05.09.2012 By Kyle York
The Untold Tales Of Dyn’s Jeremy Hitchcock & Tom Daly
How and when did your career trajectory really take shape? Think long and hard about that question in the context of your career path, current role and overall success. What were you doing when you were a 19-year-old college student? How about 16 and without a driver’s license?
My good friends, bosses and business partners CEO Jeremy Hitchcock and CTO Tom Daly were recently awarded the prestigious New Hampshire High Tech Council Entrepreneur of the Year award, recognizing leadership in the NH entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Both got to where they are by the tender age of ’round 30 because of two influential experiences that have continued to add to their still being written stories.
I’ve written about a lot of my personal tales on this blog. But following this amazing acknowledgment, I thought it was a good time to rehash Jeremy’s and Tom’s. They have no clue I’m doing this, so forgive me if I editorialize a bit.
Read More05.02.2012 By Kyle York
Let’s Hit It: Breaking Down Dyn’s Event & Conference Strategy
“Let’s hit it.”
With that certain undeniable conviction, we entered the Email Evolution Conference’s networking event put on by Message Systems this past March.
“Follow my lead.”
These words rang true for Marketing Manager Josh Nason as he attended his first conference repping the Dyn brand. Director of Email Mike Veilleux was also outside the friendly confines of 150 Dow Street with VP of Worldwide Sales Josh Delisle and myself for the very first time. It was time to hustle and pull the value and ROI we needed out of the show.
Back in the day when the sales & marketing team was small, it was easier to ensure our efforts were integrated so we could make the most out of each show. With scaling, this has been one of my many challenges. It’s still entirely my responsibility, but not being in the flesh everywhere, I realize the need to better train and mentor our Dyn street team. There are few things I take more seriously than ensuring all of our staff genuinely embodies our brand.
With over 70 shows on the docket for 2012 and a dozen or so new employees traveling for Dyn for the first time, I thought it would be worthwhile to provide a summary of why events are such a huge part of our strategy. Outside of our people, travel and entertainment is the largest piece of the budget I maintain, so I’m a psycho when it comes to making serious noise and turning these disruptive efforts into both short term and long term revenue.
Read More04.25.2012 By Kyle York
European Vacation: Inside Dyn’s Booming New EMEA Office
Around this time last year, we opened an office in the UK and strongly committed our global IaaS company to the European market. We hired a seasoned Regional Director in Phil Akilade, began enhanced account management with all UK/EMEA customers, started hiring and established a strong trade show and sponsorship plan throughout the region.
It was reminiscent of when we started building our brand and U.S.-based sales team in 2009: grassroots, assertive and unique. I had high expectations when we expanded out for the first time, but witnessing it come to life has been one of the greater accomplishments of my career.
We still have a way to go, but the foundation is more than laid.
Read More04.12.2012 By Kyle York
Kicking IaaS To Start 2012: A Look At Dyn’s First Quarter
The following is an email I sent last week to our entire company that I wanted to share as I’m extremely proud of what we’ve done so far in 2012 and what we’re going to keep doing throughout the rest of the year. You want the inside scoop on why we’re the best IaaS company in the world? The secrets are revealed here!
I just wanted to drop a quick line and thank you all for the hard work you put in to help grow this company so far in 2012. Our Q1 was ridiculously insane in such a positive way that it’s important for us to all take the weekend to reflect.
“Better, Faster, Stronger” couldn’t have been more accurate than what we saw in our Q1 as we stayed true to the year’s plan. It’s time to ratchet it up further in Q2!
The final quarterly numbers aren’t entirely done, but here are a few noteworthy snapshots:
- Our yearly projections for ecommerce revenue went up in just three short months. Huge props to the entire company for making this happen!
- Our enterprise revenue target was smashed for Q1. Another huge props to the entire company! In 90 days, we matched our closed sales output for the past two years. When you think of just how strong we’ve been in our last few years, this is something to be proud of.
Here’s some other facts that I just find outstanding about the last three months:
Read More03.21.2012 By Kyle York
Why You Should Always Answer Your Phone
It’s a Thursday night. I’m late, lost, scrambling to find where I’m going on Google Maps, walking from one meeting to another in Manhattan with our CEO Jeremy and COO Gray.
My phone rings and I answer it. I always do when someone on my team calls. If a client pings me, same effort. Family? It’s rare I don’t pick those calls up as well.
I try to be as accessible as possible as it’s one of the things that makes me good at my job. I feel that trying and caring helps make me a good person, a philosophy leaders in other organizations lose along the way.
To paraphrase, here’s what the call was about.
“Hey York, it’s D’Amato. Got a second? You’re the first person I’m calling after my Mom and brother. Our offer was accepted for our first new house! I’m telling you, this is a lifer of a house… I can’t even believe we could afford it. We close in 45 days. Jenna and I are so excited. I wish my Dad was alive to share this with.”
Yeah, you read that right. John D’Amato, Dyn Strategic Partner Manager, called me first before friends or other colleagues or his aunts, uncles, cousins or anyone else for that matter.
I spoke at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, NH, a few weeks ago and a student asked me, “What is your favorite part of your job?”
I told that story.
