Ian McNish

Summary

I’m a EIA, StartX, and 500 Startups mentor, and angel investor who enjoys solving complex problems and getting my hands dirty. I’ve spent the past 20 years working in all aspects of IT and technical operations. My expertise lies in developing solid technical infrastructures that are built to last. I like moving quickly, but as a technologist who’s been around the block, I also know how critical it is to take a step back and take scaling into consideration as a company grows. During my career I’ve worked at companies large and small, both private and public. One of the most common stumbling blocks that I have seen across all of those types of businesses is their ability to plan beyond tomorrow. Organizations are often so focused on their immediate goals (getting their first million members), that they aren’t looking beyond the horizon at what they might need to do tomorrow (in order to adequately service their next 200 million members). Companies that think about their future infrastructure requirements in the early days can sail past companies that lose precious time later trying to untangle infrastructure issues that have become more complex as a company grows… a one percent change in trajectory up front can yield a 1000 percent benefit down the road. Specialties: Architecting infrastructure that’s built to support growth, starting from nothing, and scaling; hyper growth; international expansion; complex computer system design and implementation; data center strategy, data center site selection, and data center build-out; system architecture, network architecture, storage architecture, and security architecture.