Sidustar International, Inc.
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Sidustar International, Inc. has reached it's end point on a positive note. The books and clients have been sold off and we were able to payback our investors with a sizable profit. We were also able to let our employees go with a handsome return and severance reward for their services.
In 2000 we started with the idea of getting small businesses off of "dial-up" and copper voice (Cat 3)then onto high-speed internet (Cat 5+ and IEEE) and wireless broadband since we knew where the future was headed and everyone would need the cloud. The internet which is now the World-Wide-Web would be the trail-blazer we now know it is today. As President and Founder my plans do not stop here. I see "as-a-Service" from the cloud growing and expect storage and security will continue to be moving targets so the future looks plenty bright from here in "Twenty-0-Four" (2004). - Thank you, C.
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President and Founder C.W. Pickering.
You can follow me on Twitter: @fiduciarybrane.
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Anush sits at the helm and makes the tough decisions as the "Chairman of the Board".
 
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The SII Story; we apologize in advance for condensing the website but our footprint is no longer needed now that we have been split and sold. We are certain just like we are discovering our green footprint is necessary on the planet that this will also be the same with cyber-space in the future.
Charles started the business in 2000 with the SII focus on converting SMBs to high-speed status. That meant converting them to Cat 5 and 5e cabling then creating an intranet (LAN/IEEE). He then went on to sign a partnership agreement with a local cable and signaling contractor that also did low voltage. After that he inked a deal with his former employer to add Software-on-Demand into the sales mix. That became the force multiplier and unbeknownst at the time it would become the lynch-pin for SII's future.
Things really started to roll and SII was landing business very quickly expanding from SoCal to the southwest. It was by early 2002 SII was heading toward and $8 figure revenue gross after becoming profitable by late 2001 (no more burn rate). Things were fantastic and the future looked like the stars were the limit.
Unfortunately as fate would have it - life happened. SII was not prepared for the unexpected was the collapse of WorldCom its largest partner and supplier of high-speed internet in July of 2002. The business took a major hit and things started to spiral. The strategy went from expansion to stop-the-bleeding in an instant. Charles felt his legs were taken out from under him. He was confused and immediately met with a few resources for help. He took their advice then met with his investors/Advisors. They were able to formulate a plan but he would need street level advise from his team to pull it off. He turned to them for their help. A turnaround was needed and fast but could they pull it off?
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The TURNAROUND: What Charles would learn from the street by listening to his team was invaluable. It was the beginning to the term he then coined "Convergence-IP". He took the data back to his Advisors to develop a strategy.
Sustainability would come directly from my team's VOC. It consisted of a product direction change of focus, specific force multipliers, and efficiency. The action orientation would be a collaborative effort of stakeholder focus and deal making by understanding the margins. I first needed to know the business intelligence to develop the strategy into actionable executables and predictable analytics. It had to be a team effort in aggressive persistence coupled with designing unique strengths, benchmarking, proactive best practice expertise, and timing to deliver us back up to the tipping point and into the black. Everyone in the SII lineup expected to win. The new strategy included signing 2 broadband partners and added managed services with layers 2 and 3.
It took SII the better part of a year but they were back and in the black. The team was a cohesive unit and everyone played a part in the success. When Mr. Pickering sold the business he rewarded his team handsomely for their efforts. Each investor was paid back too with interest.
That's the long and short of it. Everything was sold and the check was received in November of 2003. Everyone associated with Sidustar International, Inc. had a wonderful holiday season. The name was officially retired in early 2004. The original website was taken down and this commemorative 3 page site was put in its place to honor the team of investors, the team of sales and operations personnel, and the founding principles; Charles and Mariana Pickering with their baby Anush. - Thank you.
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Convergence-IP: With the advent of Ethernet cards built-in to laptops and PCs we were able to deliver a solid design of LAN/WLAN/WAN for small and multi-location businesses along with high-speed internet via Broadwing's scientific pipeline network. That allowed us to take advantage of cloud based service oriented architecture, layer 2 and layer 3 managed services, and managed-hosted SaaS based applications and services giving us a unique presence with our clients. We did this at the SMB level and maintained a great rapport with our clientele. After discussing it with the team, shareholders and advisory board I made the decision to accept an offer put on the table by a local business in the San Fernando Valley who was also purchased a few months later by C&W who was then bought by Alcatel-Lucent. -C.W. Pickering in his office.
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