640 Interviews from Tampa - SuperOps Super Summit

Hello, friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals, managed service providers, and anyone that is supporting business. And we try to help you run your business better, smarter, and faster. Welcome to a very special Saturday edition of the podcast.

I'm doing this on a Saturday because it's going to be a tweener episode. Basically what I mean, it's going to be in between conferences. So yesterday I had the privilege of attending the Super Ops Super Summit in Tampa, Florida.

I've got a very quick turnaround tomorrow. I'll be heading up to Orlando for IT Nation Secure. And then right after that, I'll be turning around and heading out west to PAX 8 Beyond.

So I've got a few shows that I'll be recording at each event. So I'm going to have to turn around real quick and get them published. So I did four quick interviews while in Tampa.

They were very short. So I've stitched them together and you will hear them right after my intro here. There will be four interviews in a row.

We're going to have Arvin, the CEO of Super Ops, and had a quick discussion with him. We're also going to have Damo, who is the vice president of products at Super Ops. Following that will be Chris Kuhl, who is a relatively new MSP, who has just joined the Super Ops family.

And then we'll finish that up with Juan Fernandez, the channel chief at Super Ops. So those will be the four quick people that you'll hear a little bit later. So normally when I get back from a conference, I usually do a swag show.

But this is more of a road show. So while there was a little bit of swag, I already had it all. It was the hats and the stickers and stuff.

And the only thing that I came away with that I did not have before was my very own copy of the MSP owner's handbook written by Marnie Stockman and Juan Fernandez. This is the QBR edition. So I will have a link in the show notes to that, because if you don't have this book, you should get it.

It is a very good definitive guide. If you're just starting up your managed service provider company, or if you're thinking about it, or you want to retool what you're doing, this is a book that gives you not just advice. There is actually some forms in here.

There's a couple of nice diagrams. Each chapter, I think, has takeaways at the end, talks about billing, all this stuff. So all of that is in this MSP owner's handbook.

So again, the show notes will have a link if you would like to pick that up yourself if you don't get a chance to run into any of the super ops people and get yourself a copy. I do want to say a quick shout out. I probably don't have everybody's name here.

Some of the people that got up and presented. And people should know, the super summit that super ops puts on, it's not your typical conference. It is a one-day event specifically for MSPs, and it's focused on helping them supercharge their growth.

It is educational only. It is not a sales pitch event. Most of the discussions barely mention the word tech, let alone stack or vendors or anything like that.

So that's what this is. It's a free event for attendees. It's pretty much by invitation only, I think.

I don't know. I probably should have checked that before I said it, but that's what it is. It's not a big event.

It's not going to be overkill. Again, no pitching from the front of the room or anything like that. It is just insightful discussion.

You basically are in a room where you can chat with everybody else there. Be a part of the discussion, not just be talked to or preached at or talked down to or anything like that. The people that I can remember naming right off the top of my head, Rex Frank from Pax 8, Marty Stockman, who I mentioned a little bit earlier, Dave Cava, Sean Walsh.

I had them on the show a couple of months ago. They were there talking about the pumpkin plan for MSPs. Some of the discussions we had, of course, we got a chance to meet other MSPs, hang out, chat, all of that good stuff.

If you get a chance to go to one of these events, they've had seven so far since December. That tells you they're pretty much cranking out one a month, so there may be one coming near you sometime in the future. With that, let me go ahead and get out of here and get you on to the interviews that I did.

We'll see you may be out at one of the other events. And of course, you can catch me here on the IT Business Podcast. A lot of good content coming up.

That's going to do it. Let me get out of here. See you.

Hello, friends. Uncle Mark here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast. And this is a very special episode.

We are recording live from St. Petersburg, Florida. I decided to take a drive over to the West Coast and hang out here with our good friend, Juan Fernandez, Nancy Henriquez, and of course, Arvind from Super Ops. We're here at the Super Ops Super Summit.

And I got Arvind to sit down for a few minutes. So we're going to hang out and chat here. So Arvind, how's it going? Doing good, Marv.

How are you? I'm doing good. How do you like the state of Florida? Feels like home. Yeah.

It feels like India. But you're much closer to a beach here, though. Yeah.

All right. So this is my second Super Ops Super Summit. You've had, what, three or four now? I think, including the international ones, I think this is the seventh one.

