Charles Tomeo of Rewst

[00:00:00] 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've got some housekeeping I'm going to do, and then we're going to talk shop with our return guest on the pod, one Charlie Tomeo from Rewst. So here's all my housekeeping. We're going to get it done

[00:00:28] 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 for the Kaseya Connect Europe. Actually, both of us, I believe, are going to be in Prague here in a few days. We are hosting an MSP community block party. It is on the agenda in the app,

[00:00:57] or if you just happen to be in Prague and you're an MSP, please join us. All of this is at MSPinitiative.com. Totally free as an MSP to join us. It is a community event, and it's right in the middle of Old Town. So we're excited to come back to the scene. It's been a couple of years since we've been in Prague. And then we come back home into the U.S., and we turn around. We go to Nashville,

[00:01:23] right down Broadway, where all the fun stuff is. And we are at our second year for the Flow conference, 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're hosting an MSP community block party at Flow. So check that out.

[00:01:49] Again, if you're in the greater 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. It's a community event. We rented a four-story venue. There's plenty of room. So we're looking forward to having everybody there. So all that's on MSPinitiative.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.

[00:02:18] Charlie, welcome back to the show. How are you doing today, my friend? Good, George. Good to see you. Absolutely. Always happy to see you. How's, uh, you excited for your, what is it, eight-hour flight to Prague? I think I got it. I got a connector, so it's a little bit more, but, uh, that's fine. All good, man. 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.

[00:02:42] Yeah. 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, I think it's like anything else I have run into it. It really depends on the systems are up and running and who's running it, but, uh, they will not be rushed. Let's put it that way.

[00:03:10] Well, for anybody that doesn't know what we're talking about, if you, if you're from out of Europe and you're headed into Europe, uh, Europe 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 got

[00:03:36] to 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

[00:04:06] 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 have changed. Um, AI, I mean, is like pretty much every billboard now used to be cybersecurity. Now it's AI. Um, I know that, you know, you'll probably, you guys probably be talking about this at flow in a couple of weeks, uh, cause you know, automation and AI somehow like, I don't know, get jammed together into

[00:04:34] 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 at this, the PAX 8 event this past week, it was pretty much the entire conference. Might as well have just been, sounds like it should have just been called AI con. Um, it's been now a couple of years of it though, right? Like what

[00:05:03] are you hearing from the MSP community on like, is this viable? Is it real? Like what's actually going on? 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

[00:05:28] we're involving what we do to support the community. So we're still in automation, you know, automation first. Um, and I 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

[00:05:57] very upfront what we do, but we also have to lean into it. It's not going away. 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 Facebooks, the Reddits, the Slacks and the Discords, all that stuff. There's a lot of people, you know, some people call it vibe coding. Some people

[00:06:22] 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 it and go. Right. I guess, you know, we'll see what happens.

[00:06:52] Yeah. This is, there's gotta 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 fought that certainly if you were 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

[00:07:17] 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 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

[00:07:45] doing, how we're like, how we're monitoring what people do. Uh, the 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 stories on the reddits and everything else, how somebody got a huge pill that they didn't know was coming. Right. So that's the other thing I'd say for MSPs, for vendors alike is make sure you have

[00:08:12] some controls around that. Uh, because this is, I think everybody on that would listen to this, but 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 six, $700 bill at the end of the month. Um, this is not going to be

[00:08:39] one of those things. This could be thousands depending on what you're doing. So I think there's, there's a bunch of things that in principles that I think that, uh, they're going to want to look at and 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 keynote. Um, you know, he's, he's already working on

[00:09:09] that. Um, so anybody that, uh, is going to be there, uh, definitely make sure you don't, uh, don't miss that. If you're out on Broadway, I'll probably find you and make sure you get there, uh, in time that may be just in time. But, uh, I think, I think those are the things, George, you know, this is happening. Everyone's do it, but you gotta be put some controls around it.

[00:09:32] Yeah. I, it's, I can imagine. And like, I lived 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, uh, API account for this AI platform. Uh, I just need to need some help to log in. You're like, 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.

