Pax8 Roadshow Special - Ryan Sigouin

Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we dive deep into the mysteries and the secrets of partnerships and the channel. Coming to you from PAXApion 2026, I'm happy to sit down with Ryan Sigwin from SkillPad. How are you doing? I'm doing well.

Thanks. Awesome. Welcome. So before we kick off, could you give us a quick introduction about yourself, a little bit about your background?

Yeah, sure. So I spent 20 some odd years in the MSP space, um, kind of like my entire professional career, and then had the opportunity to transfer into the SaaS space. And like the easiest way to make that transition would be to go into SaaS that supports MSP. So I'm like very passionate about MSP operations and how software enables those operations.

So scale pad was an amazing fit for me after my MSP career kind of finally came to uh an end. I love it. Okay, so you said something interesting because I spent my entire career in SAS, and for me, SAS was almost always completely direct. So explain to me that connection between SaaS and through MSP.

Sure. So like I actually started SaaS, then ended up in MSP. So I originally went to university for application development and then found myself kind of in the sales roles within uh managed service providers that led to ownership and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, so I've always had an interest in application development in the SaaS space.

Um, and so the like this was in after my first career, it was uh an opportunity to kind of build off of my original kind of passion. So that's where I find myself here. I love that. It's funny.

I've had so many conversations and so many people that have seen both sides of that equation, right? And I think it adds so much to know the challenges, but also the benefits of being on each side. Well, it's basically becoming the same thing now, right? You talk to so many MSPs that are like building their own software right now.

So I think everybody that's in the MSP space has had an interest in it, and it's nice to yeah, have a little bit more support than just vibe coding stuff on my own. I hear you. I hear I I've had that phase and it's it's as fun as it is frustrating. Yeah, I have to say I've I have 12 really well-functioning apps now that I don't use that.

Right. So let's talk a little bit about the channel. Um, scale pad is obviously 100% channel. Um, and I'm always interested in how that shapes the way you look at revenue growth as a CRO, especially if you don't balance it out the right skill.

Well, scale pad's in a little bit of an interesting spot within that too, because like the MSP space is a limited TAM. Like we we only have so many MSPs to sell to. And so uh within Scalepad, we we touch a lot of those MSPs already. And so net client and net new growth, like new client acquisition is really important to us, obviously.

But partner expansion is really where we actually kind of grow the business. And so we're always looking at how we drive retention, how we've drive cross-sell across the five products that we sell into market, and then expansion within our existing products is also really important to us. Gotcha. So if we tie that back to what you just said about the MSP landscape is changing in general, how are you prepping for that shift?

Yeah, well, I think like I prepping for the shift is an interesting way to put it. I think like we're all behind the shift. So what we see in the MSP space and like what I experienced as I was running mine was that there's this move from um where we had been previously to like more of a consultative approach. And so you see that through the products that are starting to be offered by MSPs, the conversations that I think clients are trying to have with their MSPs that they're struggling to get.

And so a lot of what we're building in Scalepad was really how do we help MSPs facilitate the conversations that their clients actually want to have with them and not sit there and go through some boring QBR that's not really relevant to their business. Yeah. Okay, can you talk to me a little bit about that? Like that product suite that you offer, because that really ties into this.

I normally don't do the like the products and features thing, but I think you have a unique positioning for that. I think like our goal is to really try and build out like the first customer success product for the MSP space. It was interesting coming from MSP into SaaS, and then you look at like what products exist within the SaaS space, it's like, well, what is this thing called gain site? Like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

And then there's churn zero, and there's like this massive group of products that fit within the CS space. And you think about what's going on with SaaS is okay, it's a recurring revenue model that's like really focused on expansion and retention. Oh, that sounds like familiar. That's exactly what we're driving in the MSP space.

It's like, well, why does a SAS are like why is there no CS tool for MSPs? And so that's really like what we've been working to build. So within that, we have a bunch of other products that kind of fall under the like different areas, like backup radar, uh, quoting tools, all of those things. But really, our focus right now is really around um how do we build that CS platform for the MSP?

I kind of love that because that really ties into you're talking about like partner enablement and channel programs, and there's all this time conversation. But this is really about empowering the MSP to kind of do better for the end customer at the end of the day. Like do better for the end customer, and then I think thereby do better for themselves. Like you look at the competitive landscape right now around MSPs, it's like every major market has like I always compare it to grocery stores.

So for every grocery store that exists within a market, there's gonna be an MSP. Like the the scale of a bit like of the business kind of like almost relates to the same thing. So if you look at a major market, there's gonna be 20 to 30 MSPs in that market. Like trying to go chase new client acquisition is like very similar to trying to get someone to change to a different grocery store.

It's very hard to get people to change kind of between the I guess the things that they've been accustomed to, especially if the value proposition isn't that difficult, uh different. Exactly the same with MSPs, exactly the same with grocery stores. So I think like making sure that you get more out of those relationships is really important. And I think like expansion, the client expansion is like this major missed opportunity that exists.

