When it comes to tech, Taylor Ford’s heart is in IT
Taylor Ford once said IT is her heart. IT, as in, information technology.
Not just her job. Not just her company, IT’s 4 Me.
If you’ve never seen someone jazzed about setting up secure office networks or helping a family member pick out a phone, you can catch her tech talks on her Facebook page. They are concise, casual, and whatever is the opposite of intimidating.
Last August, Ms. Ford, 29, sat in a client’s server room in what looked like a basement, and gave a 10-minute talk on how to centralize data. She explained the difference between a Google Drive and OneDrive, a living document and a static one.
She’s fond of saying that the only reason to say telecom instead of phone is to keep the customer confused so you can charge more.
She founded her IT services consulting firm to be the opposite of that.
As a child, Ms. Ford did what many children do today: she explained and programmed devices for her older family members. At 10, she talked her uncle, a football player with the Seattle Seahawks — in other words, someone who had enough money to throw at an amusing experiment — into buying her a computer. Within a few hours, Ms. Ford had set it up, upgraded its operating system, connected it to the internet and accomplished her main goal: to play The Sims.
Before long, she was charging other Seahawks players to load their iPods with music.
No one in her family was allowed to visit Best Buy or go to a phone store without her.
If you don’t think of that as an IT service, Ms. Ford would say you’re not thinking right.
She started IT’s 4 Me in March 2019, fueled by the pain of losing her sister to sickle cell disease, a blood disorder that disproportionately affects Black people. She’s now the chief information officer for her sister’s foundation.
“I used her strength,” Ms. Ford said. “I’ve always had a dream, and that was to find a space for minorities in technology. I’ve never been able to see people like me” in this industry, she said.
When the pandemic lockdowns began, Ms. Ford’s services were suddenly in high demand. Restaurants needed to process online orders. Companies that stored all their data in the office — despite
Ms. Ford’s warnings — needed to centralize and go virtual, and pronto. A lot of the work was pro-bono, she said.
A meaningful break came when the Urban Academy engaged Ms. Ford to help with its COVID-19 policies.
IT’s 4 Me helped the charter school buy and distribute 450 new computers to students and faculty.
“The kids really liked having someone that looked like them distributing their technology,” she said. And parents like having someone to call, directly, to help with network or software issues. If they need to vent along the way, Ms. Ford said, that’s a service she provides, too.
Today, her company has nine employees, including a human resources manager, a network engineer, several technicians and a wiring team.
Last month, the managed services part of the company — as in, outsourced IT department — spun off into a subsidiary called Taylor Made IT Services. It has five clients under contract. When asked about the total number of clients between the two divisions, Ms. Ford said: “I’m blessed that this year I actually can’t give you the number.”
IT’s 4 Me is now the technology education part of the business. It has seminars, runs a summer camp for kids, and is developing classes for people re-entering the community after serving time in jail.
New clients come by word-of-mouth. And while there’s no shortage of business, Ms. Ford said her biggest challenge has been securing funds to grow.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority has been a resource for IT’s 4 Me, she said, helping her get loans and introducing her to others in the community.
“I’ve received a lot of support from executives that are African American who see what I’m trying to do,” she said.
Her goal is to have 100 employees by 2025. Why that number? “I shoot high, so I don’t aim low,” she said.
She’s paying special attention to businesses overlooked by larger IT providers — one-person firms. These non-employer companies actually make up the majority of small businesses in the U.S. About 96% of Black-owned businesses are non-employer firms, according to an annual minority business survey put out by the U.S.’s Federal Reserve Banks.
“I am here for the little guy,” she said. “That’s who I was.”