Charles Tomeo of Rewst

Speaker A: 11th edition of the MSP Initiative MSP Talk podcast. It is summertime, ladies and gentlemen. Hope everybody's buckled in and ready to rock and roll because it's going to be, I think, a pretty fast summer. But they always are. There's never enough beach weekends. I got some housekeeping I'm going to do and then we're going to talk, uh, shop with, uh, our return guest on the Pod one, Charlie Tameo, uh, from Roost. Uh, so here's all my housekeeping. We're gonna get it done now and then we'll get into the good stuff. Mspinitiative.com it's where we put everything that we're doing. But got two things right around the corner. When I mean right around the corner, like literally in the next two weeks. So here we go. If you're headed to Prague, yes, birthplace of the pilsner, uh, for the Cassia Connect Europe. Uh, actually both of us, I believe, are going to be in Prague. Uh, here in a few days. We are hosting an MSP community block party. It is on the agenda in the app. Or if you just happen to be in Prague and you're an MSP, please join us. Uh, all this is@mspinitiative.com totally free for the as an MSP to join us. It is a community event, um, looking, and it's right in the middle of Old Town, so we're excited to, uh, to come back to the scene. It's been a couple years since we've been in Prague and then we come back home into the US and we turn around, we go to Nashville right down Broadway where all the fun stuff is. And we are, uh, at our second year, uh, for the Flow Conference, uh, hosted by our friends from Roost. Perfect timing. So if you're headed to Flow, we had a great time in Tampa last year. Nashville looks great. The hotel conference is a block off of the main drag on Broadway and we are hosting an MSP community block party at Flow. So, so check that out again. If you're in the greater, um, area, you know, in Nashville and you're not already coming to the conference, but you want to join this, you're more than welcome to join us as community event. We rented a four story venue. There's plenty of room, uh, so we're looking forward to, uh, having everybody there. So, um, all that's on MSP initiative.com times, places, dates, locations, venues, it's all there. You can register. It's really easy. There's all the housekeeping and we're moving on. Charlie, welcome back to the show. How you doing today, my friend?

Speaker B: Good, George, Good to see you.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Always happy to see you. How's uh, you excited for your, what is it, eight hour flight to Prague?

Speaker B: I think I got it. I got a connector, so it's a little bit more, but, uh, that's fine. I'll do some reading, catch up on some stuff and, uh, that will be a busy week. Like next. Like you said, next two weeks are a bit crazy. Yeah.

Speaker A: Kind of worried about the whole new Europe EES entry exit system thing. Like for, you know, I guess we got to go through this whole scan your passport, do your fingerprints like global entry. Basically, yeah.

Speaker B: I think it's like anything else I, I have run into it. It really, uh, depends on the systems are up and running and, and who's running it, but, uh, they will not be rushed, let's put it that way.

Speaker A: Well, for anybody that doesn't know what we're talking about, if you're from out of Europe and you're headed into Europe, Europe, uh, has put a whole new tracking system in places for third party passports. They've gotten rid of all the stamps. It's completely electronic, but it's super new. Um, there was originally supposed to be the ability for you to register ahead of time, uh, but apparently that didn't get, um, online before they launched it. So you gotta like, literally stand in front of a kiosk the second you enter into one of the airports in the borders. Especially if you're connecting. Right. This is kind of problematic because if there's a backup, you're not gonna be able to, you know, get onto your connecting flight to the, you know, the last leg, uh, until you finish going through this EES registration. So if you don't know what we're talking about and you're headed there for next week, Google it so that you know what you're walking into. But it is a thing and, uh, hopefully it's not as bumpy as I've heard in other places. Um, Charlie, last time we've talked, it's been about a year since we've had you on the podcast. Lots has changed. Um, AI, I mean, is like pretty much every billboard now. Used to be cyber security, now it's AI. I, um, know that, you know, you'll probably, you guys will probably be talking about this at flow in a couple weeks. Uh, because, you know, automation and AI somehow like know get jammed together into like this gray conversation at times. What's your position? Right, like, obviously you You've seen, you know, you're living it on internally, you're hearing msps talk about it. I, I, you know, I was, I wasn't there. I don't think you were either. But ah, at this, the PAX8 event this past week, it was pretty much the entire conference. Might as well just been. Sounds like it should have just been called a icon. It's been now a couple years of it though, right? Like, what are you hearing from the MSP community on like is this viable? Is it real? Like what's actually going on?

