just a case by case thing? So we’re nine to five Monday through Friday, and we’re still maintaining that those operating hours, if it’s an extreme situation, Interlaced HQ is 24 by seven. So they have people that are on rotation and taking calls and primarily doing level one and after hours, and then they have...
I have one more quick, unrelated question I wanted to ask you about Apple messages for business. I think you had mentioned that when we last spoke. Yeah. And I looked into it a little bit recently and found that you need to identify a is it an MSP which is used in a, is it a same acronym? Different meaning it’s maybe you know better than I do. I don’t have a top of mind, but it’s like a, a. Something like a voice provider or something like that,...
I can definitely speak from experience on the sort of like pitfalls of trying to grow a team from 1, 2, 3 people adding one or two more. They really need to be producing from day one. And of course like you do some of this stuff on paper and you say, and a 40 hour week, someone can, oh, surely bill like this many hours and then ramp up to this many and then everybody profits and we’re all super happy. And then turns out that a person has...
Did you know that Apple is committed to keeping your macOS experience secure? 🚀✨ With their advanced technology and user-centric approach, they’re taking cybersecurity to the next level! 💻🔐 🔒✅ macOS is designed with built-in security features that help protect you from cyber threats. But Apple doesn’t stop there! They’re raising the bar by introducing an awareness feature that recommends security settings in unknown or unsafe environments. How cool is that? 😎🛡️ 🌐🔍 When you find yourself working in unfamiliar digital territories, macOS will automatically suggest security configurations to enhance...
This is the part about security, I think that’s really tough is the intersection between the tools and the people. Because it’s more about training good habits. Our tools right now don’t enforce good habits. They encourage it very gently but people have to really see the light on this and really try to like, take it upon themself and their responsibility to, to manage it.
Cybersecurity awareness to a certain degree, even at, even for home users. We’re talking about the popularization of broad-based tools like LifeLock, right? Which have capitalized on fear of losing your identity or actually having your identity stolen. As consultants, what is our responsibility there? Not just from the computer side of things and the technology side of things, but the awareness side of things, the social engineering side of things, the, Hey this is phishing and beware of that type side of things. We’ve really started taking that very...
I can’t think of many things that have to be done in person. It almost seemed like it was a fear of mine that if the client never saw me, that they would never see like the value wasn’t there in their eyes. Exactly. And that goes back to a mindset that probably was embedded very long ago. And I have a similar kind of origin story of doing things the way the company that I worked for did them and the way colleagues did them. And this goes back...
Welcome back to Command Control Power, Jon Brown, vice President of Technology and Cybersecurity at Interlaced. And listeners may remember Jon as the owner of Grove, which is now Grove powered by Interlaced. So Jon, thanks for joining us on Command Control Power again. Yeah, happy to be here guys. Thanks for having me back. Always good to talk with you and thanks again for your support. I think that’s the other place where listeners will remember your name and company from your strong support of command control power for...
I still remember the days when finding time off was a struggle as I juggled between being part of an IT team and the sole member of an IT department. It was during this time that I discovered a lack of choice when it came to staff augmentation consultants in my area. I saw this as an opportunity to start my own venture - Grove Technologies. At Grove, we focus on helping organizations with small IT teams, such as nonprofit organizations and design agencies, to ensure that they have the...
I always seem to find myself either within a team or being the sole member of an IT department and really struggling to be able to take vacations. And when I was in that space as an employee managing Mac workstations for all of my users, but desperately trying to take time off I reached out to several consultants in the area and I was shocked to, to learn that there were very few sort of choices to pull from, and all of them did consulting, but not all of...
I didn’t realize the monster I had created. Every time I would go outta town, I’d still be fielding phone calls, doing remote support by phone. There was no real plan in place for handing the reins to somebody for a while. So that was my big motive to grow my team. How did you handle that? Did you grow your team over those years and where do you stand? I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I’m a little bit of a control freak and it was...
So how many is your team now, Jon? We are a team of three full-time, me and two others, and we have one part-time person. And then we’ve got about 4 1099 contractors that help us out as needed. Joe and I and over the years have talked about the hiring process and how frustrating it can be and I, I toyed with the idea of someone working maybe on a part-time basis or 1099 basis. You mentioned your staff, getting them accustomed to talking with the community on Mac...
On the other end, you could acquire all the assets of the business, you could acquire formal relationships with clients and so on. So do you wanna speak to some of your experiences doing that. Yeah, I was fairly fortunate and as I was building the business, I was reaching out and building relationships with business owners who were in the exact same space as me picking their brain, trying not to step on their toes and trying not to intimidate them or be threatening and, would refer business to...
When you are starting as a consultant, you are everything. You are the one person that does everything. And then you realize pretty quickly, these are the things I don’t like to do, and so maybe I should partner with somebody who can help me be a better CEO. Or maybe I shouldn’t be a CEO. Maybe the company would be better off with me, not in that role. And if I merge with this other company, or if we have these conversations with other companies in our, within our...
It just reminds me how much like the kind of the fear, uncertainty, and doubt plays into this. Mm. For years and years. I mean thats, been, just the way the industry responds to this, and I have this maybe self-censoring that kicks in when I’m making like too hard of a sale and I’m trying to really convince someone. I think I back off from that and I really don’t like to rely on the fear of it, but this is an example where the fear is very justified....
How can we work together as consultants and consultancies and I think that there’s a kind of economy of scale as we partner. . What’s been your experience with partnering with other local consultancies or individual consultants? I’ve tried hiring in the low end and training and investing time to get that person up to a point where I can consider them more or less an expert. It’s a rewarding experience. You end up working really hard to make sure that your image and the product that you’re putting out...
I love your your name by the way, Grove Technologies as Grove is a great concept related to of course Apple. Nice. That you ended up there. Do you wanna give listeners an overview of that how you got to this point? Yeah. When I first started, the company really started off by wanting to help businesses that worked in an industry where it was all Apple centric, but I was targeting companies that had one or fewer right IT people. And the struggle that I always had when I...
Topics: We welcome Jon Brown of Grove Technologies. Jon is a long time VIP supporter of the show. Jon recalls attending a WWE even with the CCP crew, thanks to Joe’s sister. Starting a new business proved to be challenging initially. He talks about his learning curve and experiences building his current business. Jon has a concept like Uber for Tech Support. Grove Technologies is going to offer its internal SaaS based tool for other businesses and industries. There are integrations built for other tools like Addigy, Watchman, Jamf, etc....
Topics: This week we welcome Jon Brown of Grove Technologies and VIP sponsor of Command Control Power! Jon takes us through his path of leaving a 9-to-5 job and starting a consultancy to fill a visible void. Grove Technologies started by focusing on organizations that had internal IT and could use supplemental support. Joe knows the feeling of not being able to take time off when you are a team of one. Grove Technologies is currently a team of 3 full time people and additional 1099 contractors. A problem we...
