Dan Serpico
“I look back at my career with FusionStorm and see two distinct phases—the first fifteen years and the last five. Today, we’re number fifty-two on the CRN chart for IT solutions and provide services around the world. To get there, we’ve gone through some tough times. The first fifteen years marked an age of extreme entrepreneurism at FusionStorm, during which many described us as the Wild West of start-ups. We were aggressive, flexible, and fluid. We changed almost impulsively. We had great market penetration, great presence, and through the go-go nineties and the dot-com escalation, we saw great economic growth and great credit availability. We had tremendous top-line success. We had a lot of expansion and innovation. We changed our push to market several times, and it was a very exciting place to be. And then all of that changed.
Leading up to the global recession of 2008, there was minimal control. Fast-paced environments are great for smaller companies when ownership and management is hands-on and can control moving parts, but as a company builds it needs to develop more mature systems, because you’re relying on others to carry forward a specific vision from leadership. We were too hands-off in things like hiring practices and cost control. That caught up with us in concert with the financial crisis. It was a recipe for disaster.”