The challenge
A fully-remote fundraising consultancy that tripled in three years had bootstrapped its IT between two people. Apple and Microsoft identities were personal, the asset inventory lived in a spreadsheet, returned laptops piled up at the founder's house, and Power BI was blocked behind personal Microsoft licenses, all with a new hire landing June 1.
The pain points
A bootstrapped IT footprint: personal Apple IDs, personal Microsoft licenses, and a spreadsheet asset inventory
Business impact: No standard way to onboard staff, secure devices, or scale as the team grew.
Power BI blocked behind personal Microsoft licenses
Business impact: The data team could not start the client-facing analytics work the business was counting on.
A June 1 hire needing devices, accounts, and licenses ready, onboarded manually by the operations manager
Business impact: Every new hire pulled the operations manager away from higher-value work.
How we solved it
- Stood up Apple Business Manager and mobile device management across all 18 endpoints
- Migrated the team off personal Microsoft licenses to Microsoft 365 Business Premium and unlocked Power BI
- Built a repeatable onboarding playbook, a live asset inventory, and a 1Password Business tenant
- Layered on EDR, email security, and vCIO advisory under a co-managed model that kept the operations manager as Tier 1
The impact
A standardized, secured Apple and Microsoft 365 environment across the whole fleet
Power BI unblocked for the data team, and the June 1 hire onboarded cleanly
A scalable IT foundation sized for a growing team, without overbuying
Service line
Co-managed IT