Speaker B: So I think most of what I'm hearing is uh, they're counting on us as vendors to help guide them. Um, I don't think that um, just throwing AI in front of everything is going to be helpful to them. I've heard that even specifically, specifically with what we're doing and how we're evolving, what we do to support the community. So we're still in automation, you know, automation first. Um, but I'd say the other thing is that, you know, this isn't going away, right? So this isn't like everything that we've come up against. You know, you've been in the sandbox for quite a bit, right? We come up with these buzzwords and then as vendors we figure out how do we market that, we do that. And so I think it's um, it's just one of those things that we have to be very upfront what we do, but we also have to lean into it. It's not going away.

Speaker A: I'm, I'm, you know, I can't help but I mean we all watch it for various reasons. The online keyboard forums, right? Uh, you know, the Facebook's, the Reddits, the Slacks and the Discords, all that stuff. There's a lot of people, you know, some people call vibe coding, some people call it, uh, you know, just playing. Right. But bottom line is they're connecting on the fly a lot of this new stuff, right? They sign up for an account, they plug it into their PSA or their RMM and you know, off we're in the laboratory doing things. I, you know, what's your, what's your view on that? Because it seems like people are maybe not as worried for some reason that like they're just plug in and go. Right. I guess, you know, we'll see what happens.

Speaker B: Yeah, this is, there's got to be a huge risk, right? I mean if you look at uh, we went through this with the uh, bring your own device, right? People thought that Certainly if you're in any type of government agency, if you work for big corporation, they tried their best to stop it from happening. Um, and then, so I think, you know, we're definitely a lot of early adopters in our space, so I think a lot of people are running and doing it. Um, the one thing that we're, we're doing at, uh, roost is certainly putting security paramount. Um, security, security, privacy laws, all the things that we know we need to do as we go and build this out. Those are the things that we're, uh, also going to focus on, as well as making sure that we're giving you, um, a good offering. Because like you said, it is very risky. I mean, even, even the stuff we use internally, it's very specific of what we're doing, how, uh, we're like, how we're monitoring what people do. The, uh, other, the other risk you do have. Uh, you know, I don't know if anybody's figured this out yet, but we see all these horror stores on the Reddits and everything else, how somebody got a huge bill that they didn't know was coming. M. Right. So that's the other thing I'd say for MSPs, for vendors alike, is make sure you have some controls around that. Um, because this is, I think everybody on that would listen to this, would understand this. It's like when we used to pay for usage on cell phones. Everyone got that one surprise bill that they decided to talk to their buddy or their significant other way too long, and all of a sudden it was like a 6, $700 bill at the end of the month. Um, this is not going to be one of those things. This could be thousands depending on what you're doing. So I think there's a bunch of things that, in principles that I think that m. They're going to want to look at in doing that. I know that that's some of the things that we're looking at as we're building out our solution out and how we make it, um, I'd say more AI enabled and, you know, we'll talk about a bunch of that stuff. Um, I'm excited to see Aaron's, ah, keynote. Um, you know, he's, he's already working on that. Um, so anybody that is going to be there, definitely, uh, make sure you don't, don't miss that. If you're out on Broadway, I'll probably find you. Make sure you get there, uh, in time. Uh, maybe just in time. But, uh, I think those are the things George, you know this is happening, everyone's do it but gotta be put some controls around it.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's, I can imagine. And like I live the msp life for 20 years. Um, getting a call from your customer and they're like hey, I'm trying to sign into my uh, my API account for this AI platform. Uh, I just need to, need some help to log in. You're like whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? You know what I mean? Like talk about shadow it. I mean we're talking about the MSP doing this. What about the customer of the msp? I mean that changes it even worse I think.