Seventh one. Okay. All right.

And these have turned out to be great events. I'm hearing some good, great, positive feedback. But let me ask you, owner, starter of all of this, how do you perceive these to be going? Well, it really feels like a baby growing in front of your eyes.

Yeah. It's like a baby crawling and the toddler walking. To see, like, I think this is one of the biggest events in the U.S. right now.

We literally had to pull some chairs from outside to accommodate people. It's really feeling good. The feeling is amazing.

All right. And this is one of those events that I think people are starting to love because they're educational. They're not too salesy.

We actually have time to chat with each other in between the sessions and stuff. And we have access to you. How many? There's more staff here than I saw the last time.

What is it, like, 10 of you, 12 of you? No, absolutely. So the idea of this summit, as I told last time, right, it's about MSPs learning from each other, not to try to push and sell. So that's why we just want to be an enabler in this community for them to learn from each other.

That's the idea of Super Summit. And the reason why we have more staff this time is we kind of flew in the leadership from India. We did a cab yesterday, the customer advisory board.

We handpicked a few MSPs. And we had a very close group meeting where we showcased our product, got some ideas to build what is right for the MSPs. So we combined that with Super Summit.

So that's why you see a lot of staff. So, yeah. All right.

Too bad you did it here in Tampa. I was going to suggest you do that in Fort Lauderdale, a little closer to my home. Maybe next time.

Topped off right down the street. So we'll have to work on that. Arvind, so let me now ask Super Ops in general.

I know that we're not really talking too much about vendors here. But of course, you guys are putting this on. You are broadcasting your brand all over the place.

How has Super Ops been in the journey for the last, I guess, 18 months? Yeah. So if you notice, we are a pretty young brand. We have been in the industry for almost four years.

So we started off with the platform. So it took some time for us to build the platform. But we started marketing from day one.

We were out talking with all the influencers, MSPs from day one. In the last 18 months were really, really interesting. Because before, people didn't know who Super Ops were.

Like we had to go and in every event we go, we had to introduce ourselves saying that, hey, we are a PSAR platform. We are new and everything. Today, I think we don't have to introduce Super Ops.

People know who we are, thanks to one. So there is a brand which has already been established. And there's a lot of love from the community.

And more and more MSPs are using the product and platform. So we are getting the traction which is required in the market right now. I would say along with the marketing that you've been doing, probably the biggest differentiator is you guys have made yourself available to MSPs.

We see you out and about. That's one thing. And you have a product.

Now, full disclosure, I'm not using you guys yet, as the one and only would say. But everybody that has used you has had positive things to say. They've migrated away from another tool they were using, the all-in-one PSARMM, which we all would love.

That's performing beautifully. And I think that that is just as key as getting people to know who you are. See, a lot of times we think running a business is just the product, right? Like, first thing is product has to be really great.

Super Ops, whoever has used a product, they have amazing things to say. But one thing which I also noticed in this industry is how the experience when they use the product, getting a good support or the sales process. If you want to, if you don't like the product, you should be able to leave the product anytime you want.

Tied with long contracts. All these things are bad practices, which I saw, which has been practiced. We want to bring a change where, imagine if you're flying, if you get a business class experience, paying for an economy, that's exactly what we want to do.

No matter what you pay, you get that business class experience when you do business with Super Ops. Well, that sounds fantastic. And when I'm ready to make the change, Juan, you'll hook me up, right? If you're watching your own video, we have an audience behind us there.

So Arvind, I did want to say thank you. I know we grabbed a few minutes here. We've got a big event happening, lots of stuff to do today.

So thank you for your time and look forward to see you out and about in some other roadshows. Thanks, Marv. It's always been a pleasure talking to you.

All right, folks, that's going to do it. We'll be back with a couple more interviews here from the Roadshow in Clearwater, Florida, St. Petersburg, Tampa, however you want to say it. It's a West Coast, beautiful bay and lovely sunshine.

Talk to you later. Holla. Hello, friends.

Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast. And I am still here in St. Petersburg, Florida at the Super Ops Summit. And we found another person on the Super Ops team.

We got him in here chatting a few minutes. And Damo with Super Ops. How are you doing, sir? Very well.

