The only other option before firing, would have been 1-on-1 meetings to ask for candour. You never understood why the discontent so it’s hard to judge. But your team must work productively else retrain or fire after suitable warnings. Make sure policies are in place for all situations to avoid any legal comeback.

The people saying this are non-tech or lack much tech knowledge. They’re only thinking about their bottom line. Anyone who cares about security will avoid wordpress. See below.

Now here’s a crazy thought. Have you not considered good old-fashioned coding? lol. You’re in control. You can focus on quality and security. The other benefit you can let clients own source code rather than being tied to a CMS.

I have to assume 3rd parties care mostly about profits - or hire staff with insufficient knowledge of security - otherwise how can we explain this: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=wordpress

This is a global database of vulnerabilities. Search for any software or plugin.

Wordpress offers very basic functionality. To make it useful you need plugins. Plugins are created by 3rd parties who care more about profit than security.

Wordpress servers are targeted daily by bots as it’s openSource. In simple terms: They suffer over 100 new vulnerabilities per month. It’s currently over 7,000 reported vulnerabilities. If you insist on using it for goodness sake check about the CVE database and avoid any dangerous plugins.

Isn’t this another way of saying set OKRs?

We’re a tech/consulting firm. We do B2B only. We offer performance-based pay, as a % of revenues. These can be larger deals. DM me to discuss further.

I don’t think you can. This market is saturated for little guys + large firms.

Hi. We are UK-based and have an opening for this type of role. I messaged you.

We’re in tech/consulting and currently looking for someone like yourself. Please send me a private message. Leave me your e-mail or phone number.

I checked the source code. I see you have a Shopify Site. But it has no SEO at the moment. There are 2 types of SEO: onsite (the website) and offsite: excluding the website. You need both. I messaged you.

A tech co-founder is the best move as it would be difficult for you to get to the level of expertise required to read code and advise developers. The key risk you now face, assuming you have outsourced development: 1) loyal staff 2) are they really working or saying it’s 10hrs for a 5min fix 3) Is platform /infrastructure the best etc. etc. In effect you have no control and that’s not a good place for a CEO.

The problem here is cost. You’ll need to fork out for all legal costs until they agree to compensate you. A cheaper option might be stern letters, quoting contractual violations and those alone may entitle you to terminate the contract - naturally once you have an alternative tech provider ready to take over. What services do they currently provide? Is it server hosting /tech support or software?

No need to offer free consulting. The idiotic firm were totally out of order - as is Ralph. Ralph didn’t hire and asks you to audit for free? You should have said yes only for a fee. Don’t let anyone abuse your goodwill.

Post the same on your own website as well.

Sorry to hear about this. The best you can do now is change business name, for starters and perhaps location. When a brand is ruined like this it’s hard to switch it around. On your website show a warning.

Next time around arrange online sales only via your website, with secure login and secure online payments. Message me for advice on setting that up if you like.

If funds are limited set up inventory in excel. If you can fork out a bit then yes buy a software system to handle bookings, inventory and client management. EG what if the client needs to change their orders/reduce/increase/change location. Is this handled by email/calls? This would mean many email threads.

Inventory - if you do not get alerts how do you know when to stock up again? Excel could list items but alerts etc. would have to be handled manually.

Read up on various methods of handling inventory such as JIT. If you order stock last minute, storage costs less but you might not be able to handle last minute orders.

If you don’t know where equipment is, it might be difficult to deliver. So you need an operations manager to handle that side/your mum/partner need to brush up on operations.

Customer Service: This could be a ticketing system or clients sending emails - once again emails/different thread wouldn’t be well-organised. A basic CRM would help you here.

Hope this helps. And avoid AI. You don’t need the extra expense. It won’t solve your current issues.

For those looking for online leads the starting point is a solid website. After this, while paid ads/PPC (pay per click) might seem appealing, it can soon get very expensive as companies bid on keywords. So larger firms can and do outspend. There are other more subtle techniques that are significantly cheaper and work effectively. Anyone interested can message me privately.