Look At You!

The vast majority of ISPs have faced down problems that would have destroyed most businesses.

by Brock Henderson Principal, Henderson & Associates [May 20, 2008]

Look what you have accomplished! While there are exceptions, the vast majority of ISPs were started by techies, often in their garage or basement. That isn't a bad thing; it's just what happened.

It wasn't many years ago that you started your ISP. You've grown to where you are today in a short time. You survived when the bubble burst. You survived the rash of consolidations, perhaps even purchased one or two smaller competitors yourself. You have survived! Now you have thousands of subscribers, some employees, and more headaches than you ever dreamed possible. You have to mess with personnel issues, worry about slow paying customers, telco issues, upset customers, technical problems, and on and on.

Having an ISP used to be fun, so what happened?

Your ISP grew up. Your ISP went from being a part-time fun gig, to a full-time fun experience, to a business. That's when things started to change. You grew too big for the garage or the basement and had to rent some space; you needed to hire someone to help with tech support; you needed to get serious about billing; make payroll; deal with suppliers; and the hundred other little time sucking, energy draining things that are required of any business owner.

In the early days it wasn't work it was FUN. You wrote code, tweaked gadgets, played on the internet, wrote more code, and hacked a few sites. (Oh come on, you know you did. ) Those days slowly slipped away as your ISP grew larger and your daily focus had to move from the fun things you did to the mountainous work of running a business. Your strength as a techie grew the business, but today you find yourself spending most of the day doing things you aren't really interested in doing but that have to be done.

You, the most experienced, technologically savvy employee is doing boring non-technical stuff. There you are, with all that technological skill and talent forced to do things you don't really like . . . that is seriously wasted manpower. That's like hiring a CPA to sweep the floor; it's silly, it's wasteful, and it's counter-productive. You have slowly become a fish out of water. Now is the time to correct that and get back to doing what you do best.

You, your company's biggest asset, have become its biggest liability.

You are a liability because you aren't doing what you are best at; not because you don't know what you are doing. When it comes to technology issues you are one of the best, unfortunately that's not what you spend your time on. You are not playing to your personal strengths: your technological prowess.

You've hired someone to keep your books and do your billing and you've hired people to sell your services, so maybe it is time to hire someone to handle the business side of running your ISP so you can focus on running the engineering side and return to doing what you love.

Hiring a General Manager or Business Manager means you have more time, it doesn't mean you have less control.

Time to do the fun part of being an ISP. Time to do the technological stuff you so dearly enjoy. You still own the company and you certainly don't report to the GM. All you've done is hire someone to take care of all the daily boring stuff you don't want to be bothered with.

You will have to trust the individual you hire, but then you can let go of all those business worries and hand them to the General Manager. Man, will you sleep better at night.

The person you hire should have a strong business background, have experience supervising/managing people, and a proven track record of growth. They will not think like you at all. They will not approach problems like you did, nor will they arrive at the same conclusion you did; but that's OK. They will have the mind-set, training, and skills to deal with all those routine business issues you find exasperating. They will be able to make business decisions with less emotional frustration than you, just as you will solve technology problems much easier than they ever will.

However, as you know, when you hire someone, there is a ramp up period during which they are learning and you are teaching them. During that ramp up period, you have more work to do, not less. Be prepared for it!

Your minds simply work differently.

It's your company and you should enjoy what you are doing, so get back to engineering and do what you love. Hire someone to take over the garbage you can't stand and let someone else suffer the migraines. You aren't surrendering control, you are making the business stronger and better by focusing on what you do best. You are still the President, the Chairman of the Board, the guy that signs the paychecks, and the owner. It's just that now you are enjoying yourself and your work again.

— End