

Tech setup for new startup  - swami26

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.<p>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. :-)
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

