Reader Spotlight: Steve Melchiorre, Stratosphere Networks
A conversation with Steve Melchiorre, Stratosphere Networks
In this Reader Spotlight, Stratosphere Networks CEO Steve Melchiorre shares a little about himself, his company, and the state of the channel.
Summarize your background/professional experience. I've been an entrepreneur since I founded my first company as a high school student. In college, I started a second company, which ended up having more than 200 repeat clients. I got my bachelor's degree in economics and business from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.
In 2002, I began working for a company that sold Avaya telecommunications solutions. I quickly established myself as a top performer and became part of the company's president's club. It was while working in the telecom industry that I met Kevin Rubin, the current president and CIO of Stratosphere Networks and Converged Communication Systems (CCS). We founded CCS in 2003, and then in 2010 we launched Stratosphere Networks, a managed IT service provider.
What is one interesting/humorous/entertaining fact about you? My favorite musical artist is Bob Marley.
What verticals do you serve and what services and technologies do you sell? We serve all verticals. As for what we sell, the main categories are managed IT services, Cybersecurity as a Service, advisory services concerning cloud and other advanced technologies, and services and solutions to empower internal IT teams.
What vendor partners do you work with? We only work with best-in-class suppliers, such as Microsoft, VMware, AWS and RingCentral.
What is the best sales opportunity on your 12-to-18-month horizon? Our biggest, most valuable opportunity is cybersecurity services.
What threatens that opportunity? Mainly business leaders being stubborn and doing little to nothing to protect their baby (their business).
What could accelerate it? The exponential increase in the rate of cybersecurity incidents and data breaches for all businesses, especially small and midsize ones, has already accelerated the opportunity.
What is the most difficult aspect of leading an IT service provision company? It can be challenging to find enough steady new business.
How are you attacking that challenge? We put a lot of effort into forming strategic alliances, networking, and asking our current clients for referrals.
In the context of running your business, what apps/tools/utilities could you not live without? ConnectWise, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Azure.
On the flip side of that, what would you be happy to do without? Nothing.