A couple weeks ago the company I’ve been working for the past 4 years, HIT Web Design, went out of business. I was extended an invitation to join a small number of former employees from HIT to go work at a new company that my former VP had started, ISO Web Works. Nobody knows what ISO means. They just grabbed the letters. I think it’s great that I got the invitation to join the team, though it wasn’t a huge surprise to me. I had been working hard to be ready for that invitation. It was clear that my company was going down well over a year ago, though the owners might not have seen it.

We were a company with over 15,000 clients and a 10 year history in web development. A track record like that doesn’t ever really die. I had assumed that if the company got in trouble and went down they would take the customers and move them over to another company. If that happened I wanted to be at least considered to move over to the new company. That’s not what happened though. Instead my VP called me in his office and let me know he was starting his own business and asked me to join. The new business wouldn’t take the 15,000 customers or use any of the tactics that had been used at HIT.

The operation is kind of exciting. I feel like a pioneer of sorts as we set up this company. We spent the first week moving everything into the building. The new building didn’t have wiring ready, it wasn’t painted and there was no Macey’s next door (Macey’s had become the home away from HIT since everyone at HIT went there multiple times a day). It was really just starting a new business from the ground up, literally. There were around 20 people from HIT that were asked to join the new company. Being chosen to come to ISO was interesting. As it was explained to me Kevin had looked over all the employees at HIT and took the best and brightest, and me. Nobody has titles and we’re all working towards the same goal to make the business successful. My position in the company is as a developer, which is what I’ve been trying to get back to ever since I became the supervisor of my team. I thought supervisor would be a cool title to have but it turns out that nobody wants to hire a supervisor. Everyone wants a developer, someone who gets into the code.

The problem here is that I’m aware of what’s really going on with the ISO Web Works. The business is completely different from HIT Web Design. But too many of the former employees insist that it’s just a HIT reincarnate. The truth is that ISO Web Works (my new company) has no relation to HIT other than a few former employees. ISO Web Works had no funds to get started, or at least there were minimal funds. The owners have no money, in fact I’d say they’re worse off than I am.

Because I chose to move to ISO Web Works I have been included in a list of people that ex-employees have targeted. I think I should feel offended at this but it’s kind of amusing to me. I was never in a position of extreme authority at HIT. The most I ever did was come up with ideas and get them implemented into HIT, which was nice. My former employers wouldn’t listen to my ideas. I think that’s what I like about ISO Web Works, we’re all equals there and we all care about the success of the company. Because of the efforts that we’re all putting into the new company I have no doubt that we’ll be a success.