Thank you. Now, of course, I got to ask your position at Super Ops and how long you've been there. And I know you love the place but tell us something you may not love.

That's a very good question. So hi, everybody. I'm Damo.

I run products here at Super Ops, building an awesome PSA, RMM platform, with everything new and beautiful for the MSP of the future. What's great about the company, and by the way, I've been doing this for a while. I've done products for almost 20 years in enterprise.

So the special thing about how we build product for the MSP is I feel like we're actually contributing to a real person's growth versus just looking at numbers. And you can actually see the happiness and the growth that you don't get to see when you build for just a company, right? So that's the big driving force behind the product here. We try to build for growth and success and profitability.

What was the question? I was going to ask what you don't like about it because I want to see if we could surprise anybody. I don't know. Actually, very little.

The one thing that I think could be don't like about Super Ops. Tough man out here. I hooked you.

Let's do this. So you said you've been doing DevOps for 20 years. How long at Super Ops? Product management for 20 years and almost two years with Super Ops.

Two years, okay. So in terms of what you were doing before and what you've been doing for the last two, was it all designed in just IT in general? Was it for IT service companies? And how is that different from what you're doing now at Super Ops? Excellent question. So most of the work that I've done before this has been in the enterprise space and a little bit of bid market as well, but mainly in the Fortune hundreds and thousands where we've worked mainly with IT teams, but also with the businesses like finance and accounting and other parts of the business.

What I think is very interesting about what we can do in Super Ops is we can bring all those ways of building a very scalable and a future facing product into a space where it starts with an SMB and grow a product in a very scalable way from the beginning itself. We can make a product that actually grows from day one in a very elegant way. Now, is it different to design something for an enterprise company where you're really dealing with one company at a time versus, I don't know, 1,500 MSPs? Exactly.

So the way you define prioritization and how you define what to do next, enterprise actually have a handle of what to do because the top 10 enterprises actually define how the market itself adopts a product. Here is exactly like what it says. It's not just 1,500.

It's 150,000 MSPs all having different sets of requirements. So what we do is segmentation. So we actually try to build for their journey depending on how small they are and try to help them become larger and larger and build for them incrementally to grow and become larger MSPs.

Okay. Now, I had interviewed Arvind earlier in the day, and he said that you guys came in for leadership council meeting. So how long are you guys here? Did you plan for the weekend? Yes, we did.

So we are doing an impromptu trip to Miami, but actually we're here for almost two weeks. Part of it is the customer advisory board, then the super summit, and then a bunch of customer meetings where we actually, beyond just talking to customers who we invite to boardrooms, we actually want to go see how they actually do their business. So we're actually visiting them and learning from them how they actually look at the screens and build, how they actually use not just SuperOps but other tools so we can innovate and give them better solutions in the future.

All right. I'm looking out at the audience, Juan, I guess because I'm not a customer, you're not going to swing by my place down in Fort Lauderdale, huh? We will, though, at some point. At some point.

We do prospects as well. Okay. All right, Tamil, anything else you'd like for the listeners who may not be SuperOps people? Anything you want to tell them about either coming to a future roadshow or just getting involved with SuperOps? Awesome, yeah.

So one thing, I think Arvind mentioned this as well, right? In SuperOps, what we strive to do is not just give you a product, right? Our company realized very quickly that a product is just a tool for you to do your job. What really helps you is actually the community and the marketing behind what you need to do as a business owner using the tool of choice. So I encourage all of you guys to come and join our community first so you can appreciate all the things that SuperOps can offer along with product, the support, and the overall experience.

And I think that's the differentiator that we want to bring in the market, which we hope you'll really like. And I think that's what people have already seen as they're talking about it in between the sessions and stuff. So again, thank you for your time.

I know I dragged you guys away from something, but thank you for sitting down here, sharing your experience, and look forward to seeing you guys in Fort Lauderdale at some point in time. All right? Thanks. Thanks, Marv.

Hello, friends. Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IIT Business Podcast. This is a special show.

There will be an accompanying video that will be showing on our YouTube platform because I am here live in St. Pete, Florida, where we are at the Super Ops Super Summit 2024. It's actually dubbed Tampa, even though we're in St. Pete, Nancy, just so you notice that. But we are here doing a live video here.