While all MSPs are just going out searching for, I don't know, outsourced marketing companies or something like that that they can like throw money at to try and get new clients in the door where they have this massive opportunity in front of them that they're not realizing. Yeah, I think that makes so much sense. I mean, it's the problem with with the noise in this business. Totally, right?

That and and it's in the cybersecurity space just in general, yeah. That I see where I'm like, I can't even identify differentiation with a lot of companies at all. And I recently had a conversation with someone, I was recording small podcasts at RSA, and I said, What what do you do? Yeah, and she looked at me dead in the eyes and she said, The same thing all these other guys are doing.

It's funny, you shouldn't admit that. We're walking around, like you can walk around the floor at some of the events, and you there's so many different security companies, and we were like saying that there's a list of 10 things that a security company can do, yeah, and they all seem to choose between like one and four of them, yeah, and you can kind of just check off the list. So, yeah, it's it's hard to, especially on the security side. Um, we find that with control map a little bit, like that we're very pure play GRC, but yeah, it's it's MSPs, I think, have a hard time just like there's so much noise on that side of the business right now to try and differentiate what the value is of the people that are even selling to them.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's funny, I I actually come from a bit of the GRC world, oh yeah, GRC and environment health and safety. And and that was one of the the jokes we also used to make with these GRC software providers. Like, what would you say it is you do here?

Yeah, exactly. It's it it's hard to it's and there's some like the vibe coding on that side of the business right now is insane. There's new products popping up every week that we're we're coming across or that we're evaluating. So yeah, no, but I think indeed taking that a more solid approach and looking, even though everything seems to be going like lightning quick right now, looking at hey, what is this going to mean for my my MSP business and how can I position myself in the market in a way that sticks?

Yeah, I think that's super valuable. And and the CS angle of of not just being that trusted advisor, obviously, for your end customer, but actually showing them that you're involved in this process and connecting with them in a way that is indeed more than a deck or a QVR or whatever it makes. Well, it it's like kind of our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. Like the go-to-market strategy around like training MSPs to run a CS program is much more difficult than just selling like a security tool that you can deploy to across your company.

But like you say, it creates a lot more stickiness in the same way that like a PSA or something like that would is that like we see CS as being one of those pillars of the managed service space that hasn't really found its spot yet. So, like with PSA and operations, documentation, and then CS being kind of the major portfolios, and then obviously security and all those things that come in and out. So so CS is traditionally a very human-focused domain. So so how how do you kind of marry those two worlds?

AI, CS, human, human AI. So I think it's interesting because like in the SaaS space, it's not really a human-focused role, it's actually a data like centric role. And so what they're doing is they're analyzing all of the triggers that they get from like things like product utilization or how people are interacting with the product or how many support tickets are they placing. And then they're consolidating all of that information and generating like a customer health score, and then they're using that to identify how I should do in-product um maybe messaging or how I should do outbound reach to those clients that are at risk rather because like their their situation is that they have a massive partner base, but a very small CS team.

And so they're looking for when I'm going to do the outreach or when I'm gonna make the um the effort to try and contact a partner, which partner should I be doing? And this is the thing that we we miss. And the irony is this that we have way more triggers available to us as managed service providers than an individual SaaS business has. Yeah.

So you you have unlike unlimited information around ticket, you have unlimited information around tone and the way that people are dealing with you, especially with Copilot now and all the meetings being recorded and transcribed. It's an unlimited amount of information associated with that. And so MSPs like need to, I think, have tools that allow them to take advantage of all of these signals that they're getting, but they can't actually um leverage right now. Okay, if you position it like that, like one of the things I think I put myself in the shoes of an MSP and I'm like, oh my God, that sounds like so much stuff.

Yeah, right. So so how do you how how could I say how do you um describe that complexity in a certain way? Like, how do you focus on the outcomes in the world? Yeah, yeah.

So if you if think about like, okay, let's build a product, and this is kind of the the thought process that we have at ScalePad, let's build a product that takes all of the information that would dictate whether someone is either healthy or unhealthy as a client, pull that information into a single system, aggregate all of that data so that it's all automatically dealt with for them, and then let's expose those signals in a way that makes it easy for an MSP to prioritize work that they're doing.

Um, on top of that, let's make sure that all the communication that you should be having or the way that you're gonna run your CS uh, let's call it playbooks is all documented in a single location, and so that there's consistency across all of that and you're recording all of that data in a central location. Now you've got all the context of that customer from the relationship standpoint, not just like PSA's got all your service ticket information, your documentation has all your documentation information, blah, blah, blah.

But there's no central repository for the relationship information, and that's like what we've been working to build. And so, thereby now, if you have a central repository for all of the relationship information, you know how to walk into those conversations and understand how to manage that account in a way that's going to feel more proactive and more strategic than just reactive, like I think the industry's been kind of burdened with the last as long as I've been a part of it.

Yeah, no, I hear you. It's almost like a single source of CS truth. Yeah, exactly. We we're like pretty obsessed with the fact that there is no source of truth for that and that there's no system of record for CS information within the MSP space.

And that's really like the thing that we're trying to make sure that we become. Yeah, no, I always love hearing about like unique perspectives on something very specific, right? That vertical slice. Yes, it's so important to get that right.

