Posted by: Kevin Lennox in Introduction on
Sep 29, 2008
Should I start with the personal stuff? Sure why not! We're all humans here! My name is Kevin Lennox, I am 48 years old as of this post. I am happily married for 28 years, 3 kids, (all grown up), 1 grandson. In my spare time (and I do enjoy my spare time) I like to see friends, I Iike cars (fast cars mainly), I love to play soccer which I do all year round (when I am not down and out with an injury as in right now). Oh yes, I like to head up to my log cabin on a lake in the interior of our beautiful province (British Columbia) where I fish, boat, relax, chop wood or do whatever projects my wife or I conjure up which are plenty.
I've been the Director of Sales for IP Applications for about a year and I love my job. That's because we're taking a very proven piece of technology that's been in use for ten years into a new market, specifically the SaaS and Cloud computing markets. It's exciting because it's about selling something that works extremely well, does pretty much everything an on-demand billing and payment system should do, and comes complete with an impressive customer list (what more could a guy in sales ask for... oh yes more customers of course). So with all the development heavy lifting behinds us, it's more about all the things we need to do to introduce ourselves to a new market (yes like blogging about it) which is where I get to play.
Before IP Applications, I spent 26 years or so growing up in the technology business. I started out with a solid grounding on the technology side doing onsite repair work in the early 80's for Dictaphone and Texas Instruments. Then I moved on to a large independent national tech support firm where I traded in my hands-on technical skills for new skills in service management, then business management and eventually sales management. That track lead me to senior roles in national sales management and product development with MCI, then WorldCom and then EDS. A call from a recruiter led me to a startup during the dot-com bubble first as VP of Services and ultimately VP Sales. We grew the business to 22 Million in annual revenue very quickly but we ran into trouble when the bubble burst. From there short stints in high end surveillance systems and technology project management culminated in my move to IP Applications.
The technology industry has been my turf for a long time now. Like the rest of the IP Applications team, I've got lots of experience bringing a wide range of technologies to market. This one's going to be fun!
Posted by: John Jacobson in Introduction on
Aug 20, 2008
Not that I haven't posted online before, though. I'm a member of three online car enthusiast forums and while I don't post a lot, I've posted a little at a time for the last five years - enough to get over any sensation of stage fright.
So who am I and what have I got to say? Well, I've been a technology entrepreneur pretty much since I graduated from university. I've been an employee of technology companies, I've been a President and CEO of technology companies, and I've done the founder-in-the-garage thing as well. I've run fast-growing tech companies, I've done a few turn-arounds and restarts, and I've slogged my way through some deep mud in some businesses where even a great product and a sharp strategy could only deliver beige results.
Through five company changes (in 32 years) I've switched industries five times - power electronics to aerospace and defense to tech training to geospatial systems to internet technologies. Some people make wisecracks about people like me who've done a wide variety of things being unable to hold a job - I've done enough different things to joke about not being able to hold an industry! As for talking about my personal situation, I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that when it comes to the internet, my family and friends will have to find their own way there - I won't be doing any advertising.
What have I got to say? That's what blogging is about, or so the experts say, so you'll have to read on. The focus of this blog is IP Applications and its business. That doesn't mean I won't be wandering a little ways off the reservation to comment on other things, but in the short term it's going to be about IPApps and SaaS billing.