[00:09:59] What about the customer of the MSP? I mean, that changes it even worse, I think. Well, well, that's changed a lot. You see if what, you know, what's gone on and, and, you know, it's, it's feels like a lifetime ago, but once everybody went fully remote during COVID, um, a lot of what the MSP did, which was truly, you know, be that IT staff, these guys just started downloading any SAS product they could get ahold of. And so they probably had more non-managed things

[00:10:28] in their business, um, that just didn't add up and nobody was doing any with them. 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, that definitely got to be paying attention to what we're doing there. And, um, you know, that also leads into some

[00:10:52] 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. 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 difficult to build out these steps on our own. And, or I just don't have the resources internally,

[00:11:22] who's a more 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. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of what we're running into it and we ran into

[00:11:50] this ourselves, you know, where, where, um, 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, uh, evolve ourselves. So we came out with something we called robo roosty. Um, you know, just love this stuff that the techs come up with and, um, you could build now using our platform in,

[00:12:18] in 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. Okay. So that's where I think it's 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

[00:12:43] they built 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 leverally, leveraging the AI through a platform, you're able to control what they could do. You don't have to give them access

[00:13:13] to everything. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like driving on the road, no guard guardrails, right? I mean, yeah, they're there to prevent you from going off the cliff. So it's definitely, uh, I don't, 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.

[00:13:40] 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 going to find vulnerabilities now that have been in these products for ever. And guess what? Every day that's happening now, right? Zero day, zero day that 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,

[00:14:09] it's almost like Pandora has been open now. And how do you even catch up before somebody does something bad? Yeah. And I think that's where we, we honestly, we have to communicate. We have to work together. You know, it's the reason why, you know, even, even 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 MSP is walking the door, that they can look printed, you know, to, they can look at all the

[00:14:38] different solutions to solve some of their problems and hopefully rely on, you know, what you believe is the experts and the people that are focused on that to help. Because it's, 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 than we even could, could, you know, think of what it could be,

[00:15:06] 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. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, that's where the community part really comes in. And 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.

[00:15:31] No, it is. Yeah. And that's why, you know, like you see there's a, it doesn't matter what the economy looks like. There's still vendors popping up in the MSP space. This is true. New ones every day. That's for sure. Money out there that hasn't changed. You know, what you get for your money may be different, but there's, that is definitely access is there for sure. So why Nashville? Why'd you guys move from Tampa? And you had a couple of years

[00:16:00] there. There seemed like Tampa was a good place. Yeah, I think it was good. I think, you know, moving close to center, you know, making a little bit easier for people to get into town. I also think, you know, it being Nash Vegas and not Las Vegas is, I think it's better. It's a lot more manageable. We don't lose people. You know, the, the other thing that we do is, you know, when you, as you know,

[00:16:25] a guy that runs these events is, you know, we want to make sure that the MSP comes, they are able to take some good goodness away, but the vendors should as well. Right. So not having, you know, not having too many distractions, I think helps. Right. And just given something, we have people coming from all over the world. I think, you know, how many times you're going to take up to Tampa, Orlando, somebody's other place. I do think it's something a bit different and everyone seems to be

[00:16:55] excited about it. And like you said, we're, we're really close to Broadway and anybody that likes music, good place to go. That's plenty, plenty of good stuff there for sure. And hot chicken. If you, if you've never been, make sure you try to hot chicken. Nashville hot chicken. Yeah, that is the thing. Did you, I don't know if you knew they just announced, I believe two weeks ago that Nashville

[00:17:21] is hosting the 2030 Superbowl. No. Yeah. So the Titans, I are almost done with their new arena football stadium. Um, the, they're, I think they're still calling it Nissan because they're the major like stadium sponsor. And, uh, you know, of course in the NFL, you build a new stadium with a roof. Yeah. Sorry, Buffalo fans. Cause you know, your new stadium doesn't have one,

[00:17:47] but build a new stadium with a roof. You get a Superbowl. So 2030 incomes to Nashville should be a good time. Yeah. And, and, you know, the other thing is I'd say, um, I rely on, you know, we have a great marketing and event staff. You know, I think, you know, most of them, they're known in the space. So, um, always have them looking at to see what the, what the next specs thing is. And, and, um, honestly, what we think is going to be going to draw the right crowd.

