Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur  – Hockey Stick Growth

As stated in earlier blogs, Bob, Rob and I started Stroma Service Consulting Inc. in the fall of 2000. At first, we were all working on different projects. Mine was the technology refresh of the Correctional Institutions and Parole and Probation Offices across Ontario. My project was about three months in duration, and by the time I finished, we had already hired about six staff who worked full-time at the Ministry on contract, and we were starting to outgrow our rental space. This was the time of the Harris government, and they were not only making cuts across all the Ministries but also wanting to reduce headcount. Oddly, they decided that shifting more workers to contractors was the way to go. We were in the right place at the right time with the right connections, as Bob and Rob had worked at the Justice Cluster (Attorney General, Solicitor General and Correctional Services) for many years before starting Stroma with me. So, the hiring started.

When you look back over your career, certain things stick out as odd. I mentioned above that we were outgrowing our space, and we approached our current landlord who had empty, unfinished space in the building we were renting. The space had been empty for a long while, and we said we would pay for all the renovations upfront and tried to negotiate a rental deal with him. I am not sure if it was the short rental term (I think two years) we wanted, or if he just didn’t care, but he did not seem enthusiastic about us spending thousands on renovations and paying him rent for an empty space. So we moved to another building and paid $100,000 per year in rent to that landlord for a three-year period. This reminds me of another time I went to purchase a new van. I went to the local dealership and asked if I could take the van for a test drive. The van’s battery was not charged, so it wouldn’t start, so I gave the guy my business card and said, “Call me when it is charged” — he never did. I don’t know if it is just me, but I can’t stand chasing companies to give them my business. Maybe I should be more like my father, who used to say, when he was upset with the service he received somewhere, “Take a good look at this face, because it is the last time you are ever going to see it in your business.” Unfortunately, he lived in Sturgeon Falls at the time and was running out of places to go before he moved — lol. Bob, my business partner, always said I had a long fuse.

My two partners, Bob and Rob, and I got along well. We are very different people, but I think that is why it worked. We had a lot of lively discussions over the years, but we always argued the point, and it never became personal. When you are all in the same boat, it must work this way for it to work well. Decisions that are discussed and debated are always better decisions. If you find yourself in a meeting and are worried about speaking up, speak your thoughts anyway, as they may lead to a better decision.

Stroma was growing quickly — we grew from 0 to 80+ employees and subcontractors in the first two years. Bob was getting us contracts weekly and we were just trying to keep up with him. Most of the employees were billing the government full-time, and times were good. We were experiencing the hockey stick growth that venture capitalists love to see. We hit #27 on Profit Magazine’s list of Canada’s fastest-growing companies. Growth, while exciting, does create its own stress and challenges. It’s a fun ride while it is happening, but when you are in the middle of it, it always feels like the wheels could fall off at any second and the ride will end.

So, to avoid the wheels falling off — in this case, the Ministries (the Justice Cluster in particular) changing their minds and insourcing all the work — we decided to diversify. One area of competency we had developed from our work with the Ministry was something called ITIL (which stood for Information Technology Infrastructure Library). It is essentially a process-driven methodology for managing a large IT infrastructure in a large organization. When you call a help desk (or “helpless desk,” as some say), they use processes to log your request. If something does not work as expected, it is called an Incident. If something does not work properly and you cannot figure out why, it is called a Problem. When you figure out a solution to the Problem and want to implement it (i.e., a bug fix), you must go through two processes: Change Management and Release Management. There were 10 processes in total at the time — there are more now. When you are first exposed to the language of ITIL, it all sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. But over time, like anything, you begin to assimilate it. Every industry has its own language you must learn when starting anew.

Bob and I flew to the UK and visited Greg and Don, who owned Marval Software Ltd. in Kettering, about one hour north of London. Marval specialized in ITIL-based process software, and we were there investigating whether we could become their North American representatives. ITIL is not the most exciting material, and after a long flight we spent the day going over all the features and functions of their software. Bob and I struggled to stay awake given the time lag and the dry material, but we managed to strike a deal, and we were now their representatives in North America. The US is a massive market, and you can spend a fortune marketing there and get nowhere. It was decided that I would be the internal partner responsible for this division. The picture above was from our first customer TaylorMade based in Carlsbad, CA– I bought a great set of golf clubs when I was there.

Once we made the above decision, I thought I needed to increase my level of ITIL knowledge. There were courses you could take to become ITIL certified. The three-day beginner course was called ITIL Foundations, which I started with. Eventually, I took the ITIL Service Manager course. These were two challenging courses, each with a four-hour exam and a low first-time pass rate. I passed, and I was now an ITIL Expert. I took a lot of courses and got certified in a number of best practices, such as ISO 20000 (based on ITIL), PRINCE2 Project Management methodology, and Lean Methodology. I began teaching ITIL as a subcontractor for IBM worldwide, through one of our partners. My first karaoke performance on stage in a bar was in Helsinki, Finland — “House of the Rising Sun.” I got my dates mixed up in Finland another time and missed the review session with my class of students. I went on a tour that day, thinking the next day was the training day — I felt awful, as I am always punctual. I had to fly back to Finland after Warsaw (another training engagement) to make it up. I had some Game of Things games flown to Finland and gave everyone a copy as my way of apologizing. I even left a game at the hotel, as they had games on display in the lobby. If you are ever in Finland and see a “Game of Things” lying around, it comes from this adventure — we never sold games there.

So now I was an ITIL Expert, selling and implementing ITIL software across North America and training people on ITIL globally — I think I was experiencing “imposter syndrome” — but I did put the time in to learn.

This period brings me to this older song by Chic – Good Times.  I think I had this album until Disco became unpopular.  One night at a party at my house when we were young and stupid we decided that we should break disco albums over our heads, and I think this album fell victim to our nonsense. Greg, if you are reading this, I hope that makes you smile. When you listen to the song it is more funk than disco, and really who doesn’t like disco anyway. I later wondered where Daft Punk got their inspiration for Get Lucky when I heard the song– the guitar player was Nile Rogers from Chic. I can recognize those guitar riffs anywhere. Sorry Nile for breaking your album.  We definitely were feeling Lucky and were having some Good Times!