EP066 – Innovating the MSP Ecosystem with ConnectWise’s Pitch It Program
Welcome to another episode of It’s a Numbers Game Podcast by The MSP Finance Team with Daniel Welling and Adam Morris.
Why Listen to This Episode?
This episode delves into ConnectWise’s “Pitch It” program, spotlighting its role in empowering the next wave of entrepreneurs in the MSP Vendor ecosystem. With insights from the ConnectWise team, listeners will explore the challenges and opportunities in transitioning from MSP to vendor, alongside the community and mentorship benefits within the Pitch It initiative.
Why you should listen:
- Discover how Pitch It nurtures startup vendors, offering financial incentives, mentorship, and a platform for growth.
- Learn the importance of community support and mentorship in transitioning from MSP to vendor and thriving within the ecosystem.
- Gain practical advice on product development, securing investment, and leveraging community resources for success.
Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Connect with Dan Scott on LinkedIn by clicking here
– https://www.linkedin.com/in/danjpscott/
Connect with Mike Zornow on LinkedIn by clicking here
– https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-zornow-a79a1323/
Connect with Sean Lardo on LinkedIn by clicking here
– https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanlardo/
Connect with Daniel Welling on LinkedIn by clicking here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-welling-54659715/
Connect with Adam Morris on LinkedIn by clicking here – linkedin.com/in/adamcmorris
Visit The MSP Finance Team website, simply click here – https://www.mspfinanceteam.com/
We look forward to catching up with you on the next one. Stay tuned!
We created It’s a Numbers Game Podcast to help MSP owners learn and understand how to build and maintain a financially healthy MSP business. In this podcast series, MSP business owners like you will learn the fundamental steps, the tips and tricks, the dos and don’ts to achieve MSP financial growth.
Transcript:
Dan Welling: Thanks for joining us today. along with myself, Daniel Welling, we’ve got Adam Morris. we’ve also got Sean, Mike and Dan from ConnectWise. So no surnames, this time as, as we’re short on time and we’ve got a really interesting discussion lined up, all about the MSP Vendor ecosystem as a whole.
So a huge topic, Dan, perhaps you could kick us off with what ConnectWise are doing in this space.
Dan Scott: thank you, Adam, for having us. it’s great to be here. Hi everybody. I remember a long, many moons ago, a long time ago when the first quote unquote MSP solutions first came out. You remember when we didn’t have to try and figure out how we’d buy something and then figure out a billing model and then figure out how we could view all our clients in the same space.
And we didn’t have to log into. A hundred different tendencies and portals and all that kind of stuff to do it. How time has changed, you know, how time has changed. Now, what we want to talk about today is to raise awareness on this side of the, on this side of the pond where we’re recording anyway, but everywhere.
for something that we’re doing to help build. The next generation of our amazing channel ecosystem, how we’re helping people who have an idea somewhere and they think they might be running an MSP, they might be working in one, they might be in a completely different market, but see what we’re doing and see that they could add value to it and think I’ve got this awesome idea, but I’m going to be very honest with you.
I don’t know what I do with it. I don’t know how I bring it to life. It looks expensive and. I don’t know where I’m going to get the help, the support, the funding. How can I open doors? How can I have conversations with people? and we want to talk about something that we do called Pitch It that is helping that to come to life for entrepreneurs and has been now for, I’m gonna say five years.
Sean can correct me in a second. but as you can see from me not being able to be corrected by Sean, what I’m going to do is throw it over to my colleague, Mr. Sean Lardo, who, can, who is the owner and the,the leader of Pitch It here in ConnectWise. And can talk about it a lot more than I, so Sean, do you want to, do you want to tell me I’m wrong and everything, and then tell everyone what’s really going on?