[00:18:16] A hundred percent now might be too, too soon. And 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? Um, I, I think it's too soon. I don't ever want to commit my team to anything. They're the ones that do all the hard work. My guess it would probably be, um, another year though. Uh, especially if it, it seems like everything, everything seems to be going well, you know, selling out the event,

[00:18:44] uh, selling out the pre days. Um, and, uh, certainly can't thank the MSPs as well as the vendors for the support that we've gotten. Um, it's been, you know, the last, uh, couple of years, it was, you know, definitely, as you know, you run these things, not the easiest thing. Uh, they made it a lot easier for us this year. Yeah, no, I think, uh, I'm really excited for it. I think Tampa went really well last

[00:19:09] 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 more turnkey feels polished. Yeah, no, that's it. And then I think, you know, just making sure we round it out with, uh, the 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.

[00:19:39] Well, we, we, we are happy and, and, uh, you know, definitely grateful to be working with you guys again on the block party. You know, we do our best to, uh, 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

[00:20:02] this. We're in midway through 2026. Let's just zoom out to 2030, right? That's a reasonable reach into the future. What's your outlook on the MSP industry as a whole growing, dying, consolidating all of the above. What's your, what's your gut feel on? 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

[00:20:30] working. Um, I think there's going to be a big evolution though. 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,

[00:20:56] 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 do we can't assume that everyone's going to be able to just figure this out, right? 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,

[00:21:23] even 2030. I mean, 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, they're going to adjust their businesses to, to fit it. They may not call them MSPs anymore. You know, I know we've thrown around MSPs, TSPs, you know, all these, but at the end of the day, they're going to be the backbone on how we help, uh, certainly MS, uh, MS, uh, SMB and mid-market move forward. I don't think that stuff just goes

[00:21:53] away. That's fair. Um, 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 is moving so fast. By the time these guys catch up, it's generally a few years,

[00:22:18] 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 U S it seems like they're trying to prevent

[00:22:43] all the States from coming out with their own rules, you know, like if you'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 me to do, but the rules, you know, tend to, you know, put a wrench into things.

[00:23:10] 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, uh, always been thought leaders that are concerned when we don't have enough, um, basically guardrails around what we're doing. Yeah. We've all seen it.

[00:23:35] Like I know if you're in this space, if you are not a, uh, sci-fi person, I'd be shocked. Right. You at least watch some of it. Some of them were 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 don't know if you caught this article. It was probably a few weeks ago

[00:23:58] that, uh, Chase bank is open up 160 new branches. Yes. Retail banking branches. Yes. Like, but with people that they feel like what they're saying is P they actually want to come in and work with people again. I mean, it it's, it's crazy. I mean, I, you know, my dad will be pretty excited, but he still loves going to the bank. Uh, they don't give the free calendars away anymore. So,

[00:24:25] uh, maybe they'll bring that back. But I, I read that article, Mike, it just seems the complete polar opposite of what we're trying to do and what we're seeing. To that point, 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

[00:24:51] pretty much 90 days, you're hearing that they're rehiring a lot of people, excuse me. So did it, did everybody make a bet too soon on all of this stuff? Cause it just seems so like, it's like a, it's like a rollercoaster down now back up. And you know, I even saw two articles recently saying that 2027 would be the year of rehire. Um, I, I, I think you're, I think you're absolutely spot on.

[00:25:20] 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. 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.

[00:25:50] To make up for the people they were cutting. So I think that's, that's part of it. Um, you know, especially a lot of these bigger companies, they don't move as fast. 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.

