caret and stick has grown from a successful IT security and advisory business based in Sydney called 3rd Base Networks (3BN).

Offering security advisory and short term consultancy contracts 3BN’s main requirements to get started were nothing more than a website, a phone number and business registration services. After spending two weeks writing contracts, five days registering the business, countless hours investigating web based accountancy applications and hiring then firing three logo designers 3BN was finally in a position to produce an invoice.

THAT’S JUST TOO HARD!

Frustrated by the difficulty of getting the business started and having to establish multiple relationships just to operate, the founder of 3BN Stephen Gillies decided to use his experience to help startup businesses in Sydney Australia.

Over the last 17 years Stephen has held senior IT positions in the publishing, ISP, vendor technology and finance industries. He enjoys working in highly secure corporate and federal government environments deploying simple, manageable and repeatable solutions.

Stephen is a contributor to industry response papers on Internet Filtering and has presented on data security, next-generation Internet infrastructure and behaviour based Reputational Security. He holds strong views on usability and privacy, and has helped a number of organisations review acceptable use policies in relation to Internet use.

Stephen is based in Sydney Australia but spends most of his time online. Recently searching on the Internet for himself he found seven embarrassing photos, over three hundred references to his rarely updated blog and twenty references to Internet forum posts he’d rather forget from the early nineties.

Most people who know Stephen call him Max, a nickname he picked up in high school.