l TALK // WEEKLY INSIGHTS FROM BUSINESS LEADERS

BUSINESS

with
Alex Solomon
NET@WORK CO-PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER

AGE ESTABLISHED INDUSTRY

43 1996 Technology

EMPLOYEES SALES
200+ 60 million plus

CLIENTS
6000 plus

BACKGROUND: Alex Solomon is the co-president of Net@Work, a full

service IT and business consulting company with expertise in the devel-
opment and integration of business technology solutions. Partnering with
the biggest names in technology, enables them to provide stand-alone
tech solutions, augment existing software, or integrate multiple systems.
Net@Work has six thousand clients, and eighteen offices in North
America.
In 2002, he and his brother founded Docutrend Imaging Solutions, a
document technology company providing office equipment and man-
aged print services. More recently they acquired ecommerce agency
Pixafy, and launched Swype Integrated Technologies, a payment pro-
cessing company.
Net@Work has been recognized by Crains New York business maga-
zine in their annual ranking of New Yorks 25 Largest Software Companies.
This year, CRN magazine named Net@Work to its Managed Service
Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Elite 150 category.
Most recently Alex Solomon was honored by SmartCEO magazine as
a Future 50 executive.

I was born in Ukraine in 1973, and my
brother Eddie (co-president of Net@Work)
was born in 1970. My family came to Amer-
ica in 1975 and settled in Brooklyn.
Both of us attended Yeshiva Toras Emes
for elementary school and Yeshiva University
High School for Boys.
Our first business was providing waiters to
kosher catering halls. That was so success-
ful that in no time my brother and I founded
the Solomon Brothers Party Planning Com-
pany. We leveraged what we built initially,
and launched related businesses.
While running the catering business, I
graduated with a BS in International Business
and Management and was an Alumni Scholar
at the Stern School of Business at New York
University.
In 1996, with the dotcom wave in full
swing, I thought it an opportune time to get

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 B Y DAV E G O R D O N

into the technology business. I knew a lot of people with excellent math and
computer skills, tech geeks, who were in the Alumni Scholars program at my
university, but they knew nothing about running a business. We would hire these
tech people and teach them how to interact with clients, make clients happy and
speak in a language that clients could understand, something I felt was seriously
lacking in a business that should be all about service.
Our best business decision was to have no investors and no debt. We grew the
business debt free, adding solutions and services over time, such as e-commerce,
web development, and later areas like customer relationship management (CRM)
and HR software.
I never lost sight of my passion for helping other people realize their goals
whether it was to improve their business, or show them solutions that would
maximize their productivity.

What sets Net@Work apart from
other IT companies?
We are the only company that han-
dles all aspects of technology for our
clients. In todays business world,
where technology and systems are all
so integrated and intertwined, its very
difficult to support a client well with-
out handling it all for them.
What was the biggest challenge
getting your business off the
ground?
Being respected by our technology
people when we ourselves were not
technology experts. It took a lot of
persuading coupled with a bit of suc-
cess to show the talented tech people
we were hiring that what they thought
was our biggest weakness was, in fact,
our biggest strength. Our success was
based on us being business people in
the world of technology as opposed
to being tech people in the world of
business.
Was there a breakthrough strat-
egy that helped your business
grow?
Turning our competitors into part-
ners. That was the cataylst. We
approached our competitors, and
told them we didnt want to compete
with them; we wanted to work with
them as our partners, and we formally
launched a Partner Alliance Program.
One hundred alliance companies
later, we embrace each others portfo-
lios and fill in the gaps for all of our
clients needs. Now we have a network
of companies to work with; theres
someone and some place in our alli-
ance community that complements
what anyone needs.
What keeps your top IT guys
from going out on their own?
To be successful in this indus-
try isnt just about having the tech
smarts and the skills, its about being
able to convey those smarts and skills
to potential customers so that they
understand the value theyre getting.
It also requires being on top of the
new technology that is out there and
managing your company while ser-
vicing your clients. Its impossible to
launch a company and do all of those

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 l TALK // WEEKLY INSIGHTS FROM BUSINESS LEADERS
BUSINESS
things. It also requires a major investment
People need to focus on their passion in order to be
successful. For many smart tech people, their passion is
technology and they dont want to remove themselves from
that in order to run a business.
What business advice can you share?
The best way to grow a business is to have good relation-
ships with others in your industry.
You can avoid mistakes by learning from other people
who have made mistakes. Thats why we mentor young
entrepreneurs, like our active role in the CAP/NYCEO
Mentorship Program.
Its also important to never buy or invest more than you
can afford. Using other peoples money doesnt give you the
discipline to be able to build the foundation of the busi-
ness.
With so many offices around the country, how do
you manage quality control?
It comes down to instilling the right culture in each of
our satellite offices. If we accomplish that, especially when
its a new acquisition and there is already a culture embed-
ded in the company, then the quality control is built into
our customer service culture and philosophy.
Do you keep on top of tech advances, or do you
leave that to your employees?
We have people whose job is to be aware of the most
advanced and latest technology available. They then col-
laborate amongst themselves as to which of our clients
should avail themselves of the new technology.
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What are some of your challenges?
As the business gets bigger, our business culturethe
importance of customer servicestarts to become less per-
sonal. One of our challenges is making sure we never lose
that feeling of family in our businessthat personal touch.
We strive to instill those values in our employees and our
company and look for ways to instill it in the companies
we acquire.
Whats it like working with your family, the ups and
the downs?
My brother and I have been in together for as long as I
can remember. The success of our partnership, from the
beginning, is that we focus on different things. I focus on
sales, and Eddie makes sure we deliver on what we sold.
He makes sure we hire the right people, so we can deliver
on what we promised to our customers.
As we continued to grow, I focused on growth and Eddie
focused on the stability. On our ability to handle that
growth. Over the years, we made each other better at one
anothers skills.
I think we generally work through things because we
respect each others strengths and weaknesses.
We were raised by parents who were immigrantsand
we are immigrants ourselveswe learned the importance
of doing whatever needed to be done for a living, however
tough that might be.
Fortunately, my brother and I have a good marriage; we
come from the same place.
One of the things we learned early on from our father
was to make sure your family stays close.
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