Sean: Dan, you’re no,
actually, you weren’t wrong, or I would have interrupted because I can’t allow you to go down the road of, you know, Ignorance. I’m your friend and friends don’t let friends do that. So no, we are actually, this is an intern or six year of pitch it. and for those of you that don’t know what pitch it is, to make it simple, pitch it is a shark tank like competition, right? And the thing about it is.it’s really connect wise is, you know, we’re looking for vendors. These are startup vendors that are going to compete at the end, but what we’re looking for are vendors that are able to support the two primary things that we do. They need to be able to integrate into us. One, back to what you mentioned, Dan, about, you know, multiple portals and whatnot. That’s one of the big pieces. The second piece is that they have to be supporting the mission of the MSPs. That’s our goal here. So those two things alone are what we’re looking for originally. However, it’s much deeper than that.
And as I mentioned,
it is a competition, but there is a 16 week accelerated incubator program. And,
once we bring, once we get Michael talking here. Michael Zornow, not to be confused with Zornow. so don’t worry, Dan, we’ve got the surnames coming out for you. Don’t worry.
so the point behind it all is we’re not just looking for these vendors that are really flashing whatnot.
They have to have actual clients that they’re working with today. They have to be able to show this is not a concept
Dan Welling: that have done this. And our integrating and where you want to take them through an accelerated incubator program, because we’re looking for them to have staying power in our ecosystem. The 1 thing we’re trying to avoid is the fly by night vendors, right? That come and go quickly. And a lot of reasons why vendors do come and go quickly are, you know, 1 is because they don’t have enough funding to, they don’t have the right position in the market. 3 is they haven’t aligned themselves with the right strategic partners. So we’re helping them with this. and so the, again, the being the, in the competition to pitch it is really about you getting in digging in for 16 weeks with us, going through workshops, doing podcasts and live streams, like we’re doing right now, getting awareness out
Sean: there. And, you know, last year we had 26 vendors in the competition, which was the largest that we’ve had.
And they went through the 16 weeks at the end of the 16 weeks, they all competed in the preliminary pitch off at the battle Royale. and the goal for that is that we’re looking to eliminate all but three. And the three.
finalists, we then prep them for it nation connect in November in Orlando, and they pitched live on stage last year.
We had over six or 700 people in the audience watching. And they’re competing for a negative five minutes to pitch, by the way, just So everybody knows this, because I. want these vendors that listen, you have, you know, that we’re going to help you trim it down to a five minutes. You can’t ramble like me and Dan are rambling.
and you’ve got to get to the point, but the fact is you are competing against a bunch of vendors to try to win 70, 000 first place. Second place is 30, 000. So you are playing for cash, and you are playing for me, it’s more about kudos. I, the money’s great and all, but I love money, but I just want to win. So that’s it in a nutshell.
Dan Scott: I should, add for the, the transatlantically disposed, dragon’s den is our equivalent of shark tank. just as one there for people that are like, it’s a what competition.
Adam: And
Sean: Oh, good call.
Adam: come just a couple of questions on the 16 week program? is that a, well, what’s the bar to meet to, to get into that number one, and is that free of charge or is there a cost to this?
Sean: Great question. So we write applications are open now, right? The application period is from February 1st to April 30th. you fill out a short form, then you get a long form. You fill that out. Right. One thing we do is after we, there is a team that will sit and review all applicants. A couple of things that to be admitted.
We only, we’re only going to accept 26 in right now for this year again. And what we look at their digital footprint for one. Not just the application. We make sure they’re reliable and credible. We look at reviews. we look at, and most of us that are in this group. Okay. Are very much involved in engaging the community.
So we know other partners and vendors that would know them too. So it’s literally we’re doing all this now at the very basic core of it, though, they have to be able to integrate with us and sell them as piece. Right. That’s for sure. A dip, a definite, the rest is us looking into your background and what’s going on in your digital, right. I’m seeing if you’re at shows, seeing what you have going on there. those are the things that we look at. And then we also, again, how important is your tool? I mean, we’ve had some people that apply that it’s like, You look at what they’re doing and is it’s not
really something, it’s already something that exists and that’s fully baked in so many places.
