Startup IT support built for your next 30 hires
Express IT Solutions is the IT foundation under growing companies: identity done right, laptops that arrive configured, offboarding that kills access on schedule, security a customer questionnaire will not embarrass. Not the people you call when the printer breaks. The people who make sure five becoming fifty never means starting over.
Run from Syracuse, New York since 2005, and built remote-first: support lands wherever your people sit, with on-site visits across Central New York when hardware needs hands.
A startup needs a managed IT provider when growth starts outrunning improvised IT: accounts created ad hoc, every laptop configured differently, nobody completely sure who has access to what. Startup IT support means an outside team builds and runs the foundation: Microsoft 365 and Entra ID identity with MFA and conditional access, standardized laptops and device management, onboarding and offboarding that create and remove access on schedule, endpoint security, defined backup, and documentation. Express IT Solutions has run that layer from Syracuse, New York since 2005, remote-first, on-site across Central New York.
Nobody started the company to run its IT
Every startup has an IT department. At most of them it is the founder, after hours, with a credit card. That works at five, survives at fifteen, and quietly becomes the most expensive job in the company around thirty, because every founder hour spent resetting passwords is an hour the company did not get.
This page is for the middle of that curve: five to fifty and hiring, tools everywhere, process nowhere. You do not need an enterprise IT department. You need the foundation, identity, devices, onboarding, security, built once and priced per user, so cost scales exactly as fast as you do. It runs on the bones of our managed IT services.
What breaks at 5, 15, 30 and 50
The pattern is consistent enough to set a clock by. Find your headcount.
Everyone figures it out themselves
IT is a credit card and goodwill. The founder picks laptops the weekend before a start date, and a personal account owns the domain. It works, because five people can shout across the room.
Every hire is a one-off
Onboarding is a Slack thread. Every laptop is configured differently, accounts get created the morning someone starts, new people wait days to be productive, and no two machines fail the same way.
Nobody can say who has access to what
Permissions, devices, SaaS and security have outgrown anyone’s head. People have left and still have access, and the honest audit would take a week nobody has.
Early shortcuts, now with interest
The shortcuts are now technical debt, compounding. Enterprise customers and investors send questionnaires expecting enforced MFA, managed devices, a leaver process and a backup story, and a promise to get to it is not an answer.
The turn: build it right once
None of this is a character flaw; it is what happens when a company grows faster than its systems. The fix is a foundation built once, deliberately: identity, devices, onboarding, security, set up to scale by default.
Do that, and the next 30 employees do not create 30 new problems.
The symptoms, in the words we hear them
If three of these are true, this page was written about you.
- Your founder is still the IT department.
Your most expensive person carries the pager, at 11 p.m.
- Every laptop is configured differently.
Each one was set up by whoever had an hour, so no two fail the same way.
- You are not completely sure who has access to what.
Permissions grew by Slack request. The honest audit would take a week you do not have.
- Security became important the day a customer questionnaire arrived.
Nothing changed in your systems that day. Someone with a signature finally asked.
- The Wi-Fi was fine when there were eight of you.
It is still the gear the ISP shipped, now carrying thirty people and every video call.
- New hires wait for laptops and accounts.
The start date was known for weeks; the accounts were not.
All six trace to the same missing layer, and the fix starts in the same place: a scoping call
Four stories we keep walking into
Different companies, same physics.
The employee who left in March
An engineer moves on. Offboarding is a Slack message, so the CRM login, the repository and the VPN credential outlive the employment.
A departed account is a standing door into everything, and the first door every security review asks about.
Offboarding wired to identity: one departure date in Entra ID, and access ends on schedule, confirmed in writing.
The three-day first day
A new hire shows up Monday. The laptop arrives Wednesday, and accounts trickle in as people remember them.
You pay a salary to someone watching others work. Day one teaches every hire improvisation.
Standardized laptop deployment plus a checklist: imaged, managed and shipped before the start date, accounts ready on day one, in Syracuse or Seattle.
The questionnaire that stalls the deal
Your biggest prospect sends a security questionnaire. MFA everywhere? Managed devices? Offboarding? Backup? Each honest answer is a paragraph of explanation.
The deal waits on IT answers, and enterprise buyers read hesitation as risk.
Run IT so the honest answers are short: MFA enforced, devices managed, access reviewed, backup defined, all documented. No certifications handed out; the controls get built, so you answer from evidence.
Everyone is an admin
Everyone got admin in year one because it was faster. Nothing has revoked it since, so every laptop is a master key.
One phished password, and whatever ransomware reaches, it owns. The blast radius is the whole company.
Least privilege, admin-role separation, endpoint security on every machine, conditional access in front of what matters. One bad click becomes a laptop problem, not a company problem.
Tell us what you are dealing with. We start by understanding your environment.
What a growing company should standardize first
Standardize in this order: identity, then devices, then onboarding and offboarding, then the security baseline, then backup, then network and documentation. Identity comes first because every other control hangs off who can sign in to what, and each step makes the next one cheaper.
- Identity: Microsoft 365 and Entra ID done right. One tenant, MFA enforced, conditional access, admin roles separated from daily accounts, recovery that does not run through a founder’s personal phone. See Microsoft 365 setup.
- Devices: one way to issue a laptop. A standard build, device management, disk encryption, the ability to wipe a machine that walks off.