We try and be as opinionated as we can on exactly like what we're trying to build and how we're trying to build it, and we the way we feel that MSP should be looking at like growth within their business, how their PL should look from a growth perspective, like where their revenue percentages should be coming from. Um, like we've and our tools, I think, help support that. Well, I love that. And I think just in general, CS has that challenge where it's like, oh, I'm a uh customer success manager, I've got a hundred accounts.

Yeah. It's like, how how are you ever going to like a lot time? Totally. You're gonna focus on the top five that are really, really important or return risk or whatever.

And uh I think uh empowering these teams with the tool that's made for them. I think there's also that almost that empathy angle then, like uh, ACS, we've got you. Yeah, you know. Well, the it's the people that you feel the worst for in the in the organization.

Like when I was running my MSPs, it was like the account managers were the ones that were like the face of your business, and they're the most poorly supported role within the organization. Yeah, and so inevitably what ends up happening is that they're they're really just focused on like, do I have enough personality to do my job? Yes or no. I have no school, like no tools, I have no like frameworks to work from, I have nothing.

And then I'm also gonna have to spend three to five hours collecting information to create a presentation so that I can show up and look professional and then have the part or the customer cancel that meeting like an hour before I show up. Yeah, it's just such a like a such a burn. And it's weirdly paradoxical if you think about it, where it's like we know that retention is so much more cost efficient than that new acquisition. Yeah.

So yeah, we should be carrying those CS people kind of on our shoulders. It's retention and like account expansion should be the the biggest two metrics that people look at. Like looking at NCA growth or new client acquisition growth is like it's such an easy way to make yourself feel really good about all the MRR that you're being bringing into the business while it's just bleeding out the back end. And the problem becomes that the margin profile of that business is completely different.

So when you bring in a new client, I think anybody that's ever run an MSP knows how expensive it is to onboard a new client and how long it may feel before that client feels profitable. Versus you have all this expansion opportunity within your existing customer base, which uh very easily translates to higher margin with no lag on it. Yeah, um, and it's crazy to me that we don't we don't spend more of our time there. Yeah, fascinating.

So I have one more question before I get to your final words of wisdom and thought. Okay, sure. Uh you had this 2026 MSP report come out, and it's fascinating because it shows 87% optimism in the chat. Yeah.

I have to say very honestly that that sometimes when you speak to people behind closed doors, yeah, yeah, I don't necessarily see that 87% uh come up. So I'm curious to hear from you what was driving the confidence in that report and and how how confident are you about that confidence? You know what? The the interesting thing is is like I always feel that this industry, like last 20 some odd years, yeah, everybody's always like, oh my gosh, it's at the end of the MSP era and it's MSP 2.

0 or 3.0 or something else. Um, I I think that like that fear is really important in the MSP space because if you don't change, you're irrelevant. Yeah, and so I think the best thing to motivate people towards improving is fear.

And I think like just inherently, if you have that in you, you're gonna be successful within the space. And I hate that it has to exist in the way that it does, but it does. But I think the confidence that we see in our report is that when you look at the amount of change that's coming to business, specifically small business, and how small business now has to compete with large enterprise in the things of like automation, AI adoption, all of those things, they're gonna be looking to MSPs to support that, and they're gonna be in a position where they don't have an option whether they invest in it or not.

And so MSPs are like in the best operat like have the best opportunity if they get in front of customers and have the right conversation to move into a much higher revenue, uh, like margin profile than they've ever had. And so I think that there's a lot of realization, especially in a lot of the more mature MSPs that I speak to, they understand the opportunity that's there. And I think this is why we've seen so much private equity like come into the space over the last few years, is there's a realization that the only path to small business is through the MSP.

Yeah, because the the SMBs they can't they can't manage it themselves in full stuff. Like, I I wouldn't even know where to start when it comes to my cybersecurity posture from like a 40-person office, you know. And for most of them, it's boring. Yeah, like it's boring and it's like crazy overhead and it's like exhausting to try and stay on top of.

Like it's exhausting to try and stay on top of it as someone that's obsessed and interested in it. Like, if you have no interest in it, there's there's no chance. Um, and so I think that there's gonna be a lot more um ability for an MSP to make recommendations that get picked up by their clients without all the effort that I think they've had to kind of endure previously. Yeah, like when that competitive pressure drives decision, then I think that makes it so much easier to sell.

I I love that perspective, and and that almost would work as final words of wisdom. But before we end, if you have any final words of wisdom, yeah. I I mean I don't I'm just gonna resay the same thing. It's like the I would say concentrate on client expansion and retention as your primary metrics.

Make sure that you have a working referral program set up within your existing customer base before you go chase outsource marketing, hiring a sales guy, all the things that we know that we've done three or four times in our MSP and always fail. Yeah, like referral programs are always the best way to generate new clients. And um, we all know that. I think we all brag about how how much of our uh business comes from referral.

And so maybe make sure you got that stuff in order before you go concentrate on trying to grow through NCA. I love that. Words to Lipwai. Hey Ryan, thank you so much.

Yeah, this was awesome. And for you, dear listeners and watchers, uh, we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you.