A sign that you are no longer a startup.

Ok, so it is a really bad pun.  It is tough writing blog post titles sometimes. :)

Anyway, we finally got a beautiful metallic official sign for our office after inhabiting our office space for almost two years.  (Now if we could just do something about that door!). 

In our first office suite in Vienna (VA) we had a good excuse for not having a sign since it was shared space and we weren't allowed sign-age.

In our current space, we actually lasted almost two years with this paper sign.  Not exactly glamorous but it did the job.

This got me thinking ... when is the moment that you are no longer a startup? 

A few facts about Thycotic's beginnings:

• We were profitable from day one.
• Our software development consulting business has always been a stable, profitable area.
• On the product side, Secret Server is self funded, started small and has slowly built a solid customer base.
• The company was officially formed in 1996 but only hired its first employee other than me in 2004.

So how do we identify a change from startup to mature company?
(if it is has even really happened to us yet)

Could it be?

• The day you finally turn off the email that tells you when someone bought your product.
• The day the founder can take more than one consecutive week of vacation.
• The day you don't know how many employees are in the company (this has already happened but that is just because I have a hard time figuring it out on the fly).
• The day that the company hires someone the founder didn't hire or even meet.
• The day you walk by someone in the hall you have seen often but have no idea who they are.
• The day you are bought out by some monster corporation. (assuming you want to be bought out ... which we don't)

What would you define as the tipping point?  In the meantime, we are going to continue admiring our new sign. :)

Jonathan Cogley is the CEO and founder of Thycotic Software, a .NET consulting company and ISV in Washington DC.  Our product, Secret Server is a enterprise password manager system for teams to secure their passwords.  Is your team still storing passwords in Excel?