And I'm here with Dave Kuhl from Super Ops. And we're just skipping a session real quick. Dave, how are you? Chris Kuhl.

Chris Kuhl. Why'd you tell me Dave? I'm doing well. I'm doing well.

Thank you. Chris. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Chris Kuhl here with Kuhl Technology Group and just joined the Super Ops family. Super excited to be here and be a part of this.

Very honored and very humbled. All right. So you just joined.

So let me go ahead and ask the question. What was it that led you to that decision? It was really the... For me, it was the first off, obviously, it was the technology. But secondly, and most importantly, it was the people.

The people and the leadership of Super Ops and really all of the folks that are involved. This has been a process. I received a cold call.

Of all things, I'm a sales guy at heart. And so I took a cold call and it progressed in the last two months. It was just incredible timing that from the cold call till now, when I've fully registered and moving my whole platform over to Super Ops, it's just been incredible.

So it's the people and the technology. All right. So before we talk about what you did to make that move and stuff, let's talk about what got you here.

So how long have you been doing work? So I've been in the technology industry. Again, as I said, I've been in sales. I really come from the sales side versus the technical side.

I started in the telecom world, moved from the telecom world, and of all things, to the copier world. I learned my master's degree in gutter finances. I call it in the copier world.

And then I saw a real emergence in the copier business of the need for technology because it was technology and what that meant to the small to medium businessperson. Being in sales, I also tried to find a path of least resistance. For a small to medium business, they can't look at all of their technologies and possibly function.

And so I saw a real need for that type of consulting. And hence, I moved in six years ago. We sold a copier company to Sharp.

And then I moved in the technology business in the MSP space, learned the school of hard knocks, and then have now, this is my legacy company. And we've been in business about three and a half years. All right.

So let me ask the weird question about coming over from the copier side into the MSP space. We talk a lot of crap about copy people. Amen.

It's an incestuous side of the world. And it really has lent me to really helping because I saw what that was. I was able to maintain a high level of integrity in that world of copiers.

And so I've just parlayed that over. That also kind of correlates exactly to what Super Ops is, is because they function at such a high level of integrity. And they're really out there to help us as providers.

So I just applied that from the old crummy copier world into technology and technology consulting. All right. So from the time that you started in getting started in IT, working with customers, what was your progression in terms of, let's say, your stack, for lack of a better phrase, in terms of what you used when you started to help support people? And how has that kind of migrated now to jumping in with Super Ops? You know, what I really saw and what I brought, I flip-flopped it.

So it was the copier industry into the IT industry. And I went the other way. And so I actually teamed up with where I actually outsourced it.

I outsourced my NOC and my SOC and my help desk. Oh, OK. And then I had providers.

But I had major providers providing all things. So my cost was quite expensive because I was actually outsourcing the majority of the thing. But that's how I saw that it was scalable.

So you weren't doing anything in-house. You didn't have techs. You didn't have... We had boots on the street.

We had started with one. OK. One technician and me as a salesperson.

He's now my CIO. And I'm the CEO, right? But we're all the same because you have to have boots on the street. You imperatively have to have boots on the street.

You have to go see people. Right. But I'm not technical.

I learned very early that you don't want to get over your skis in terms of what you think you know. I leave that to very smart people such as yourself that really understand what it is. So I was fortunate and blessed to have a partner in Anthony Herrera.

And he comes from the world, the old IT world. And then I showed him the program. And what my theory was is to be able to give the small to medium business Fortune 100 service but put it all in one group.

And so it has been an incredible thing. Now I'm beginning to go in to find specialty people, emerging technologies such as super ops. So I'm switching my platform.

OK. So now I'm switching my platform and going up market in terms of the clients that I'm going after and who I'm trying to serve. Now you've been in the IT world technically even when you're doing the copy side.

When you started in IT, did you visit a lot of conferences, a lot of road shows like this? What was your experience before today? You know, at first I didn't. As an entrepreneur and then launching my own companies, you become buried in what it is. Got to get it done.

I'm now fortunate to be that I've built my teams. I've learned from the first two go arounds. And I've now built my team such that it frees me up to go do this.

And that's actually how I found super ops. And this is now elevating my game in terms of where we're going as an organization and who we're serving. All right.