[00:26:17] Almost every time that I was at the bank, um, you know, 70,000 employees, they'd cut maybe anywhere from eight 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, the other thing is, uh, there are still a lot

[00:26:45] 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, right? You know, I still talk to you. I talk to most of the people in the community, I pick it up the phone and actually having a conversation. Ain't that ain't that a fact for sure. So I think that's, that's the thing, but I do think, uh,

[00:27:12] 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. And the Chevy, and now it's an electric car, right? So I think it's, it's going to take some time for us to get where they actually need to be and get some level of a balance.

[00:27:39] Speaking about big companies and false starts, um, this week to 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 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 stock

[00:28:07] room 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

[00:28:35] Hut corporate. According to the news, you go read this a hundred million dollars for loss of business business and all sorts of other things around. Basically people weren't getting their stuff through the system and on time and it created havoc and then people 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? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that it, I think that's it. Uh, George, right now,

[00:29:03] a lot of people will 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 it. It should just maybe be a bit more methodical as we're doing it and moving forward. To that end, McDonald's another name everybody should know. Um, they ran a pilot of

[00:29:30] an AI drive-through order taker about a year and a half, almost two years ago. It was like an, 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

[00:29:58] are moving fast. So to that end, right? Like I think he, you know, try hard, fail fast, you know, decide that it's not working rip to pull the rip cord. I don't know, but I'm just pointing it out. Like that was also in the news this week. Yeah. I think it's, you know, it is everything in life's risk and reward. So if you, as long as you do that math first and you know what you're doing, great. Um, you know, I think, uh, I think we'll see more of that. I don't think we'll see less of it,

[00:30:28] but, um, I definitely, you know, I've seen the power of what, uh, 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, you know, stop by our booth at a show and we'll build an automation for them right there in front of their eyes. Right. That's cool. We have, uh,

[00:30:54] 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 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,

[00:31:24] you could fire F your staff today, George, because AI is around, but you've done nothing to actually do those people's work. Probably not great. 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 your team matters, right? Like it, it's felt if you disappear someone instantly, I, you know,

[00:31:54] you, you, you have a harder time dealing with that change than a larger company who has more people to handle. 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, 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.

[00:32:23] 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 based on your business. That may not be things that people know today.

[00:32:52] No, that's fair. That's, and that's, I like your positioning on that. I think a lot of people take a page out of that book. Now, let me flip directions real quick back to current events. Um, this is Allah, uh, or via, uh, Jay McBain. 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, O M D I A

[00:33:16] I M D I A. Uh, uh, 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

[00:33:39] value is now at 12.3 billion. What do you think? 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

[00:34:07] of not just focusing on one thing, 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

[00:34:33] 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 Reddings 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 somebody's numbers, they say they're crazy, but like, who knows that, you know, just follow the stock market.

[00:34:58] And if you want to drive yourself crazy on, you know, uh, what's worth what, right. And, and, 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, I'll say a little bit, right. But they're building their, they're building it. And, um, I think the goal is to provide the most value that they can. So just to give you a little bit

[00:35:23] 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 connect wise estimated at 6.5 billion. However, even though connect wise and Kaseya retain leads in revenue and market share Ninja one's growth

[00:35:50] over the last 12 months in the MSP space, 62.7%. Yeah. Cause people have an option now, George, how you look at, uh, you know, our buddies over at, um, you know, 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,

[00:36:17] because you built so much of your own intellectual property and that's kind of a 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 learned 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

[00:36:44] 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. Yeah. Funny that you say that. So halo, uh, on the same chart here, right. It was like Kaseya connect wise, Ninja halo is 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

[00:37:12] these two guys together, there seems to be a power dynamic happening. 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 everyone, 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, we both go to these conferences. So, you know, everyone at least

[00:37:41] knows what to do. I think like everything else is not the bigger you get, the harder it is to move fast. That's fair. That is a age old truth for sure. What's your, you know, guesstimate on, you know, we've seen a lot of ECP money now, right? Like Ninja is the most recent example now,

