Startup Operations: The Lone Rangers of Tech
RSVP Required - I-9. W-4. IRA. Budget. Policy. Reimbursement. Invoice. Payroll . . . These are not exactly the words that inspire entrepreneurs. Yet the Startup Genome Project reported that most companies fail because of premature scaling, or “focusing on one dimension of the business and advancing it out of sync with the rest of the operation."
While the majority of employees may be rightly focused on the core product, a good operations manager can see how all the pieces of the business fit together and make sure it's growing in a way that's sustainable. This can be especially hard if there's only one operations person in the company--that person may have to struggle to get the CEO's attention and fight the employees on following policies.
This session brings operational Lone Rangers together to discuss and advise on topics such as constant context-switching, creating company culture, finding good lawyers and accountants, setting priorities, training employees, and making financial decisions.
Prerequisites:
None.
What to Bring:
A smartphone or laptop may be useful, but is not required.
To RSVP your seat for this workshop, please click on "Sign in to RSVP" in the upper right location of this page. You'll need to sign in using your SXsocial login information.
Presenters
One part COO, one part educator, and one part beekeeper, Carin Zinter enjoys wearing multiple hats. As COO at The Daily Dot -- an online media start-up -- she’s a trusted sidekick overseeing finance, legal, HR, sales, and myriad other functions. Prior to joining the Dot, Carin spent more than 15 years working in the educational services sector in every capacity from teacher to senior operations director. She maintains a presence in the education world by continuing to teach as a senior lecturer in management and organizational behavior at Western New England University. To keep life buzzing, Carin is a beekeeper who, through her business C& C Orchards, provides raw, local honey to restaurants and pastry chefs in the northeast. In her spare time, Carin enjoys training for and racing triathlons and ultramarathons and has her sights set on running a 100 mile race next year.
Liz Jones-Dilworth is the VP of Operations at Jones-Dilworth Inc., a marketing and PR firm that focuses on bringing early-stage technologies to market. A doctor of literature, Liz found the working conditions so intolerable in the university that she jumped at the chance to create a company from scratch.
Mikalina Kirkpatrick is a co-founder and the Chief Operating Officer of Little Bird, an expert and influencer discovery startup in Portland, Oregon. Mikalina has lead product management, finance, HR and more from the early stage Sunday night meetings on her couch through the company's $1m fundraising and public launch this Spring. Outside of work she spends time with her family, creates ceramic art, enjoys the art of others, and reads snippets from neuroscience blogs and serialized web comics.
Sunday, March 10