Speaker B: Well, uh, that's changed a lot. You see if what, you know what's gone on and you know it's, it feels like a lifetime ago. But once everybody went fully remote during COVID a lot of what the MSP did which was truly, you know, be that IT staff, these guys just started downloading any SaaS product they could get ahold of and so they probably had more non managed things in their business, um, that just didn't add up. And nobody was doing any with him. Like again no controls around them. I think we've done a good job as an MSP community of like looking for those things, looking for those opportunities to help and make those better. But um, yeah, definitely got to be uh, paying attention to what we're doing there. And um, you know that also leads into some of that security stuff and somehow automation Works is just making sure that um, we're doing it the right way. So everyone gets excited.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. What do you, what do you tell the people that say it's still like I'm using these tools to help me get to the end game because it's too difficult to build out these steps on our own and or I just don't have the resources internally who's more uh, of a DevOps or developer focused person. They're really just like a technician that kind of back their way into the chair right of the internal tools and trying to connect all this together. I mean, you know, what do you tell the person that says hey, I'm just using this to speed up my adoption?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of what we're running into and we ran into this ourselves, you know, we're, we're you know, around for about four years where we went ga. Um, I think it was definitely you look at um, you know, I'll give a shout out to like MSP geek. Like a lot of those guys got really stuck into it. They're techies. Um, but we've had to evolve ourselves, so we came out with something we called Robo Roosty. Um, you know, just love the stuff that the techs come up with. And, um, you could build now using our platform in a native language. You don't have to. Have to know how to code, but what we're doing is we're putting the guardrails around it for you as well, so we're not putting you in a position where you could do damage.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So that's where I think it's, uh, a big help. And, you know, it's always interesting to see when you get a phone call from your business, msp, business owner, and they tell you they bill and they have no technical background. Right. But they're building stuff out. They're building things for billing, reconciliation, things that they know they specifically want to help their business. Um, you know, at least it makes you feel like you got something, right? You're doing something really good for the community, you're helping them. But again, it's still you could, you know, because they're coming through our platform to use lever. Leveraging the AI through a platform, you're able to control what they could do. You don't have to give them access to everything.

Speaker A: Yeah, I. I mean, it's kind of like driving on the road. No guard. Guard rails. Right. I mean, you're there to prevent you from going off the cliff. So it's definitely, uh, I, I definitely kind of my. My personal opinion, we're still in the wild, wild west, you know, of this whole landscape. Like, this whole, hey, you know, every day is a new thing. I mean, if you just watch the feeds, Charlie, like the baby version of what we were hearing for the last, I don't know, two or three months. Like the. Hey, you know, they're gonna find vulnerabilities now that have been in these products forever. And guess what? Every day that's happening now, right? Zero days. Zero day that. Uh, I was just reading this morning a fully patched Microsoft Windows machine still, you know, could have this, this, this, and this happen. And I'm like, it's almost like Pandora has been open now. And how do you even catch up before somebody does something bad?

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think that's where we honestly, we have to communicate. We have to work together. Um, you know, it's the reason why, you know, even, um, what we're doing with our event, we have what you may deem competitors coming. Like, we want to be Able to, you know, know that when the MSPs walk in the door that they can look into, you know, to. They can look at all the different solutions to solve some of their problems and hopefully rely on, um, you know, what you believe is the experts and the people that are focused on that to help. Because it's, um, you know, you hit it, it's, it's rough out there. Everything that we assume is going to happen usually happens. It's usually worse that we even could, could, you know, think of what it could be. Right. It's always something else that we wind up seeing out there. So I think it's just making sure that we're all, you know, good citizens, we're all working with one another, we're all helping one another.

Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's where the community part really comes in. I think that we sometimes forget about that. But, you know, like, this is probably too much for any one person or organization to tackle. It's just moving too fast.

Speaker B: No, it is. Yeah. And that's why, you know, like, you see, there's uh, it doesn't matter what the economy looks like, there's still vendors popping up in the MSP space.

Speaker A: This is true. New ones every day, that's for sure. Plenty of money out there that hasn't changed. You know, what you get for your money may be different, but, uh, there's. That's definitely access is there for sure. Um, so why Nashville? Why did you guys move from Tampa and you had a couple years there? There seemed like Tampa was a good place.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it was good. I think, you know, moving close to center, uh, you know, making a little bit easier for people to get into town. I also think, uh, you know, it being Nash Vegas and not Las Vegas, uh, is, I think it's better, it's a lot more manageable. Uh, we don't lose people. You know, the, the other thing that we do is, you know, when, as, you know, a guy that runs these events is, you know, we want to make sure that the, uh, MSP comes, they are able to take some good goodness away, but the vendors should as well. Right. So, um, not having, you know, not having too many distractions, I think helps. Right. And just given something, we have people coming from, from all over the world. I think, you know, how many times you're going to take up to Tampa, Orlando, some of these other place, I do think it's something, uh, a bit different. And um, everyone seems to be excited about it. And like you said, we're we're really close to Broadway and anybody likes music, good place to go.

Speaker A: That's plenty, plenty of good stuff there for sure.

Speaker B: And hot chicken, if you, if you've never been, make sure you try to.