And it’s an afterthought at this point, you know, it has to be something that’s really going to help MSPs, you know, with either automating. Their process is improve their business continuity or help them grow exponentially, right? I mean, that’s what it is. Whether and if you notice over the last couple years, even the 3 finalists have not been 1 type of product or service offering. We’ve had cyber security to QB ours to alert notifications. You know, we’ve had all and everything in between there. So it’s not like we’re just. And I say this specifically because everybody talks about AI and cybersecurity, and it’s the sexiest thing,
especially like cybersecurity for years. Now it’s AI, right?
AI is sort of overstepped and overshadowed super cybersecurity a little bit. It’s not about those specifically. it’s what’s going to make these MSP successful. Now, cost wise, there is no cost as far as money is concerned. The real cost is you investing your time because you are required to be part of the program and it would be foolish for you not to be part of it because what you put in is what you get out of it. And I know that’s like, I sound like I’m a gym instructor now, right? Like harder you
work, the better shape you’ll be in. but the reality is if you look at our vendors that have really put themselves into this. Cause we do a lot of live streams of podcasts and we help them change their messaging around to make sense.
You’ll see that.
there’s literally been a 300 percent increase in some cases of MRR to lead generation to whatever. So, you know, I think we did a,
CRN did an article, which I’ll give you guys a link for that, where we, you know, they talked about 3 You and you guys have ran businesses and you’re doing it still today.
The hardest part is trying to get into the market and figure out how to approach it. Right. So we’re helping you with that. So why not leverage it?
Dan Welling: So it sounds really interesting, and we’ve sort of been watching a little bit from afar on this side of the pond. But,we, we know, Patrick Burgess from Clear Benchmark,just to highlight someone from the UK from an MSP background that’s, obviously been an active part of the community, identified an opportunity and, and has been Certainly from that,picture process.
and, I guess that’sas we were talking before in the green room,the thing that really interests me is coming from an MSP,the MSP end of the market, to, to effectively becoming a vendor. and I’m seeing a lot of MSPs now make that transition, and it’s all tied up around the M& A piece as well.
so, as M& A is accelerating, people have found that, actually there is life beyond running and growing their own MSP business. And they’ve learned a lot about. the channel, the ecosystem, and can give a lot back. So, but I’m, I guess I’m being biased here talking about MSPs and their journey to becoming a vendor.
There’s lots of people that work in vendors that have,got on to form their own businesses. so, for the Pitch It program, sounds like great value for money, even if you don’t Did have a price tag on it. You’re effectively getting a 16 week calls and mentorship and development. you,you oversubscribed every year.
Are you seeing the applicants growing or what? What’s,
Sean: Oh yes. Oh yeah. So let’s unpack a couple of things here. The answer to that is absolutely. We are. I mean, when I first took over the program three years ago, we had about, you know, 10 to 15 applicants, right.
that had come through. And then that year that I took over, we. We created an awareness campaign around it. We probably had, I don’t even know, 40 or 50 applicants. when all said and done, maybe more. I’m not even for sure. I can’t remember, but I know it was well over 40. And, then the next year we had well over 70
and this year we still have a full month left on most, and we are already at 50 plus applicants, I believe at this point, give or take.
So it’s not like it’s, you know, the thing is it’s a proven track record. Now vendors doing well in it, regardless, or because at the very least you’ve learned some things about M and a, you’ve learned some things about presence, positioning.product development integrations, what you learned, you know, and again, you’re talking about, you know, connect wise is one of the largest communities and ecosystems in the world at this point for the MSPs and not to mention to your point, Dan, talked about MSPs doing this. Yeah. Over 60 percent of these vendors were currently MSPs. That are now vendors, so they already know the names, they already know ConnectWise exists. So if you’re going to get yourself involved,
you might as well get yourself in one of the largest ecosystems you can, with one of the largest markets, right?
and you already know the players typically because you were an MSP or MSP that uses ConnectWise. So if you’re on the other side of the pond, you already know Dan Scott. Right? You already know you can reach out to him and say, Hey, how do I get involved or where do I got to go? Right? I mean, that’s just simple.