[00:38:06] a couple of days ago, but the markets changed since pre COVID, right? 2019, 2020 to 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 partner or financing, however, whatever vehicle you choose, like seems

[00:38:33] 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. I 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? I think the, you know, I'll speak even from my experience, just at Roost, you know, Aaron Chernin is another, you know, serial entrepreneur, really, really just

[00:39:03] a smart guy. I think he's, he's genuine, he's likable, but he's a great storyteller as well. And so I think that's some of the differences, 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

[00:39:28] showcase the vision and they do have to believe 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 Halo guys are a little bit different, God bless them, they're self-funded. So I guess, you know, I think they probably do fine anyhow, but they don't have to have those conversations. But I do think that's it.

[00:39:54] I think it's, you know, building the track record, like you said, getting those numbers, 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 end of last year, beginning of this year. And even now is, you know, SaaS companies took a beating. Yeah. Right. You know, they've been up a bit. I think

[00:40:19] they were up, you know, 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 to your product, I think valuations are not going to be what they were. If it's just a SaaS only. Yeah. A hundred percent. As I mean, definitely still seeing a lot of, excuse me.

[00:40:48] 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, they're deciding, Hey, I've put a time in 20, 25 years in it's time for somebody else to take a try. Yeah. It's interesting to see a lot of that stuff is going on and it's not, you know, that's, that's become crowded, right? There's a lot of people fighting for,

[00:41:16] fighting for those MSPs businesses, but I do think, um, you know, some of it is they have nobody to hand it off to. Yeah. And, um, I think the communities that a great job and you could talk about, um, you know, like the folks at true methods or evolve, or, you know, you kind of name it, you know, Robin Robbins done a good job of that, like helping these guys understand and be

[00:41:44] 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. Yeah. Well, there's definitely, I, I, would you say that it's a seller's market at this point because there's so many buyers or is that maybe not?

[00:42:09] No, I think it is, but I don't think it's that simple. I don't think it's just, Hey, you know, uh, I'm 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, uh, doing their due diligence more as well. I think they know, you know, a couple of 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

[00:42:38] business, uh, 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. Yeah. That's fair. That's so it's, 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,

[00:43:07] you're going to make money on it. It's just how much, right? Because we know, uh, from being on the 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, uh, margins that they could gain just by doing that. Interesting. Yeah. The economy is a scale, right? You know, by having,

[00:43:34] you know, more buying power basically. Yeah. You look at what's good. I mean, look at, look at how, you know, I, I, I definitely give credit where credit do. I mean, look at, you know, what the Tim Conkle and 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. Yeah. They've done, I think I said that I thought they're up to like 49 acquisitions. If I read that.

[00:44:00] 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 is doing it. So, um, you know, it's good. One of our biggest partners, Air IT, I mean,

[00:44:29] they've got it down to a science. Definitely. I mean, they're, they're a big one over there. Um, anything that you're looking forward to on the back end of this year, now that we're pretty much at the midway bark? Uh, me, I'm looking forward to seeing how, how things evolve here, um, in the MSP community with, like I said, with some of these new vendors that are out there,

[00:44:55] 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, the 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

[00:45:20] year and then getting ready for next year. Okay. Um, any, any regrettable air travel stories so far this year? I know we all have them. 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,

[00:45:47] 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 little 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. That's awesome. Um, it sounds like you sold out of your event,

[00:46:16] unless somebody came in last minute, you still got room or? 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. Uh, connect me on LinkedIn. If you don't have my direct contact and we'll see what you can do to help you out, but we'd love to have, uh, everybody jump. Awesome guys. If you don't know

[00:46:41] 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 of weeks out, but it's the summertime and Nashville is a cool place to check out. Um, and 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

[00:47:06] most people learn. It's at least how I learn. Uh, Charlie safe travels. Get to see in Prague next week. Uh, and obviously next week after and for everybody else, uh, this session was recorded. You'll find out mspinitiative.com under sessions. Hopefully we'll see you out on the road and catch you on the flip side. Bye guys. Thanks George. Bye.