HATech is a Las Vegas startup on a mission to bring DevOps mastery to organizations through education, transformation, re-architecting, tooling, managed services and hard work. The HATech team recently announced they are are offering Mentor Sessions each month at The Innevation Center for fellow Las Vegas startups.
“Being a startup ourselves, we find that we can identify with other startups, particularly in the tech space,” said Tabatha Wearing, Customer Success Manager at HATech. “Las Vegas is full of promising and aspiring entrepreneurs who may or may not have the knowledge of how to get their ideas formed into a business plan or online service or product. We are very invested in the startups here, and being one ourselves gives us an edge and an understanding of the challenges that a startup faces, especially in the early days.
Wearing says startup founders have many ideas, and everyone has a vision of their ultimate product, but helping an individual formulate those ideas and realize their minimum viable product is key to helping identify building blocks for success.
“We do this through our Product Realization Sessions,” she said. “Once the product realization has taken place then the client has a clear view of what they want to achieve and the steps they need to take to get there. For startups who are ready to go to the development stage, there are a number of co-funded programs that we have access to through our Cloud platform Partnerships, such as AWS, Azure, CenturyLink Cloud, and Google CE. There is preparation to be done in order for those programs to apply, but we work with the client to ensure all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted, going through these stages with them, step by step.”
Wearing said another aspect explored in Mentor Sessions is preparing startups for investment.
“Most startups are looking for their first round of funding, but usually they are required to prove MVP in order to apply for it,” she said. “With our experience, we can offer a range of services, including an Interim CTO. Technical leadership in an organization is instrumental in being taken seriously by investors, and having clear business goals along with technical ability really helps that process.”
The team at HATech views these Mentor Sessions as an important part of being invested in the startup community in Las Vegas, and thinks they are very important. With the help of valuable mentors, Wearing thinks many startups can avoid mistakes.
“These meetings show startups how they can achieve their dreams and goals. Having someone take you seriously and say, “now that is a great idea – let me show you how to make that a reality” is a boost,” said Wearing. “Mentoring with HATech offers startups an opportunity to solidify and get ratification that your idea is worth pursuing. Mentors need to be a friend, but they also need to be able to speak the truth and sometimes that truth doesn’t gel with what the startup wants to do. The relationship between a startup and Mentor needs to be strong enough to take the hit, collaborate, and move on.”
HATech Mentor Sessions are held on the last Wednesday of each month at The Innevation Center. If interested in signing up for a mentor session, go online to save your seat! Each month tackles a different topic:
- September 28, 2016 – AWS cost control and management
- October 26, 2016 – Scaling operations and support
- November 30, 2016 – Technical recipes for Startups, including C-Panel and virtual hosting
“Each Mentor event will be listed monthly on our website. The sessions are scheduled throughout the day and last for an hour. Should additional time be needed then we can arrange a separate meeting with the mentee,” explained Wearing. “I reach out to each mentee after they’ve booked their slot to ask if there’s any information that they’d like to make available to us ahead of their session to ensure that the hour is as productive as possible. That helps us prepare for each individual, and approach each session with a plan on the areas that they’d like to address and speak about. If the mentees could supply as much information as they are comfortable with then that’s great, and makes for an enjoyable hour!”