Not Only Luck.
An essay by John Melonakos

Service Providers

Here are some other service providers we use. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on these and to hear your experiences in these categories.

Payroll Processing with ADP

  • $190-200/mo for 10 people (two payroll runs per month)
  • Handles all payroll tax forms and easy to add states for remote employees
  • Great support and easy to call when questions arise

Health Insurance

  • Angus McRae as an agent
  • Kaiser high-deductible plans for starters

Business Insurance, Worker’s Comp

Real Estate

  • DIY for getting into spaces like ATDC or Atlanta Tech Village
  • Dave Armento as a buyer’s agent if looking for standard commercial real-estate options
    • Savvy to startup needs; well versed in Atlanta office space options

Mobile Business Phones

  • AT&T $300/mo for 3GB mobile share plan with 5 lines (4 of which have data plans)
  • We switch from Verizon to AT&T because Verizon’s coverage was horrible in out ATDC office and we wanted iPhones before Verizon had that option
  • Mobile share plan enables unlimited calls/texts and company sharing of data; easy to add/remove lines

Internet

  • We tried Clear briefly at the beginning due to the low rates, but the signal was flaky and the speeds were slow
  • We now use Comcast Business class at $68/mo
  • Here are the speeds we get:

speedtest_comcast

Website Hosting

  • Linode – $75/mo (prepaying 12 months) for a Linode 2GB memory, 96 storage, and 800 GB monthly transfer; great uptime, currently at 275 days
  • We used Bluehost before until our web traffic grew, because it is super cheap
  • We use Amazon S3 buckets to serve up large files, like our product downloads

Banking

  • Bank of America – for ubiquity of ATMs, mobile check deposits, and Bill Pay (including recurring payments) usage for any outgoing check payments
  • Capital One Spark Card – 2% cash back on all purchases; enable the auto-redeem function and get the 2% back everytime $25 is redeemable

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What service providers to you use? Any that you would recommend over the ones I’ve listed above?