You always, it’s friends and family first kind of approach. Right? and, you know, one thing that we, and even to tie into your other point of vendors that you were worked for a vendor and started a part of a product or a company, same rules apply. The one thing that we see, and you guys can probably all attest to this, is that every vendor that we see that’s the startup vendor typically did this because they were solving their own and internal problem first. And they were like,
S**t, other people can use this. And typically they call
their friends are like, They’re like, Hey Dan, check out this thing I just did. You probably, you know, you need help. Oh yeah. And then literally it’s just a, it’s just natural evolution of things for them. And you see that one turns into two turns into five turns into 10 and they’re like, Oh my goodness, I have a product or I have an offering that people need, you know?
And then that’s when they typically come and come to like a pitcher program or they start looking for funding, you know, whatever
it may be. That’s, you know, it depends on where they are in life. You know, so yeah, it’s growing exponentially.
Dan Scott: I just want to, I’ll add in there what I would like to see it do. Is grow more here in the world of Europe, where I’m based and, you know, three of us on the call are based, cause I’m selfish like that. So I just like, we’ve had some brilliant, EMEA as we were branded your Middle East and Africa, applicants to pitch it over the last couple of years, and I just like to see that number grow.
I’d love to see us doing it ourselves over here, but we’ve got to start that flywheel and we’ve just got to start making people, letting people know. Building awareness, showing why it is we’re doing it, who it’s open to. Cause it’s always that thing, isn’t it? Where people might’ve heard of something and think, Oh, is that just a North American application thing?
Or do you have to have had, you have to be so big before you can do it. Or, you know, a million different questions where people almost qualify themselves out before they’ve even looked. but I’m really passionate for helping bring the ideas and the fruits and the labors of the entrepreneurs on this side of the pond.
To the benefits that Sean’s already spoken about and Dan, that you mentioned as well, that mentorship journey, the visibility, you know, it’s amazing what happens when you start doing your brand is made of exposed and made aware via the competition and via the podcasts and via the webcasts. And, before you get to a place where you’ve got to start competing against other people just from coming on the journey, so I, yeah, I want to see the European entrepreneurs increasingly focused within, that number.
Dan Welling: and now we have reference sites as well in, in the former Patrick and, and I think one of the great things about. The MSP community generally and why I’d encourage anyone listening that doesn’t come along to, industry events, just, meeting people talking,it’s a real catalyst for, you know, I always come away buzzing with lots of inspiration and, and ideas and enthusiasm,Mike,perhaps it’s time for you to speak, no, or now,
Mike: Yeah. Absolutely. I didn’t want to interrupt Sean there on his,his, his spiel there. But,
Sean: my tangent.
Mike: I think one of the things. we are doing at connect wise that we’re gonna be kicking off shortly is a workshop series, just as what Dan was describing there. How do we get other people into this community?
So, as Sean was saying, the. You know, pitch an application period is, you know, February to end of April. But how do we get other MSPs, other vendors, other people that just have good ideas into the space and creating some sort of product? so what we’re doing is starting this workshop series to go through some of the things that you need to, you know, get ready pre pitch it.
So, Sean was saying we, we need, you know, a proof of life, you know, are you doing stuff? Are you going to shows? We want to get you ready to be in that mode and be able to apply to pitch it to the invent program. So this workshop series is going to be going through items like, how do I find my, you know, platform product market fit?
Does my idea work? you know, what do I need to do from a product management standpoint, a development stand. Standpoint. How do I manage finances as a startup? And how do I aggregate all those learnings from former pitch it contestants winners and being able to leverage that into your own strategy.
So the goal with this workshop series is really to make sure that. Any of these fledgling startups that have that, you know, that seedling of an idea, how do I turn that into something? how can I create that and leverage the connect wise ecosystem to do that? You know, how do I leverage it nation events?
I teenage user groups. and, you know, we’ve got that. Tens of millions of agents, hundreds of thousands of users. You know, we, there, there’s a big green, green field ahead of, anyone creating these products and to leverage the things that connect wise really has to offer. So, I think that’s going to be another way for a lot of.