So in terms of today's event, very compact conference, unlike a lot of the others where they're spread out over a few days and stuff, what are you finding? Because you've been very vocal. I've heard you in between the sessions talking about what you've learned and things of that nature. What is it that stands out today that is going to resonate with you when you leave? Well, this is the second super summit I've been to.

I went to one in New Orleans a couple months ago. That was really my first experience. And I was awe inspired by super ops and the fact that you never hear them pitching any of their technology.

They're here to help us as providers and educate us and bringing in wonderful people and wonderful experiences. But you'll never once understand or hear them pitching any of their stuff. To me, being a sales guy, as you said, I'm very vocal.

I like to talk. So I appreciate you bringing me on. It's been incredible.

So that really stands out to me. And then also just furthering my education and understanding in the industry and how to be different and how to really serve in a much better manner than we were before. All right.

And I will go ahead and ask this in terms of a roadmap. Where do you see yourself going here? Beyond today, onboarding with super ops, how do you see the business going in a few years? Yeah, and that's the whole goal. Being the third time that we've done it, we're fairly small in scope now.

And it's revenue driven, of course. So I see our revenues and endpoints. We're at about $2 million, $1.5 million, should be $2 million this year.

I'm a little bit behind at three and a half years. My revenues, I'd look to double my revenues in the next three years. And then in eight years, I plan to be between $30 and $50 million.

All right. Sounds good. Well, Nancy has departed us.

So she was here, but I want to say thank you to her for hooking us up and doing this. I want to say thank you for your time and wish you continued success. And we'll see you at the next time.

And I won't get your name mixed up. Oh, it's all good. So thanks a lot.

Chris Kuhl here. And we are coming at you live from St. Petersburg at the Super Ops Summit. We'll see you soon.

And until next time, holla. Hello, friends. Uncle Mark here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals where we try to help you run your business better, smarter, and faster.

Well, it took a little time, but I am here with the one and only Juan Fernandez here of Super Ops and trying to squeeze in some time here while we are in St. Petersburg, Florida at the Super Ops 2024 Super Summit Tampa. I have no idea if that's the actual phrasing, but that's what it looks like on your little billboard there. All right.

So, Juan, thank you for joining us. How's it going? I'm fantastic, Mark. And I love the weather here.

I'm super excited to be here. The ironic part is, yes, I am wearing a suit, but we are at an event where we are delivering it. But we're about to have some fun, and I get to shed this jacket, man.

So I know you got called out a while back. You showed up somewhere, and you didn't have the jacket on. And people are like, Juan, where's the jacket? We're Florida, man.

You don't have to wear the jacket here. You know what? We might be in Miami in a couple of days, and I'm going to wear a jacket just to do it. Listen, this ain't Miami Vice days.

We're in a heat wave. It's going to be hot. It is hot.

I actually have to keep coming back inside. It's so hot. Yeah.

All right, Juan. So let me kind of retrace my steps a little bit. So we're here at Super Ops.

This is actually my second summit that I've come to. You and I have gotten to know each other over the last few months. I spoke with Arvin earlier.

You guys have done about seven of these. Tell me, because I know that some of this was your brainchild. Yeah.

How has this been in terms of what your expectations were and where you see things now? You know, when we first started off with the idea, we did it in a very short period of time. We did it a lot. Our first one was at the end of the year and the most weird time, like December.

And we're like, you know what? Let's just see if this is really what MSPs really want. I kind of feel like it will work. And so we tested it and it performed and everybody was like, man, I really needed this.

And so we said, all right, well, let's do it again. We did it again, another one really quickly right after it just to test again. And we got the same result.

And, you know, interestingly enough, as much as we put into making that happen in a very short period of time and how stressful that was to do it that quick, especially in a weird time of year, especially December, like that was like a really weird time to put it on an event like this. It really started to deliver. And one of those things we said, OK, we're just going to double click.

We're going to go ahead and embrace this movement. And we're going to actually dive into helping the community understand and learn more about how to build and scale their business without the impact of products being pushed on you based on conversation. And so we removed that fabric from the conversation and created an ethos that MSPs could come and learn and just build community and have good conversations and learn from each other.

And it's just really wonderful. And so I am super honored. You know, I think you heard a little bit earlier that we had to pull chairs from outside.

We planned for it to be a certain size. We like to keep it kind of small because it's very intentional. We want people to be able to communicate and collectively talk and really hash out what's going on and really be able to get the answer right.

