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Tech setup for new startup

2 points by swami26 ↗ HN
As a new startup with funding just around the corner, I am starting to think about tech purchasing policies as we on board new employees. We've budgeted $2500 in our financial statements. I believe in how dual screening enhances productivity, but I also believe in portability. Our product is a SaaS+ play directed towards enterprise so our tech team. We intend to configure the laptop as dual boot with linux mint (primary) windows 7 64 bit secondary.

Also, at what point should we start funding cell phones for our team? We will probably be dragging our feet on this point one unless we hear some cautionary wisdom from the crowd. :-)

6 comments

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steventruong
New funding is not an excuse to burn money. I am a bit concerned when you bring up a comment like "funding cell phones for our team". The majority of startups don't do that, if any does at all (as far as I am aware of). Even if you guys do get funding, ask yourself what you "need" vs what you "want" and buy things that will ultimately help the people on your team and the company itself move forward. If the company needs to buy computers because everyone has been using their own machine, fine. But getting funding isn't an excuse to splurge, it shouldn't change the fact that you guys should still optimize and stay lean.
swami26
Thank you for your feedback! Coming from the corporate world, I am just looking for nuance in terms of best practices that startups use to stay lean nowadays and your comments provide. I was thinking along the lines that employees might not want clients calling their personal cell phones, which they would give out since they are visiting client sites. I guess we can use Google Voice or some such for that purpose? Or perhaps, in this particular case, we will wait till we have that problem instead of jumping in front of it.
swami26
One other thing to point out. I just realized that my original post somehow had text cut out (my first post). It was supposed to mention that we would love to get away with spending only ~$800-1200 per employee but would not mind spending more for productivity gains.
steventruong
That's not a bad idea. Every employee is different. Just don't assume that two monitors make everyone productive. Find out what each persons' needs are and assess accordingly. Some may need more than others and some may not need anything.
steventruong
What do you guys do? It's hard to provide adequate feedback without knowing what it is you guys do. As a result, take what I say with a grain of salt and apply it accordingly. Every situation is vastly different.

Unless you guys absolutely foresee a need to do phone support, this isn't a necessary factor. In our case, we had employees take calls with their own numbers (many chose to do this on their own regardless). That isn't necessarily the best option mind you, and it depends on how much control you guys want to exert in tracking calls and all sorts of other factors. Alternatively, we had an Ooma box with multiple lines for taking calls at the office. That isn't necessarily the right setup for you guys or anyone else, but there are certainly different approaches to consider. Many found that having to carry two phones was unnecessary and a pain (in our case).

But unless you absolutely need to do phone support or constant calls, it seems more of an unnecessary cost due to personal wants than to serve a need. All I'm saying is make sure you guys are spending money because you feel it serves a purpose, not because you guys can. Best of luck.

swami26
Thanks Steven! It is cool to hear about how others have done things. Our company is pushing a SaaS+ -- cloud based, technology enabled service. It fits an enterprise sales model. My team will need to do some client hand holding at times during a post-sales integration phase as well as wear another hat to do development work as needed (until we grow enough to separate dev team from the client integrations team).