Speaker A: Hot chicken, Nashville. Hot chicken. Yeah, that is the thing. Uh, did you um, I don't know if you knew. Um, they just announced I believe two weeks ago that Nashville is hosting the 2030 Super Bowl.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: Yeah. So the Titans I are almost done with their new arena football stadium. Um, the there, I think they're still calling it Nissan because they're the major like yeah, stadium sponsor. And uh, you know, of course in the NFL you build a new stadium with a roof. Yeah, sorry Buffalo fans because you know your new stadium doesn't have one. But build a new stadium with a roof, you get a Super Bowl. So 20, 30 incomes to Nashville should be a good time.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, the other thing is I'd say I um, rely on, you know, we have a great marketing and event staff. You know, I think you nail most of them. They're known to space so always um, have them looking at to see what the, what the next thing is. And, and honestly, um, what we think is going to be uh, going to

Speaker A: draw the right crowd 100% now might be too, too soon. I don't want to spill any secrets. Uh, is this going to be a multi year or we staying in Nashville after this year or too soon?

Speaker B: I think it's too soon. I don't ever want to commit my team to anything. They're the ones who do all the hard work. My guess, it would probably be um, another year though. Uh, especially it seems like everything seems to be going well. Selling out the event, uh, selling out the pre days, um, and certainly uh, can't thank the msps as well as the vendors for the support that we've gotten. Um, it's been the last couple uh, years. It was definitely as you know, you've run these things, not the easiest thing. Uh, they made it a lot easier for us this year.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think uh, I'm really excited for it. I think Tampa went really well last year actually. I was pretty, pretty impressed. I mean, you know, you guys spun up a new event. It takes time for that to build up. So. But I think you guys did it pretty quickly and uh, it, you know, to your point, uh, having people who have been around the space for a long time make it a little bit, you know, more turnkey feels polished.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's it. And then I think you know, just making sure we round it out with the uh, right people, the right vendors. Um, you know, no sense in us trying to do a party when you do them all, you know, every other week. Right.

Speaker A: Well, we, we are happy and, and um, you know, definitely grateful to be working with you guys again on the block party. You know, we do our best to, you know, make it, make it fun. You know, we definitely have plenty of these under our belt. Nashville is a cool spot. Looking forward to it. Um, flipping directions real quick, do you think, you know, like, let me just put a timeline to this. We're in midway through 2026. Let's just zoom out to 2030. Right. That's a, you know, reasonable reach into the future. What's your outlook on the MSP industry as a whole? Growing, dying, consolidating, all the above. What's your gut feel on.

Speaker B: I think for me, I'm going to bet on the MSPS all day. Um, we saw this, like I said, we saw this during COVID There were some of the people still working. I, um, think there's going to be a big evolution now. I think like everything else, as we change, as we evolve, uh, people that don't want to kind of lean in a bit, um, probably uh, will either, you know, just be happy with where they are, uh, maybe not grow, maybe wind down their business. But I do think for the most part, uh, everything, all the signs pointing to that, um, they're going to evolve with it. They're definitely going to be more service based. Um, some of the things we talked about now, like we can't assume that everyone's going to be able to just figure this out.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Right. You look at how much tech has hung around way longer than we'd ever think because people cannot move that fast. So it's going to be, it's definitely, you know, even 2030. I mean I, I think you're going to see some, some big changes. But I also think that uh, most of the people that um, I spend time with are going to adjust their businesses to fit it. They may not call them MSPs anymore. I know we've thrown around MSPs, TSPs, all these, but at the end of the day they're going to be the backbone on how we help. Certainly, uh, M. SMB and mid market move forward. I don't think that stuff just goes away.

Speaker A: That's fair.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker A: when you think about regulations, right? And like usually in our experience, the people who write rules and laws and frameworks and guidelines pretty Behind, Right. Like technology's moving so fast, by the time these guys catch up, it's generally a few years down the line. You know, it's. I was talking to a MSP from um, Dublin earlier today and they brought up that the EU came out with their own AI regulation separate from anywhere else. Right. Um, do you think that, you know, here, I mean specifically here in the us it seems like they're trying to prevent all the states from coming out with their own rules, you know, like they're trying to not hold back AI flip to Europe. Their rules are to actually limit it. You know. Where do you think this goes from a balancing act standpoint? Because I think one of the problems that most MSPs have had historically is hey, I'm just trying to get work done, I want to make my customer happy. I'm trying to do what they're asking to do. But the rules, you know, tend to, you know, put a wrench into things.