Our, vendors, MSPs, whoever it may be that want to create something of value for the ecosystem and help them grow that and be able to, Ensure that they have the knowledge to succeed even before they get to pitch it before they get to invent and that they know this is what I need to do and get that advice from, the insiders that connect wise and former pitch it contestants to, to get that visibility.
Dan Welling: and,how will, you know, How will those interested get involved in that? What will these be, run globally around the world, like events?
Mike: Absolutely. Yeah. So starting, probably late this month, early next month, we’ll be, having, workshops hosted, as we do now on LinkedIn. And being able to,have that out there for anyone that wants to join, to have that, get to receive that knowledge and be able to be a part of that journey.
So, you know, follow myself, Sean, Dan on LinkedIn. We’ll be posting, posting some links there. If you want to follow along and, and get involved,
Adam: Mike, does this have a name?
Mike: it’s the, right now it’s the connect wise incubator workshop. So, Subject to change, but essentially our goal is to, you know, incubate any company that, that is in that emerging state to be able to start creating
Adam: Okay. The incubator workshop, which is a pre pitch it series of workshops. and to what extent does this need to be more than an idea or can it literally just be an idea to join the workshop
Mike: it can’t just be an idea. we’ve seen so much success from, as Sean was saying earlier, MSPs solving an issue for themselves. You’re not alone in this journey. there’s a lot of other people that have solved problems and, you know, sold that. Sold that solution to other MSP.
So I think if it is just an idea, if it is just, you know, a, you know, DevOps thing you’re using inside your own MSP, come join, come learn. Well, can you take this to the next level? You know, what is it going to take to get that idea off the ground? What resources do you need? What, you know, what’s your value prop trying to figure it, figure those things out, I think that’s what we’re all about when we’re trying to, You know, as the workshop suggests, incubate those ideas and make sure that we can get those off the ground and help the community at
Adam: and is this limited on numbers?
Mike: No, again, free of charge. Anyone can join just to learn, educate themselves and get the resources that they need to figure out. Is this idea worth pursuing? Can we take this to the next level? And then being, you know, getting ready for pitch it. So, you know. Instead of a, a pitch at a contest once a year, let’s get this thing going as a, as just a cycle of connect wise of being able to get involved at any time to be able to start your journey of creating a new product.
Adam: Yeah. Fascinating.
Dan Welling: I,I encourage you to keep the name incubator. It was exactly what I was thinking about while you were describing the process. And I was thinking about,if I’m in an MSP and I’ve had an idea and it’s something I’m, I’ve implemented in my own business, there’s a big difference between building something that works for me in my circumstance and not commercially,and that and something that people will pay for as a, as an outside product that’s robust and got a support environment around it and the right pricing and going to market and all of those sorts of things.
So, yeah, I was imagining if I had that idea, what would I need? I’d need some guidance. I’d need to know. Um,how to go about sourcing or managing a technical development team,keep curating and delivering support for that, implementation,enablement
Mike: a lot of different things.
Dan Welling: the.
Mike: A lot of different aspects of this to, to be able to, you know, do I in source or outsource development? You know, all the things you’re speaking to a lot of different, options and a lot of different avenues you can take to create. Great product. And we want to make sure that everyone knows, you know, through our experience, I was on the invent team before Sean joined.
So I’ve worked with a lot of vendors, a lot of MSPs that have gone through this path and want to share my knowledge on, you know, Hey, this is what works in certain scenarios and getting, input from, you know, other experts that connect wise and other vendors in the space to say, Hey, this is all the things you need to think about before you get it off the ground.
Dan Welling: And,in terms of that supply of support and information that this is,this is coming from people in the wider connect wise business. So, you know, I might be able to talk to someone that runs a team of developers and,and, you know, I can get that direct from the horse’s mouth,experience.