- Onboarding and offboarding: access on a schedule. Accounts created before the start date, killed on the departure date, confirmed in writing.
- Security baseline: the controls questionnaires ask about. Endpoint security, least privilege, alerting, plus a SaaS and asset inventory so you know what you run. See cybersecurity.
- Backup: defined, not assumed. Decide what must survive, where it lives and who restores it, then test it. The free tier of a sync tool is not a backup strategy.
- Network and documentation. Wi-Fi designed for the headcount you are hiring toward, and documentation that makes the company’s IT knowable by someone other than its founder.
Two more things founders ask for
A number: what IT should cost at twenty people, and what the next ten hires change. That is project planning and budgeting, delivered through IT consulting; on our managed packages, technology strategy and planning is part of the plan.
And AI. The same team has put more than 111 AI projects into production in the last 90 days, alongside a business IT practice run since 2005, so the advice is practical. We scope automation on the AI agents page; the policy-first conversation is AI consulting. One caution comes free: data pasted into public AI tools has left the building.
What the foundation is made of
Eight pieces, each with a page behind it. The scoping call says which three come first.
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Managed IT for startups
The ongoing layer: a helpdesk your team can actually call, monitoring, patching, someone else carrying the pager. See managed IT services.
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Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, set up right
Tenant setup or rescue, MFA and conditional access, admin-role separation, secure recovery. See Microsoft 365 support.
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Startup cybersecurity
Endpoint security, least privilege, alerting, and the controls customer questionnaires ask about. See cybersecurity.
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Devices, network and everything else
One way to buy, image, issue and retire a laptop, Wi-Fi that was designed, backup that gets tested. See business IT services.
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Published per-user pricing
Packages from $65 per user per month, published in writing. The bill tracks headcount, in both directions. See the MSP packages.
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AI agents and automation
Practical automation for lean teams: intake, paperwork, the interruptions that eat a builder’s day. See AI agents.
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AI consulting
Which automation is worth your time, what the policy should say first, and what to skip. See AI consulting.
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IT budgeting and scaling guidance
Technology assessments, project planning and budgeting, second opinions on other vendors’ proposals. That is IT consulting.
If you only came for the number: packages from $65 per user per month, published in writing
Word for word from public Google reviews. Names as the reviewers published them.
“Express provides excellent service, we’ve been with them for years. They are always responsive to whatever issues we might have. Great work, always totally pleased.”
“I have always had good experiences with this team. They listen to the problem and take the time to go over it with you if you need or want them to. Very good experience and reasonable.”
Straight answers for founders
The questions we actually get on scoping calls.
How does a startup know it needs an MSP?
When IT problems start costing more than IT help would. The signals: the founder is the de facto IT department, onboarding takes days, nobody can say who has access to what, a security questionnaire would be a scramble. Two or more true? The foundation work is overdue; the scoping call sizes it.
What should a growing company standardize first?
Identity, then devices, then onboarding and offboarding, then the security baseline, then backup, then network and documentation. Identity comes first because every other control hangs off who can sign in to what. Each step makes the next one cheaper.
Can you work alongside our technical founder or internal IT person?
Yes, at startups that is the normal arrangement. Your technical people keep the product and the decisions that need company context; we carry the layer that eats their calendar: user support, laptops, Microsoft 365 administration, onboarding and offboarding, patching, backup. Who owns what goes on paper.
What does onboarding a new employee look like with you?
You tell us the start date and the role; the checklist does the rest. Accounts come from a role template before day one, MFA enrolled, access limited to the role. The laptop arrives imaged, managed and ready to sign in. The same checklist runs in reverse when someone leaves.
How does switching from founder-managed IT work?
It starts with an inventory, not a migration: the tenant, the domains, the devices, the SaaS list, who has admin where, what is wired to personal accounts. Ownership moves to company-controlled identity, quick risks close first, the rest is staged so nothing breaks mid-sprint. The founder keeps visibility and loses the pager.
What does IT support for a startup cost?
Our published plans run $65, $80 and $99 per user per month; what each tier includes is on the MSP packages page, in writing. Ten people cost ten people, and the bill tracks headcount in both directions. Foundation projects are quoted separately before work starts, also in writing.
We are remote-first with people in several states. Does that work?
That is the default we build for. Identity, device management, endpoint security and support run the same whether a laptop is in Syracuse or Seattle: machines ship preconfigured and support happens over a secure remote session. The office side gets hands-on attention across Central New York.
The closing argument
Your IT does not need to be enterprise-complex. It needs exactly one property: built so the next 30 employees do not create 30 new problems.
Built right once, the foundation is boring, and boring is the point. Laptops arrive configured. Accounts die on departure day. Questionnaires get answered from evidence. The founder goes back to the actual company. That is what IT support for growing businesses should buy, with a price in writing, per user, per month.
Build it right once. Then go build the company.
Book a scoping call
A few fields now, a straight recommendation on the call.
Three required fields. A person at our Fayetteville office reads it.
Tell us where the company is going.
How many people now, how many by this time next year, what already lives in Microsoft 365 and who set it up. That is enough for a straight recommendation and a price in writing, usually from the first conversation.
Fayetteville, NY 13066
Syracuse, NY 13202
help@expresssupport.com