Speaker B: I, I really think it depends on who you talk to. Um, you know, I, I've been in conversations with people, I won't share who they are because, you know, it's their story to tell. But there are people that are very well respected in the space that have always, uh, been thought leaders that are concerned when we don't have enough, um, basically guardrails around what we're doing. You know, we've all seen it. Like, I know if you're in this space, if you are not a, ah, sci fi person, I'd be shocked. Right. You at least watch some of it. Some of them more hardcore than others. You know, there's you know, these crazy stories of like, what could happen. Right. What do we do with the robots. But you know, you see that George, and you see some of the things people want to do there. And then I, uh, don't know if you caught this article. It was probably a few weeks ago that uh, Chase bank is opening up 160 new branches.

Speaker A: Yes. Retail banking branches. Yes.

Speaker B: But with people.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: That they feel like what they're saying is they actually want to come in and work with people again. I mean it's crazy. I mean my dad will be pretty excited because he still loves going to the bank. Uh, they don't give the free calendars away anymore, so uh, maybe they'll bring that back. But I read that article, I'm like, it just seems the complete polar opposite of what we're trying to do and what we're seeing to that point.

Speaker A: Um, like over the last 18 months, maybe 24 months we saw a lot of big companies lay off thousands of people, like tens of thousands even. And then all of a sudden, like in the last pretty much 90 days, you're hearing that they're rehiring a lot of people. Excuse me. So did it, did uh, everybody make a bet too soon on all this stuff? Because it just seems so like, it's like a, it's like a roller coaster down now back up. And you know, I even saw two articles recently saying that 2027 will be the year of rehire.

Speaker B: I, I, I think you're, I think you're absolutely spot on. I mean, so I still have friends. I started out at least on the tech side in the banking world. I still have friends that stayed in that, um, some of them have worked really hard, they've moved up the ranks and they were told, you need to cut. M, you need to cut. Because we're moving towards AI here was the problem. They didn't implement anything, so they cut without actually having a solution to make up for the people they were cutting. So I think that's, that's part of it. You um, know, especially a lot of these bigger companies, they don't move as fast. Mhm. Right. So um, I think, you know, that's another thing to look into. And then if you look at historically, what a lot, you know, anybody that's, you know, thousands of employees, it's a right size sometimes, sometimes they just want to go in there, they want to clean house. Almost every time that I was at the bank, um, 70,000 employees, they'd cut maybe anywhere from 8 to 10,000 every so many years. And we hired most of Those back within 12 months at least the numbers, not the people. So um, it seems like history is repeating itself from that standpoint. And um, you know, I think, you know, the other thing is, uh, there are still a lot of people like me. You know, my kids call me a boomer. I'm not just so we're clear, but that, you know, you still like to engage with people.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Right. You, you know, I still talk to you. I talk to most of the people in the community. I picking up the phone and actually having a conversation.

Speaker A: Ain't that, ain't that a fact for sure.

Speaker B: So I think that's, that's the thing. But I, I do think, uh, we'll probably see some start and stops with this stuff. I think it's probably not much different than we saw with the electric cars. Right. Tesla built a compute, a computer and then built a car around it whereas everyone else initially tried, hey, let's just uh, put a plug in the Chevy and now it's an electric car. Right. So I, I think it's, it's going to take some time for us to get where they actually need to be and, and get some level of a balance.

Speaker A: Speaking about big companies and false starts, um, this week two like major companies rolled out kind of bad stories around this topic. I'll give you both of them. Starbucks had rolled out an AI, ah, inventory management system across all of their branches and they just ripped it out and said that it was creating so many problems compared to the old fashioned human being goes into the stockroom and just counts that they killed the whole program. This was after a two year rollout and then this other one will be interesting. Pizza Hut Corporate pushed out an AI solution for order management and delivery management to all of their locations including franchises. And apparently it created so much of a problem that the franchises got together and just filed a lawsuit against Pizza uh, Hut Corporate. According to the news. You go read this. $100 million for loss of business and all sorts of other things around. Basically people weren't getting their stuff through the system, um, and on time and it created havoc and then like their sales went down and you know, and then it just created a cluster. What, you know, so this, this can blow up on a large scale, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think that it, I think that's it. Um, George, right now a lot of people want to beat their competitors to the punch by doing something. And um, I think we're seeing signs of that now. I don't think that means everyone should just chuck it in the bin and decide not to do. Just maybe be a bit more methodical as we're doing it.