Building a company is all about the personal relationships you build with colleagues, customers, partners & vendors and that continued to confirm my belief in that. Congrats, John and Jenna. Your new home is beautiful. Your Dad would be very proud.
Read More03.12.2012 By Kyle York
#SXSWi: Why We Want You To ‘Get Some IaaS’
Whoever said ‘DNS is Sexy’ first is owed a ton of props. What a poet!
Our disruptive 2nd major marketing campaign we ran (after the inaugural ‘Break Free’ campaign) cemented Dyn as a major player in the Managed DNS arena. It made us think long and hard about raising the bar and pushing the limits for whatever we decided to roll with next. It couldn’t flop.
In typical Dyn fashion, we didn’t take ourselves too seriously, had some fun, and mocked the Internet routing protocol we deliver our clients. If you are conservative, I’m sure it can be a little crass. Yes, we played off of GoDaddy’s continued approach that sex sells, but with a major twist: no sexy people, antics, commercials, celebrities, wet t-shirts or huge dollars.
When you sell 24/7 trust-based services with strict service level agreements, things can be pretty heady and pretty stressful. Our campaigns set out to humanize the code, which is why we’re ready to announce the next one that is about the rock the technology world.
Read More03.09.2012 By Kyle York
#SXSWi: Technology Startups & Emerging Bands Are One & The Same
People often ask me why we integrate emerging music into our marketing, events and brand building efforts and man, I relish in being asked. This very conversation represents the entire strategy behind it.
The reason? Technology startups are no different than emerging bands.
Think about it. You start out with an idea and a goal, whether it’s a band name or great song or a company or product. You are banking on building a ‘stick it to the man’ career in the digital music startup age where companies like Kickstarter, Soundcloud, Pandora and Spotify disrupt the status quo (yes, a couple Dyn clients littered in there).
You set out to build a following, to monetize, to build stability, to build a brand. The shared goal is to build a profession and lifestyle doing something immensely enjoyable that you believe in without hesitation — all in an effort to take the world by storm.
In both cases, some stay bootstrapped and independent. Some decide to take venture capital or sign with a major label. For some, it’s a choice. For some, it’s just the way it is. In both cases, you “Keep Calm And Carry On” and stay true to your art, whatever form it may take.
It’s like our SXSW ’12 headliner Dawes sings: “It’s a little bit of everything.”
Read More03.02.2012 By Kyle York
How To Build A Startup Ecosystem In A Small City
When talking about our individual and collective efforts to create a startup ecosystem in Manchester, NH, our leadership consistently hears, “That’s great, but c’mon. What’s in it for Dyn?”
To answer this question, you must first understand our roots. Co-founders Jeremy Hitchcock (CEO) and Tom Daly (CTO) were both brought up in the greater Manchester area and attended Manchester high schools. I actually met Jeremy in the halls of our middle school in the neighboring town of Bedford, way back in the mid 90’s.
Gray Chynoweth (COO) grew up 20 minutes north in Canterbury and breathes the state motto of “Live Free or Die”, while Josh Delisle (VP of Worldwide Sales) touts Amherst as his hometown. Joe Raczka (VP of Finance) is a Bedford alum, just like Jeremy and I. Matt Toy (VP of Client Services) hails from New London.
Cory von Wallenstein (CPO)? Well, he finally bought in and moved here two years ago from Massachusetts to join the movement. Like Cory, nearly every Dyn employee has bought in to the NH way of life and has their own unique story to tell.
Read More02.22.2012 By Kyle York
Live From #EEC12: Why Outsourcing Your Email Delivery Is A Must
When I started at Dyn, we had nearly all home-brewed systems: CRM, billing, wiki/collaboration/project, dashboarding….you name it. I’ve heard it a million times and I’ve seen the movie before: good engineers can build anything and can always build it better than a SaaS solution could ever be. Right? Right? Who’s with me?
Have you heard these quotes before? (Earmuffs Dyn Dev and Ops teams!)
“It’s custom for our business.”
“Their code sucks.”
“We need to be careful of circular dependencies.” (Thanks @jadelisle)
“We need to pay by user. Their model blows.”
“It needs to integrate with other systems.”
“I don’t want our data outsourced in the cloud.”
“These systems are too critical to put them in someone else’s hands.”
“Our hosting environment is more stable.”
To me, it comes down to one simple statement: if you can’t sell it, then you shouldn’t build it.
Read More02.16.2012 By Kyle York
How We Scope And Price Unique Managed DNS Deals
As our company, corresponding sales team and customer roster continues to grow, we consistently come across more and more unique deals. Our quest for managed DNS industry domination is in full force. In doing so, we follow a shared approach between quality and quantity when it comes to the caliber of client and the number of them we aim to acquire.
Great DNS (inexpensive in the grand scheme of the infrastructure stack) is simply the gateway to the expenses associated with your colocation, bandwidth, monitoring (try Catchpoint), analytics, cloud hosting, CDN (try Fastly), storage, power and cooling costs. But it’s the nature of the app or site and the hosting environment behind the URL can create some pretty funky scopes for our enterprise DNS platform.
With each customer who evaluates our DynECT Managed DNS platform, we learn of new DNS use cases for our services and about the complexities of some companies’ Web infrastructure.
Here are some unnamed examples of interesting client scopes we’ve come across lately.
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