Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph McLeod.
Hi Joseph, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My aspirations to start a computer repair business started early. During my high school years I spent much of my time on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and even ran a server for about 3 years. That experience taught me much of what I know about the Linux operating system, and to a lesser extent the early days of defending against cyber attacks, granted much of that has changed dramatically since the mid 90s. During my high school years as a hobby I helped people with websites, which were fairly primitive in comparison to today’s highly interactive websites and did some computer repair for local businesses helping where I could. I also attribute much of my success to Jerry Taylor, who was my Computer Electronics teacher at ATEC (Applied Technology Education Campus (high school vocational school)). After high school I got a job at a local bar where I still work one night a week which helped me get the business started on a very part-time basis working for a few businesses to keep everything working, but the bar was my main income through 2020 working at least three nights a week. The pandemic changed everything and I filed for an LLC and formed Surefire Tech, which these days is solely me handling slightly over 150 clients in the local area. In 2024 I re-enrolled in school at Central Carolina Technical College to finish my Associates in Computer Technology that I had started in 2001. I’m currently 15 credit hours away from graduating and a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society. Outside of school I have completed NASA’s Proposal Writing and Evaluation Experience (NPWEE), NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars program, and Per Scholas’s A+ Training program. Since 2023 I have obtained my CompTIA A+, ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity, Google IT Support, and Google Cybersecurity certifications. I was also featured in a Lenovo Storyhub article back in 2019 that details a few of my jobs which can be found here: https://news.lenovo.com/life-in-lugoff-fix-pcs-bartend-get-a-lenovo-tattoo/
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My biggest challenges being a sole proprietor and running my own business has been time. Juggling responsibilities between two jobs, school, extracurricular activities and life has been extremely difficult, but now that I can see an end to school in-sight, it makes it easier to realize that I will have more time soon. My biggest business challenges all boil down to cybersecurity. The first daily challenge is finding solutions that fit the business size and budget, and not only in what the upfront cost is, but the risk assessment of enterprise solutions, solutions that are designed to have teams of people manage them, that don’t have full teams or even dedicated individuals to manage them properly. Many enterprise solutions don’t work and wont work for very small businesses because they create much more security risk than they mitigate, so often times I have to find viable cost-effective solutions that bridge the gap between, which can be a difficult endeavor. Cybersecurity as a whole is my second biggest challenge. Many very small businesses do not budget more than the cost of anti-virus software as the budget, which is a massive mistake. All businesses of all sizes should allocate at least a yearly audit of security situation and actively classify and categorize data assets to assess what business impacts would happen should the data be compromised. All assets should be inventoried and cataloged. Each endpoint is a target for lateral movement, meaning any endpoint is an entry point to the network.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Surefire Tech?
The business was formed in 2020 during the pandemic to provide IT services to the local area. I am the only employee and handle all aspects of the business as well as the IT services. I specialize in finding scalable viable solutions that integrate into existing infrastructure to bridge digital transformation gap. I’m pretty well known around town for finding ways to fix problems other technicians weren’t able to. I am one of the only on-site providers that will perform services on the client’s site, which most businesses prefer. Also being that I am a single person operation would rather fix a problem so that I don’t have to come back right away and can move on to the next job. Jobs involving multiple visits I use agile methodologies to deliver working components as they come along and working with client feedback for change implementation to keep projects moving forward in-spite of plan changes. I focus on not using enterprise solutions that cause more problems than they fix, and finding solutions that work for the client without compromising security best practices. Within the next year I plan to implement an endpoint visibility platform so that I can see client endpoint health status and proactively manage endpoints remotely. I’m also working towards obtaining a few more certifications and offering more cybersecurity and forensics services in the near future.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I’m middle of the road on risk taking. I’ve taken risks on things in the past and will continue to make small risks in the future. However, thankfully in this industry most risks would be on the upfront cost of a solution, and that can be mitigated by reading documentation, product demos, and product trials before purchase. As far as more tangible risks such as hardware, I do not keep stock because of the rapid change within the industry and the specialized hardware required in most instances. I do try to explain the benefits of the cloud to my customers, but many very small businesses are hesitant to move to the cloud, which considering the statistics of companies moving workloads out of the cloud, I can’t blame them. I do encourage cloud backups because of the ability to host them multiple times geographically distributed for redundancy.
Pricing:
- General Onsite Consult – $100 per hour
- Network Troubleshooting Onsite – $150 per hour
- Remote Technician – $75 per hour
- Tech on Tap – Meet at bar / restaurant for specific issue or training – $50 per half hour
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.surefiretechllc.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcleodj/