Speaker A: And moving forward to that end, McDonald's another name everybody should know. Um, they ran a pilot of an AI drive thru order taker about a year and a half, almost two years ago. It was like a, something like a 90 restaurant pilot. They ripped it out and they just announced they're going to try again. You know, this is their part two, uh, you know, pilot if you would. So they definitely, you know, I don't know if they went back into the lab, figured out a different way or maybe the technology progressed enough in that year or two that they want to try it again. And we know things are moving fast. So to that end, right, like I think you, you know, try hard, fail fast, you know, decide that it's not working, rip the, pull the ripcord I don't know, but I'm just pointing it out. Like, that was also in the news this week.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's, you know, it is everything in life's risk and reward. So if, as long as you do that math first and, uh, you know what you're doing, great. You know, I think, uh, I think we'll see more of that. I don't think we'll see less of it. But, um, I definitely, uh, you know, I've seen the power of what, um, some of the stuff we're looking at, what we're doing. I mean, we've had, uh, you know, this is the first time, I think, since I've been here, where we have people that will stop by our booth at a show and we'll build an automation for them right there in front of their eyes.

Speaker A: That is cool.

Speaker B: Um, our SES have changed the way they do demos. So as we're doing discovery, the SE is building in the background based on what you're, you know, what feedback you're giving them. So I think those things are really cool to see and, um, you know, you'll see the evolution. But I, I do think, you know, putting some guardrails around it and, and making sure that you know exactly what you're looking for. Um, I think, you know, and prepare as best you can. But, you know, the attitude that, you know, you could fire after your staff today, George, because AI is around, but you've done nothing to actually do those people's work. Probably not great.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's definitely a message. And I would say the big companies are in a different position, but as a small company, everybody on, uh, your team matters. Right. Like, it. It's felt if you disappear someone instantly, I, you know, you, you have a harder time dealing with that change than a larger company who has more people to handle.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think for, for anybody that is, you know, individual contributor, working at vendor, msp, wherever right is. I don't think it changes what my entry. My mantra has always been, when it's my turn to get fired, I'm going to make it the hardest decision somebody has to make. So whether AI is there or not, if that's who you're competing against, like, you need to look at what you're doing, how you're doing it, and figure out how do you fit into it. Now what's the new thing like? Like, I even look at, like most of our team. They're very consultative from a sales standpoint. They're going to help you understand what you can automate what you should automate, uh, based on your business. That may not be things that people know today.

Speaker A: No, that's fair. And that's. I like your positioning on that. I think a lot of people take a page out of that book. Let me flip directions real quick. Back to current events. Um, this is Allah, uh, or via, uh, Jay McBain. I'm sure everybody's heard that name at one point or another if you've been around a while. He works for a company called, uh, Omdia. Omdia apparently says by Informa. So you know a lot of names there. But anyway, you know, one of the think tanks, if you would in the industry, uh, this was two days ago, uh, ninja one becomes the most valuable MSP platform after a 400 million series C. Uh, company value is now at 12.3 billion. What do you think?

Speaker B: I mean, I may be a bit biased because I've known Sal for a number of years. Um, I remember having this conversation with him when he was thinking about this. Right. He's just kind of serial entrepreneur. Um, just, you know, overall great guy. Um, I think what he's done is he's, you know, him and his team have done a great job of not just focusing on one thing. Mhm. Right. So it's not that they're only focused on the MSP space. Um, they're focused on, you know, kind of the ITSM side of it, you know, making sure the IT department. So they're, they're branching out a bit from that standpoint. But um, I think they've done a good job of making sure that they don't lose sight of each of those markets that they're going after. Um, especially the MSP market. So you see some of the people that he's hired, you know, you and I both know Paul Readings over there. Um, you know, I see them doing some different things on how they uh, you know, reach across the aisle to some of their partners, how they get in front of them. You know, you look at some of these numbers, they say they're crazy, but like, who knows that, you know, just follow the stock market and if you want to drive yourself crazy on, you know, uh, what's worth what. Right. And what stock's going to go up. So, um, but I think they've done a great job and they've tried to make it so that uh, a lot of things that they do were in house kind of, uh, alica say a little bit. Right. But they're building their build. They're building it and um, I think the goal is to provide the most value that they can.

