Introducing My Next Experiment: Brent Ozar PLF

What does PLF stand for, you ask?  I’ll start by introducing my partners in PLF order:

Peschka, Jeremiah (Blog – @Peschkaj) – I met Jeremiah a couple of years ago at a PASS Summit.  We were both wandering the hallways, and we ended up spending hours together talking about databases, data mining, and Apple gear.  We tried starting a business project together, had a good time, but it fell to pieces shortly before go-live.

Little, Kendra (Blog – @Kendra_Little) – I first met Kendra last year in Miami, preparing to head out on the first SQLCruise.  She got off to a bad start by flying into the wrong airport, and then had a family emergency that kept her from boarding the boat with us.  Later, I got the chance to work with her on a contentious Microsoft project that involved opinionated yelling.

Ford, Tim (Blog – @SQLAgentMan) – I met Tim a few years ago when I spoke at the Michigan PASS chapter he ran.  We started SQLCruise together, and along the way, we’ve had all kinds of things go wrong.  Cruise lines have screwed us, swag vendors have missed their promises, and life has thrown us all kinds of crazy curveballs.

I’ve failed with all three of them, and they’re great partners.

I’ve long said that I won’t recommend anyone as a consultant unless I’ve seen them in action on a server-down situation.  You learn a lot about a person when you fail with them.  You learn how they handle pressure, politics, and personalities.

As I’ve gone through life, I’ve made little notes about people who are amazing in failure situations. Tim, Kendra, and Jeremiah have been truly enjoyable people to work with even during the darkest situations.  Starting a business is hard as hell – most small businesses fail – and even the successful ones have tough challenges along the way.  I want partners who do more than just live and learn; I want partners who can laugh and learn.

We’re building a new consulting and training company.

The best way to describe it is from our consulting offerings page:

Brent Ozar PLF is a boutique consulting firm focused on understanding your environment and strategy. We partner with you to objectively identify pain points and develop solutions that align to your business goals.  Your experience comes first; we share our knowledge and expertise to help you.

That isn’t just marketing fluff – we really live it.  You see us giving away our knowledge for free at user groups, conferences, and webcasts.  You read our blogs.  You get answers from us on #SQLHelp.  We love sharing, learning, and solving problems, and we’ve all been doing it for businesses for years.

Jeremiah, Kendra, and I will be focusing on SQL Server, storage, virtualization, and the cloud.  Tim has been running SQLCruise for a while, and he’ll continue to focus on that.  He’s not quitting his day job – SQLCruise is a part-time thing, but we’re merging that into the new company.  SQLCruise has been a fun success, and we’ve got more innovative events coming soon for training and problem solving.

The company name is Brent Ozar PLF, and BrentOzar.com is the home base for our company, but we’re all equal partners in this.  Jeremiah, Kendra, Tim, and I will be writing technical blog posts here, hosting webcasts, and more.  We first thought about starting a new company name and a new web site, but after talking with our genius branding consultants, we realized BrentOzar.com made the most sense.  I’ve been blogging here for a decade, it’s got great search engine visibility, and I steadily get new clients here month after month.  Why start a new site and struggle building a new brand from scratch when we’ve already got one?

Next up, I’m tagging Tim Ford to talk about why he’s taking part.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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