Flash back 10 years ago, and I remember the fledgling days of our business that we first operated out of my basement, which was lovingly referred to as The Bunker. I was living in an 80-year-old house in Richmond Museum District, and if you've ever seen a movie where London is getting bombed and everyone hides in the underground, it was kind of like that. Pretty dark, a little cold in the winter and a little warm in the summer.
When John and I finally moved into “real offices,” it felt like our business was growing up. Of course, like most people's first apartments, our home for the business was not in a glamorous part of town. In fact, our neighbors in adjacent buildings included a parole office and methadone clinic.
We had a very conservative growth and spending plan in that we wouldn’t take on debt just to build quickly. We saw far too many in our industry spend themselves into bankruptcy. Besides just not wanting to lose the company, we feel an absolute obligation to our employees and can proudly say in 10 years we’ve never had to lay someone off, reduce pay or downsize because of financial difficulty.
Since that first office, we've moved a few more times – always to a little better location with a little more room for our growing number of employees. We landed at our current location about five years ago and just recently expanded to nearly double our existing space.
We can look back fondly at the challenges and the risks and the excitement that comes from being in startup mode. But I assure you there were times that we wondered if we would make it, if we would be working for someone else again, if we could afford to add a much-needed employee, and if we would ever get a full night’s sleep again.
As we celebrate our 10th anniversary this month, we wanted to share some important ingredients in our success.
We’ve developed a core network for our business.
We’ve had a lot of help and guidance along the way from our distributors and manufacturers as we navigated the rocky shoals of our growth. For that, we’ll always indebted and grateful to them.
We’ve continued to invest in our knowledge.
Without question, this is an ever-changing industry. When we opened our doors, we were guiding our clients through windows-based solutions and hardwired networks; today, we’re in cloud discussions and looking at more creative ways to increase security for those businesses. We’ve grown with those partners and we’ve earned a competitive edge by staying at the leading edge, so we can deliver the best.
We’ve proven ourselves with our customers.
I can't say enough about our customers, many of whom have trusted us for more than the 10 years CTG has been in business. Without them, we most certainly wouldn’t have made it to this milestone. We will continue to earn your trust as we all move forward into the future.
We’ve built a solid team that delivers every day.
I can't even begin to adequately thank and recognize our amazing employees, who bring our vision to life everyday in their work with our clients. Many of our people have been with us for more than five years, with several reaching the eight- and nine-year mark. Without question, they are our not-so-secret weapon in this first 10-year run, and we are grateful for having the opportunity to work with each and every one.
We’re ready for the next 10 years.
As we look to the future, we will continue to offer what we hope are the best solutions, services and support to help our customers continue their own growth story. I can assure you that we revel in our customers’ successes more than our own, because that demonstrates that we are delivering value with our IT leadership and work. Thank you all for your part in helping us reach this milestone.
Jeff Garell is a co-founder of Convergent Technologies Group.