Speaker A: So just to give you a little bit more from Jay's, uh, post here, um, so $12.3 billion valuation based on this round, uh, places them above Kaseya estimated at 12 billion. Connectwise estimated at 6.5 billion. However, even though Kinectwise and Kaseya retain leads in revenue and market share, Ninja 1's growth over the last 12 months in the MSP space, 62.7%.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because people have an option now. George. Mhm. You look at uh, our buddies over at um. When you look at just how things have evolved, right. It used to be you had these platforms, you invested so much in them and you could never leave because, because you built so much of your own intellectual property and that's kind of gone away. And so it's opened up the door for uh, you know, people to learn from some of those things, you know, and we all learn from going on Reddit. So we all know like, you know, what people are happy about and what they're not happy about. We all get beat up on there, but we uh, hopefully all learned. And um, but look, you know, Halo came out of nowhere as well. Those guys doing a great job, um, you know, Ninja partners with them. So I think that's the other thing that's been pretty good is uh, know what you're really good at and if you don't make sure you partner with somebody, that's good.

Speaker A: Yeah, funny that you say that. So Halo, uh, on the same chart here, right? It was like Kaseya, Connectwise, Ninja, Halo's a little bit further down, but their growth percentage 36%, uh, during that same time period. Um, so these, you know, to your point, when you marry these two guys together, there seems to be a uh, power dynamic happening.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think what's happening is um, most people are just, you know, either frustrated that they're not getting what they want, um, you know, you look at um, you know, but I think every, everyone's trying to be in it, right? Uh, we see, you know, rebrandings and uh, you know, people talking about tech. You know, I've been to, you know, we both go to these conferences. So you know, everyone at least knows what to do. I think like everything else is not. The bigger you get, the harder it is to move fast.

Speaker A: That's fair. That is uh, age old truth for sure. What's your, you know, guesstimate on? You know, we've seen a lot of ECPE money now Right. Like Ninja is the most you know, recent example now a couple days ago. But the market's changed since preco. Right. 2019, 2020-2026. Seems like there's a lot more red tape attached to money. You know it's not, it's not that it's not available, it's readily available clearly but like what's involved in taking you know funding or equity or a ah, partner or financing. However whatever vehicle you choose like seems to be a lot more to it. You know in terms of steps you have to take, things you have to hit metrics that matter. Uh, did these guys just figure it out now that they've been in it for a minute or is it just about percentages and interest rates?

Speaker B: I think I'll speak even from my experience just at roost. Mhm. Aaron Chernin is another serial entrepreneur, really just smart ah guy. I think he's genuine, he's likable but um, he's a great storyteller as well. And so I think that's some of the differences are all that data could be the best data in the world and, and, and some of that but now, now you have to do a bit more. You have to be able to um, showcase the vision and they do have to believe um, that you have a visionary and they do have to trust the visionary. And so I think somebody like you know, Sal's done a great job. You know the, the Halo guys are a little bit bit different, God bless them, they're self funded. So I guess you know um, I think they probably do fine anyhow but they don't have to have those conversations. But um, I do think that's it. I think it's you know, building the track record like you said, getting those numbers uh, but then also showing that vision because they want to be able to see what that looks like. You look at, you know I'd say certainly uh, end of last year, beginning of this year and Even now is SaaS companies took a beating. They've been up a bit. Uh, I think they were up uh, some of the bigger ones. So that doesn't necessarily mean everything for all of us smaller vendors but if you don't have a meaningful AI component um, to your product, I think valuations are not going to be what they were if it's just this ass only.

Speaker A: Yep. 100 as uh, I mean definitely still seeing a lot of, excuse me. I don't know if it's an age out thing. I don't know if people just realized hey, this Is now getting harder. Do I still want to do this? Is it the right time? Seeing a lot of MSPs, you know, still selling. Right. Like they're, you know, they're deciding, hey, I've put a time in, 20, 25 years in, it's time for somebody else to take a try.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's interesting to see a lot of that stuff is going on and it's not, you know, that that's become crowded. Right. There's a lot of people fighting for, fighting for those MSPs businesses. Mhm. But I do think, um, you know, some of it is they have nobody to hand it off to.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And um, I think the community's done a great job and you could, you know, talk about um, you know, like the folks at True Methods or evolve or, you know, you kind of name it. You know, Robin, Robin's done a good job of that, like helping these guys understand and be more well rounded business people. And um, now that they got there and they've gotten a lot better valuation, you know, like, it's time to go.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, there's definitely. I, I. Would you say that it's uh, a seller's market at this point because there's so many buyers, or is that maybe not stated?

