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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Mazel tov and good luck on the new venture. Should there ever be a need (advice, shoulder to cry on, place to vent, maybe a joint opportunity), don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Why, thank you, sir! And I’ll take you up on that. (Hopefully not to cry anytime soon though, heh.)
Well, this is pretty awesome! Good luck, you guys!
This is good news. Good luck!
Thanks, guys!
Congrats Master O. With the dream team you’ve got, I’m sure it will be wildly successful.
[...] Brent’s announcement [...]
What an exciting time! Congratulations guys.
BTW, Love the new look! Very clean. The drawing of Tim looks so much more like him than this guy
Congrats on your next endeavor! Best of luck.
Congratulations, I wish you all the best.
[When I read the headline of this article, I thought: "Parachute Landing Fall? Brent's going skydiving?" ... Wrong PLF.
]
Eric
Awesome and good luck! That’s some serious SQL firepower with a healthy tilt towards *helping* in-house DBAs!
Congratulations and good luck
Brent – This is great for all of you. Proud seems like such a mom thing to say, but I am proud. I wish you all the luck in the world.
Lori
Congratulations, running a company is fun! You are set up for success because you have the most important thing already: Customers for a proven product. I believe that for the same reason stackoverflow worked.
(There are 2 double-whitespaces on that page, fyi).
Congratulations! – Wish you all the best with new mission and really you are a perfect team!
Congratulations Brent, Jeremiah, Kendra and Tim – it will be fun watching your company grow.
I have gotten great advice from both Jeremiah and Kendra directly, benefited from the information Brent and Tim have shared publicly, and was in the Columbus PASS chapter with Jeremiah before he moved out west. Getting all of you into one organization should be a win for everyone. I wish you much success in this new venture!
Love the new black and white format. Good luck with the new venture. Smart cookies in your jar. Enjoy everyone’s posts. Jeremiah’s venture into open source land is very interesting and a great contrast. I wonder when he’ll switch his OS to Ubuntu?
Too much talent involved for this to not be very successful. I say they should all have to have at least one blog post about turtles!
HAHAHA, we should do that. We should at least get a group photo with a turtle!
I was hoping you would have bought three more sets of green Hulk hands for the new partners with a trailer of the initiation ceremony
Good luck with the new venture and am sure it will be a success!
Whoa! Some of my favorite SQL people in the world are getting together to kick some database arse? AWESOME. Congrats and best wishes guys!
Since you’ve failed with all three of them, I don’t understand way you didn’t call your new company FLOP..
Best of luck with the new venture.
I have a good feeling about this
Congrats, and good luck to all of you!
Hey team,
I just wanted to congratulate you on the new company! I am 100% sure that your venture will be a success and it will be fun watching your company grow from here in London. I’ll look out for your news!
Love,
Jen x
Congrats man.
I wish you the very best for your future success to all you 4.
I lurk here often but somehow missed the news on your departure from SQL Skills. I’m all caught up now, and glad you guys are all still friends with benefits
.
Anyway, just wanted to congratulate you and of course Jeremiah, Tim, and Kendra on this new endeavor! I’ll be looking forward to posts from all four of you!