- How important is IT for new ventures today?
- Can one do without it?
- What extent of IT knowledge should the founding team possess and what can be outsourced?
- If you are not a person with IT background, is it really possible to learn it on the go and make the venture a success?
This is very crucial for start-ups. For me, IT is not just about having a website or a face-book page. I wish people come out of this thought. IT is also about back-end systems and processes followed for smooth operations.
And do not mistake, it is one of the most important things in today’s business environment. Not taking advantage of the technological advancements would be a sin! Even if you do not have the funds to have comprehensive IT systems in place on day 1, having 100% clarity about what you need and how you need to phase it is important, very important.
Even if you are not a coder, I suggest that you spend quite some time (6 months to 1 year) understanding technology, its scope, scalability and limitations yourself. It would be a blunder not knowing or doing even this. Begin with social media, the basics of digital advertising (including google ad-words), SEO and then, get into all those free tools to create and manage your websites (wordpress etc.). For the back-end systems, excel is quite an evolved tool! You do not need customized software that costs lakhs. If you search a bit on the net, you will find ample advice and quite a few free tools for almost everything you need! And if you are coder, go ahead the extra mile and dig deep.
Only after this should you consider bringing a CTO on board or hire a technology partner. If you are outsourcing or engaging a company to be your tech partner, be very very careful. I strongly believe, from my experience that amazing IT systems could be built in as much as only 50k or as high as 10lakhs! It all depends on your knowledge. If you do not put in the trouble to do the above, please be ready to be taken for a ride – no matter how much of a professional and how efficient the technology ‘partner’ is. You will be shelling out 12-20$ per hour and there will be no end to it.
You will have to understand the following yourself:
- 1. The IT systems you need
- 2. The purpose of each (revenue generation, cost saving, branding etc.) and their prioritization
- 3. The risk of failure
- 4. The scheduling and budgeting
Ask as many experts as possible for advice, search the net to the hilt, post and seek advice in all possible online forums and professional networks.
Finally, you would do well to always remember that IT is not a tangible asset. You cannot resell it. Whatever you invest into it can be recovered only from effective utilization of it to A) generate revenues or B) save costs. Hence, it is a great double edged sword. If you put in the effort to clear the fog and be able to see 2-3 years ahead, you will rock. If not, it will just be another failed investment and will demotivate you to the maximum extent.
May be a starting point would be to start 2-5 years ahead. Ask yourself ‘how and what would the customer behaviour be 2 years from now, and 5 years from now? How would my competitors be behaving then? What might the industry trends be?’ You would be surprised with the insights you get for yourself once you start thinking this way.
If any of you need any one-on-one guidance regarding this, feel free to buzz me anytime. Cheers and happy floating into and over the ‘cloud’s!
Sasikanth C, My experiences, My Blog