Yeah.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. We’ll have some great guests on to be able to provide their input of, Hey, should it’s in sourcing worth it? What are the, you know, the con, the pros, the cons cost benefit of doing it internally, externally, are there security concerns, are there compliancy things that I have to worry about before, you know, giving my IP to an.
third party developer or should I, you know, hire in to be able to take care of things like that. So again, lots of different avenues that we can, discuss in these calls. So it’ll be very good to get that knowledge into the,the worldwide connect wise ecosystem. Okay.
Dan Welling: the next thing, and we’ve sort of touched on it, on a few of the earlier segments is of course, funding it,you know, this is not something that’sgonna require no money at all.
there’s going to be risk. so Are you also hopeful that you’ll be facilitating, in investment,in, into the community? so, so we can have people with the ideas, people with the ability and people with the money to fund it all coming together and
Mike: Yeah, I think that’s a great plan to be able to have that. So, you know, pitch it. It’s certainly one avenue to get some additional funding for your product, but being able to bring all those, bring all those different people together to determine, you know, what is the best path forward for that?
Dan Scott: So. nothing, nothing in stone yet for having, funders join this. But, you know, I think that’s a great idea for, for the future to mean ensure that we get all the right parties together to be able to, you know, have those conversations and make things work. scale to it. I think that’s good. We’ve got a good one there. And then that’s brilliant. And that’s the start of everything as always. But then how do we get that?
And how do we amplify it and how do we get it out there? And we all know, everyone knows they’re here listening today. It’s not just what you know, it’s also who you know. and building that network around you that can then open the right doors for you. And if you’ve got a product to go to market and you’ve got a dev team, you know, you work with Mike and the incubator team, it’s now official it’s done,and the incubator program, and you’ve got the, you’ve got the engine underneath you.
and it’s that time you were mentioned go to market earlier on as well, that go to market strategy. And you probably think in the back of your head, well, I’ve seen this done before and I bought a few of them in my time, so I’m just going to go to a couple of these shows and we’re going to do our thing and it’s all going to be fine.
there’s a bit more to it. I think it’s safe to say, but there are very few doors on that journey that Sean couldn’t help unlock for you. And Sean’s contacts and his knowledge, it’s what you do, my friend, and it’s, and you do it very well and it’s, but it’s having, you know, getting into those conversations where you’ve got, you can pull up WhatsApp and you can make things happen really quickly.
Sean: you’re, and you’re right, though,
Dan Scott: to open.
Sean: you’re spot on. You’re spot on. So a couple of things, to
highlight about this, and this touches on everything you guys have said, over the course of the 5 years, we’ve had 5, 5 companies were acquired that competed in the program over 5 years. Several have received funding and by funding, I mean like large funding. and this was because they were founded by people seeing them by being in the right room. Right. it’s difficult getting in the right room. I’ve been part of myself, five different startups, three successfully exited to still in
business today may never successfully exit. I hope they do cause I have equity, but, But, you know, it doesn’t always happen that way.
Right. and the difficulty in, in Biola, these companies were all part of the ConnectWise ecosystem. This is how I even know, knew about ConnectWise. This is how I, you know, I’ve been dealing with MSPs for 15 years, 20, before you were called MSPs and you were just IT guy or computer guy, or, you know, audio visual guy, or God knows whatever else it was.
Right. so a lot of my friends are MSPs and I, so I’ve been working in the field with them forever and as a start vendor. Coming into the space, it was very challenging for me to know where and what to do, you know, and it nation was new when I first started doing this. It wasn’t like the, it isn’t, it wasn’t what it is today, right?
it was a fraction of it. And so when you’re looking at your being bootstrap company, you’re trying to figure out where you’re investing.
It’s scary to invest in certain places without knowing if you’ll ever get an ROI, right? If it’s the right thing. One thing.
that I want to stress. Whether you’re in a competition like Pitchit or part of ConnectWise or not, most of these guys, men and women that were MSPs that became vendors still have the same thought process as to where they should invest their money.
