Mentoring technology executives since 2014

Tim Davenport and Matt Walnock started Longitude 77 to meet a need we saw in the marketplace here on the east coast.  That is, many early stage cloud companies and companies transitioning to cloud hit a speed bump somewhere between $5 and $35 million of revenue as they find that they have not developed all the functions required to be a reliable, high-quality, “always on” cloud solution.  There is almost always at least one weak link across the spectrum of product management, development, testing and deployment.  We have stepped in to help run organizations that go redline over these weak links and, as we did so, came to the view that we would prefer to help these companies earlier in their development to get it right from the beginning.

Typically, we come in together for several days to gather a lot of data on how a company creates their product roadmap, delivers new functionality and manages cloud operations.  This culminates in an assessment that we provide back to management within a matter of days.  The assessment is summarized by our suggested next steps - usually focused on ideas about people, process and product.

Our model is then to provide ongoing coaching, especially to CEO’s and CTO’s to help them navigate the challenges of scaling a young cloud company.  Coaching is always supported by investors who, of course, want a portfolio company to get all the help it can.  Unfortunately, ongoing coaching is not usually available so investors turn to several less than optimal alternatives: interim executives, board members, friends of the venture firm…  We have received those calls from investors for years and can state emphatically that the better solution is an ongoing coaching solution designed to help existing management teams succeed. If appropriate, we can also assist in any recruiting efforts to find technical talent.