About
Goetch Stone
Founder & Principal Consultant
20+ years in IT. I've been the MSP engineer, the Director of IT, and the client. I know where the fees are hidden because I used to watch them get added. I started Akritos because small businesses deserve a technology partner who works for them — not one that profits from their confusion.
Early Career
MSP Engineer
Started at a managed service provider. Learned the business inside and out — including how the model works. Watched vendors bake fees into every layer, mark up hardware, and build dependencies that kept clients locked in. The incentives were misaligned: the more confused the client, the more the MSP profited.
12+ Years
Director of IT
Became the client. Ran technology for a multi-location regional retailer and learned what it actually takes to keep a business running. Network deployments, phone systems, POS migrations, PCI compliance, vendor negotiations, new location buildouts — all in production, all with real budgets and real consequences.
Community
Conference Presenter & Donor
Presented a hands-on workshop on Apple Device Administration at the PSU MacAdmins Conference at Penn State — the premier conference for Apple enterprise and education IT professionals. Covering everything from DUNS registration through Apple Business setup, MDM selection, and zero-touch deployment. Donor to the MacAdmins Foundation, supporting community education and open-source tooling.
Real Work
Every one of these shipped in a production business environment — multi-location retail, real budgets, real deadlines. Client details anonymized.
Multi-location regional retailer
Planned and executed a full network upgrade across every location — on budget, on schedule. Year one: replaced aging switches with PoE-capable units to build the foundation. Year two: ran fiber links between switches for backbone reliability. Year three: deployed Wi-Fi across all locations. Later revisited the wireless stack and upgraded to Aruba Central. Vetted and onboarded co-managed network partners rather than trying to do everything in-house.
Multi-location regional retailer
Planned complete IT buildouts for new retail locations from scratch — structured cabling, phone drops, Wi-Fi access point placement, vendor coordination. Coordinated across multiple vendors and trades to get locations open on time and within budget. Every location launched without IT delays.
Multi-location regional retailer
Migrated from a legacy DSU-based phone system to an on-premise Asterisk-based solution. Evaluated vendors, negotiated contracts, planned the cutover, and deployed across locations. No extended downtime, no surprise costs.
Multi-location regional retailer
Migrated POS data between platforms without data loss. Secured Clover terminals on dedicated VLANs to meet PCI compliance requirements. Built custom reporting using existing tools — no unnecessary vendor spend. Negotiated payment processing rates multiple times, saving the business thousands annually.
Multi-location regional retailer
Deployed Apple Business (then called Apple Business Manager), federated identity with Google Workspace, and rolled out managed Apple accounts across the organization. This is the exact stack Akritos offers to clients — it was built in production first, not learned from a demo.
Why I started this
A plumber came to my house with a clogged toilet. Slow drain, broken plunger, the usual escalation. I'd spent a day trying to fix it myself — scratched the bowl with the wrong-sized auger — and finally called for help. He arrived in 30 minutes. Polite. Professional. Diagnosed it in two minutes, fixed it in ten, and handed me an invoice for $600.
It was a bar of soap. My son had thrown a bar of soap in the toilet. The fix was a $40 auger from the hardware store — a tool the plumber knew I should have owned and didn't.
He did nothing wrong. The business model did.
The $100 “to come out” wasn't a real diagnostic fee — it was a sunk cost that closed the door behind me. Once he was on-site, my options collapsed to “agree to whatever he quotes, or stay clogged AND lose the $100.” That's not a choice. That's a corner. I handed over my credit card thinking I could have done this for forty dollars, and felt awful.
I never want any of my customers handing me their credit card and feeling that. The Free Hour. The published rates. The no-lock-in retainers. The willingness to tell you you don't actually need us. All of it exists because of moments like the one I had last week.
Non-Negotiable
No referral fees, no partnership revenue, no volume incentives. When I recommend Mosyle over Jamf, it's because it's the right fit — not because one pays me more.
If a license costs $4/device/month, you pay $4/device/month. I show you the vendor invoice. You verify every dollar.
Month-to-month after a 3-month onboarding period. The onboarding minimum exists because doing this right takes time. After that, you stay because it works.
Every system I build, every process I create — I document it and teach your team. If I get hit by a bus, your business keeps running.
If your current setup works, I'll tell you. I'd rather lose the sale than put you on something unnecessary.
When I hire, they earn what they're worth. No intern labor, no offshore help desks, no cutting corners on the people who touch your systems.
Book a free consultation or reach out directly. I'll tell you what I see, what it would cost, and whether I'm the right person for the job. If I'm not, I'll tell you that too.
Or call directly: (860) 934-3410