But this one in particular is like packed in like sardines and like everybody's here. And yet everyone's still doing the same thing. And it's just really cool.

And to be honest with you, I couldn't be more proud of it. It's just really a testament to the time that we're in in terms of the education that we need to move forward in the industry. And we're continuing to do it because we want to.

I wish that it was there when I was there. And we're going to continue to do that because we see it's working. And folks like yourself keep saying, hey, man, this is actually cool.

And I like it. So as long as we can keep that as a preface, then we'll continue to dive into these. Well, it's one thing to have the big events and have exposure to all the vendors and to see, you know, tens of speakers and thousands of other attendees.

But it's another to be sitting in a room with 20, 30, 40 people. And not only are you hearing educational content that is not selling or pitching, but you're actually able to engage in conversations with other MSPs, some of whom you just met that day. But the intimacy allows for the fact that we feel like we know each other because we've shared these experiences as we're getting educated.

And, you know, these are interactive sessions. It's not somebody on stage, you know, just telling you what to do. It's somebody sitting at the front of a room asking questions.

Hey, what are you doing right now that's working in your business? Or what are you struggling with? And people are raising their hands and somebody on the other side of the room and saying, hey, I can help you with that. That's where the difference is, I think. Yeah.

And I think we wanted to create that. And I think you erode the fabric of that opportunity when it becomes monetarily driven. Everything has to end with some sort of an outcome.

And here, the only outcome we're interested in is our partner's success. Most of the people that are here don't even do business with Super Ops. There's so many that are trying to figure out how to build their business.

Or maybe they're with some tools that they don't feel like that's the tool for them. Or maybe there's other reasons. But we just wanted to create a safe space for people to come and just learn.

I don't know how else to say that without really selling coy. But that's what we're doing. And I asked for feedback.

A lot of the curated speakers that are here with us are votes back from previous Super Summits. Because I'm asking, hey, how did they perform? Why don't you guys give me feedback on them? And they're like, I really learned from that person. And for this particular reason, it unlocked my business.

We get overwhelming feedback about these. And that's really like even down to the food and bacon starting at 9 o'clock, like giving us 15-minute breaks, like all these things allowing us to have conversations and not just have to go straight back into something. Because we're not driving sales.

We're driving community and process and productivity as well as MSP success. And I just wish it was there when I was doing it. So I love to watch it.

Yeah. You'd add another 10 mil to your business or something maybe. I'll be honest.

I probably would have got to the goal even faster, man. A lot of the things that we're putting out, like if you harnessed all this and put it into an engine from all these wonderful speakers, it'd be amazing the company you could build in a very short period of time. So I really look at this.

And I'm like, let's see who actually takes this and uses it. And I've watched a lot of MSPs say, dude, I'm going back and going to massage my business. That would be an exercise to do if you could go back and find out who was in that very first group and see if we could track their progress.

So I think I want to reach out to you later. And we'll see if we can't give you a follow-up. Yeah.

And that's the thing too. As we see each other at events, I get to ask, what'd you do? Is it working? Is it not working? Oh, I changed this or I changed that. But I took this one piece, and now it's completely different.

And I'm like, I think it's just the engineering side of us that allows us to see these new realities. And that's where I think it's really cool to watch this new modern era build in front of me. And so I think it's cool, man.

All right. Well, again, as I told the others earlier, I know that I stole you guys away from some sort of meeting you were in. I had to get you guys over here and do this quick podcast.

So thank you for your time. Thank you for asking me to travel across the state and get over here and hang out. I'm not going to get to see the beach, but you guys will.

And I hope you guys enjoy our beaches. Hey, man, I really appreciate you and all that you do for the community. Again, we are proud sponsors.

And I am honored to see the efforts and all the things that you're doing for the community. So keep doing it. It's helping a lot of folks.

I appreciate that. Thank you. And yeah, I'll keep doing it as long as people will listen and watch and invite me to events like this.

Come watch Marvin, man. He knows what he's talking about. All right, folks.

That's going to do it. So one, thank you very much. I'll be interviewing some other people later here from St. Petersburg, Florida at the Super Summit 2024.

Tampa, Tampa. That's it, folks. We'll see you.

Holla!