MicroTech Systems - January 2020

MicroTech Systems - January 2020

(208) 345-0054 MicroTech Pages

January 2020

Meant To Be Pondering What Led Me to MicroTech

I was recently asked, “What would you do if you weren’t running MicroTech?”

job that played into the strong suits I had while also gave me the experience I needed.

I was perplexed. What would I be doing? I guess growing up, it was never really much of a question as to what I wanted to do. My dad was his own boss and started MicroTech Systems in the 1970s. Meanwhile, my mom had a career where she was working for a large corporation. I don’t recall for sure, but I imagine growing up I was able to compare the two. At some point, I suppose I subconsciously realized that I wanted the freedom and lifestyle my father had, and that meant becoming a business owner. That’s not to say I was looking for a way to coast through life. In fact, it was the opposite. I was looking for a career where I could be driven to create a happy, healthy life. I was a pretty driven kid, and today, I’m still a very driven person. (In fact, it’s kind of the family joke that my dad was practically retired until I came in and started making him do some work.) But I’ve also enjoyed jobs where I was working for someone else. I remember finishing college on a Friday in the mid-‘90s, and by Monday, I was working for a marketing research company. I had graduated from college with a double major in finance and marketing, and I was looking for something in the finance industry. But if you’ve been in Boise long enough, you know this wasn’t the time to be looking for finance jobs in the Treasure Valley. Unlike today, the finance industry was nearly nonexistent, and I needed to find a

I worked for the marketing research company for three years, and while I learned a lot, I also learned that this was not the job for me. I found it mundane, and little excited me about it. Around this same time, my dad’s business had grown stagnant. His business partner retired in 1998, and I was at the point where I was looking for an exit from the marketing research work I was doing.

So, I thought, “Why not give this a whirl?”

And so, more than two decades ago I found myself at MicroTech Systems, and since then, I’ve been making the aspirations I had as a little kid become a reality. I wouldn’t call IT or technology work a great passion of mine, but I have been happy to do the work I do every day. As I’ve said before, my dad gracefully stepped aside and let me take hold of the reins early on, and I’ve had the honor of watching this company grow within the Treasure Valley. So, do I know what I would be doing if I wasn’t running MicroTech? Not really. I know I’d want to be my own boss and running a business, but I like to think it’s a good sign that I’m not sure what industry I’d like to be in. That tells me I’m right where I was meant to be.

Have a great new year,

–Randy Amorebieta

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JUMP-START YOUR BUSINESS With Eric Ries’ ‘The Lean Startup’

After reading just a few pages, it’s easy to see why everyone raves about Eric Ries’ invaluable manual “The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.” Ries is a fantastic writer, but two aspects of his writing style separate him from the pack of typical business writers and keep you turning pages: He is intellectually honest and cheerful about his business insights. Eric takes a common notion in business — “fail fast, succeed fast” — and breaks it down into a system that works for businesses and keeps consumers happy. “The Lean Startup” recommends the use of a minimum viable product, or MVP, to gauge demand before you embark on major product development. Forbes describes an MVP as “a product with only a basic set of features, enough to capture the attention of early adopters and make your solution unique.” If you jump into building the best product possible before measuring what your consumers actually need, you risk wasting a lot of time. Market research can tell you a lot, but MVPs can tell you even more. Plus, if your initial rollout is successful, you can respond quickly to consumer feedback and tailor your final product to specific needs.

also warns against putting any real value in vanity metrics, which TechCrunch describes as >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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