And as we all know, it’s using the technology first growth. Second, they need to make that decision to change over to become a growth business. You know, you have to, at some point, know that you can’t keep investing on developers. When You
have no customers to talk to, you can’t keep
on investing in new features when you’re not even selling the existing features. Right. So I stress people to pay attention to that, right. And align yourself with people like connect wise. In general, because this is where the market is anyway, and you’re going to have to, you guys were all MSPs. You all know, the first thing you asked is, well, who do you integrate with? Who, how do I find you?
How do You
determine, you know, authority and credibility. and this is in, in going through groups like ours, and even, you know, Mike had mentioned the, you know, the invent
program, which is our certified integrator program. That’s, you know, we’re given vendors credibility because they’re going through a vetting process with us when they do that too.
You know, they’re going through security checks there, they’re making the investment. The fact is if there’s no investment from you as a vendor anywhere else, but your own internal self, nobody pays attention and nobody can trust you because you’re only, it’s basically like you keep buying yourself stuff.
You’re not sharing, you know, and it’s important to be involved in that. And again, when I went down the path of doing this, I struggled with figuring out how to
navigate ecosystems as a group, you know, and so this gives you, I figured out, obviously I did very well, but it took me, I took a lot of lumps.
a lot of trial and error, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of wondering if we’re going to pay the bills. Right. and it worked out in the end for me and for my partners, but this is a good way to do it for free. You’re going to spend the time anyway, you’re going to spend the time and the money to do it.
You might as well do with one, not the
other. If you can get a two for why not?
Dan Welling: And, and of course,
as I’m listening to all of this and,to, to thoughts, I’m thinking of,as we get close to sort of summing up. Some of the things we’ve covered today, the first is, and I’ve seen this with some recent vendors, which I think has worked, has worked very well is, following the, I don’t know if you, Bye.
on the other side of the pond are familiar with the BrewDog,business and story with effectively, early, early customers,bought shares in, and, you know, were part of the business. and,and I’ve seen that, I’ve seen that working well in the MSP vendor,in environment, recently.
So, so I think that’s a great, that’s a great,thing to,to think about. And,and yeah, the second point,which I think,is key is,this isn’t any, easier than being, an MSP, you know, vendor life is,depending on who you ask might actually say it’s harder than being an MSP, but, I’m sure we can have a whole podcast episode devoted to that, but it’s going to be different.
it’s not going to be that different that,if you’re in business, you’re in sales. And therefore that’s where you’ve got to, you’ve got to think about that. You know, you can’t become an MSP to be an engineer and you can’t become a vendor to be a software developer. And,I think that’s a great, that’s a great tip to take away from this.
If, if you’ve got an idea and you’re thinking about it, and therefore if that’s not for you, maybe. taking part in this sort of, incubator Petri dish environment. maybe you’ll find a business partner, one that’s,perhaps got the sales mindset and if you’ve got the engineering and therefore perhaps,perhaps that might actually move the whole project on and that’s worth, you know, more than money.
I’m sure.
Dan Scott: I’d say in both worlds as well, you, you doesn’t matter which way you get. If someone was listening to this and thinking, you know what, I’m going to start my own managed service provider, or they’re thinking, I’m going to jump in. I’m going to build a product for managed service providers in the channel.
You’re going to go along a path where people have made mistakes previously and people have had success previously. You want to copy their success and you want to avoid their mistakes. If you act alone, then you’ve just got luck and a bit of judgment in order to help you go along that path. Whereas in, in all of our lives, everybody who’s on this call today, everyone who’s, I can see who I can see on the screen, we’ve all benefited from community and we’re all advocates for treading that path together and trying to avoid those pitfalls and those mistakes together so we can get to the success faster.
but you know, that’s huge in our industry and our industry is brilliant at it, so we should do more of it.
Sean: Yeah. I want to go back to exactly. You said there’s a difference between being an MSP and being a vendor. If you went from one to the other, the biggest difference is you’re now you’re no longer having drinks bought for you. You’re now buying the drinks.
Just want to point it out right now. So those of you thinking this, you think that you’re going to show up at the show and you’re going to be the princess of the ball, right?