Speaker B: Well, no, I, I think it is, but I don't think it's that simple. I don't think it's just, hey, you know, I'm, uh, going to put my dilapidated house on the market and someone just has to buy it. Like maybe if you have oceanfront property. But I do think they're getting a bit, doing their due diligence more as well. I think they know, you know, a couple guys that uh, I knew for the Weber days, they're involved with, uh, with that as well and, and they're learning a lot. Right. They know which business means, well, like, you know, it's like hiring. Right. You know, you know, if you're, you know, if you're, if you're hitting 300 on your hires, I think, you know, most people are going to be happy if you're doing 500. Great. But you're not going to get them all.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker B: That's fair. So it's just making sure that you have the framework that no matter what you buy, and I think that's what some of these guys done a great job is no matter what you buy, you're going to make money on it. It's just how much? Right. Because we know, uh, from being on a vendor side you know, these guys do a great job of, um, you know, determining the different tool sets that they use, and they're getting, you know, volume pricing and so on and so forth. So there's easy margins, uh, that they could gain just by doing that.

Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah, the economies of scale, right? You know, by having, you know, more buying power, basically.

Speaker B: Yeah, you look at what's good. I mean, look at. Look at how, you know, I, I definitely give credit where credit do. I mean, look at, you know, what the. Tim Conkle in the 20 and, um, they've done a. They've done a great job there of blowing that up from. I don't think it looks anything like what it used to look like.

Speaker A: Yeah, they've done. I think I said that I thought they're up to, like, 49 acquisitions if I read that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. You know, they got a great partnership, um, there, so. And. And obviously they have a good model. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to do that. So it's. It's, uh, interesting to see guys at Lyra. You know, Lyra is another one. You know, they just, uh. It's good to see what these guys have done and then even a lot of the international market, uh, is doing it. So, um, you know, it's good. One of our biggest partners, airit, I mean, they've got it down to a science,

Speaker A: definitely. I mean, they're. They're a big one over there.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker A: anything that you're looking forward to on the back end of this year now that we're pretty much at the midway bark,

Speaker B: um, me, I'm looking forward to seeing how. How things evolve here, uh, in the MSP community with, like I said, with some of these new vendors that are out there, where do we land going into next year, uh, with AI, um, how people truly start to leverage it as we start to see some of the, uh, cream rise to the top a little bit, you know, which vendors are those going to be? And, uh, I'm banking on Roost is going to be one of those top vendors. So, uh, seeing personally just on a personal level, like where. Where we are, um, finishing out the year and then getting ready for next year.

Speaker A: Okay. Um, any. Any regrettable air, uh, travel stories so far this year? I know we all have them.

Speaker B: I. I have one. Like, all I know is if I get there safe, that's like my. That's the bar set for me. So anything else that's extra. I have been, uh, in situations where I've wound up in some of the not best hotels, I'd say, uh, it's always great when you get into a room that you could, uh, you could touch both walls, um, just by standing in the middle of the room. But, um, no, for the most part, it's been good. It's been good seeing a bunch of people and I think things are going to pick up so I'll get to see more of the, uh, community, uh, for the rest of the year.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Um, it sounds like you sold out of your event. Unless somebody came in last minute, you still got room or.

Speaker B: I think we have a handful left. And, uh, we're working on making some room too. So, uh, anybody that's interested can certainly reach out to me. Connect me on LinkedIn if you don't have my direct contact, and we'll see what we can do to help you out. But would love to have, uh, everybody come.

Speaker A: Awesome, guys, if you don't know where to look, Google Flow Conference Nashville. Um, that'll give you all the information on the event. Um, definitely worth taking a look. I know it's only a couple weeks out, but it's the summertime and Nashville is a cool place to check out, um, especially if you have a business reason to be there. And I think this is a good one. Um, plus, who doesn't, who doesn't like to, uh, network with everybody else to figure out what's actually working and what isn't? That's kind of how most people learn. At least how I learned. Charlie, safe travels. Good to see you in Prague next week.

Speaker B: Uh, sounds good. Thanks, George.

Speaker A: The week after, and for everybody else, uh, this session was recorded you'll find on mspinitiative.com under Sessions. Hopefully we'll see you out on the road and catch you on the flip side. Bye, guys.

Speaker B: Thanks, George. Bye.