No, you’re not paying for the ball. Get used to that. Like it is a serious lesson to learn. And I’ve had this conversation a lot,
friends of mine, MSPs become vendors and they’re like, Hey, can we just come to the event? No. You’re now a money person. You’re trying to get audit. you’re paying for the audience.
We’re no, there’s no longer hosted guests for you, dude. You’re now paying for the hosted guests. That’s what you’re doing. Get in there and do your job. That is the primary fundamental difference of the two that you have to understand, and it’s a mindset change too. and don’t be surprised when you show up at the show and your MSP, what you thought were your friends are kind of hesitant because you’re now on the other side and you have to, but you gotta take your lumps. You gotta pay your dues. You’ve no choice. so, you know, put your big boy pants on and get to work
Dan Welling: absolutely love it. And a great,great,great, great wise of dividing the,the room there. of course, some,I’ve noticed in the market actually,cover that cover their bases and they develop a vendor products while they also have an MSP and, presumably that’s, I mean, that’s not, not the answer to all things, but, but a good way to get drinks bought for you may be,
Sean: now. you’re absolutely right. you DC, we see those people that are, they’re sort of in the purgatory of like, Oh, I still get the benefit and they’re doing it. And kudos to them. You know, eventually though,
they get found it out. And then it’s like, dude, get your credit card out. It’s time for you to next 10 rounds are on you to make up for the last two years of you not catching them.
So, no, but it’s, but again, you know, the thing is these vendors, these MSPs, your spot, when they start adding their friends on as customers, they’re also adding them on a lot of times as advisory board members too. So going back to, you said before about the investors and whatnot,
you’re seeing a lot more now, these vendors.
That are in the space and they come to me all the time and they ask me like, who do you suggest to be like in our advisory board that can help us they’re being cognizant of the fact that they don’t know what they don’t know and they need some somebody to help them fast track some things.
And especially in technology, because you’re seeing products churn quickly products that are neat, necessary are getting into the system, growing exponentially, very quickly and being acquired or receiving big funding. That’s the reason why. So it’s not a bad idea. Well, first you should always ask my advice.
If you think you have a really good product to solve some problems. That’s great. And I’ll go tell your mother what it is and see if she understands it. If your mother or wife or husband can’t understand that aren’t in space, you don’t either the product is s**t or how you talk about it is s**t. So you got to fix one or the other. So, you know, really think about that because you’re in the business of solve problems.
Dan Welling: and,You’ve just given us a little bit of editing there to,for Adam
Adam: no. we’ll
Dan Welling: and if anyone’s wondering
Adam: keep the fruity language in definitely.
Dan Welling: all right. Okay. So, you may have heard, Sean just say something about being shed and, shed. we, that may not be what he actually said.
Sean: That’s what I said.
Dan Welling: is pressing on. So, final thoughts from, from Adam and Mike.
Adam: yeah, look for me, a couple of things, that stick out here.it’s the specificness of this program, I think, you know, there’s lots of other initiatives out there. They’re a generalist in nature and they’re great, but you know, this is just so much better because it’s just so specific, deep, deep down into the MSP industry.
so I think there’s so much value in that. And the second thing is the collaborative component of all of this. So think how much learning, you know, there’s likely to be. Between, you know, all the other people involved or all the other groups involved in both programs. So I think that sort of peer element also, you know, can add an awful lot.
So I guess that’s my two pence worth.
Dan Welling: Brilliant. Thank you.
Sean: Appreciate
Mike: For me, yeah, for me, take the leap, come on the ride. It’s, it’s going to be a fun one. there’s a lot of green field out there. So, you know, take, take your idea. let’s figure out if it’s going to work or not. And we’re, we’ll take the ride together.
Dan Welling: Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, really great discussion. we’ll,yeah, look forward to probably coming back together in a, in a few months time to, to hear how this year’s, perhaps a pitch event has gone and also to hear how the, the incubator is, is kicking off a really interesting initiative and, great, great to hear about it.
So thank you very much. And,we’ll speak to you very soon.
Adam: Thanks guys.
Sean: Thanks all.
Dan Scott: Thank you.
Mike: you.