744 Fanny Packs, M&A and Cork

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast coming in July from Orlando, Florida. We are into day two of IT Nation Connect here at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort and I should let everybody know this episode is presented by Thread, the winner of last year's Pitch It competition and we are coming to you because of Rhythms. We are powered by their internet in a box, so that is what is allowing us to live stream to you today.

And sitting beside me, giving you the wave, Adam Kerrigan is here and you go by a lot of different names, so let's figure out which ones we're going to use today. According to the MSP space, you're big into M&A, the company you're with, ITASP? Yeah, Intelligent Technical Solutions, we call ITS for short, make it easy.

That's a mouthful.

[Adam Kerrigan]
Yes, it is.

[Uncle Marv]
And most people, although they look at you and they're going to think, okay, that's an athlete dude.

[Adam Kerrigan]
Yeah, I appreciate that.

[Uncle Marv]
And I know that power lifting is in your bio. It is, yes. So how much do you get asked about that versus your MSP stuff?

Yeah, well, I tell you what, I mean, the noticeable thing. So I have this shiny fanny pack that I wear. A lot of people call me the fanny pack guy, and it actually came as an extension.

So I had my MSP, which I sold in 2018, and two months after I sold it, I started competing, which to me was kind of a win, right, of being able to, hey, take that ownership hat off, take some of the burden off. So I started competing in power lifting, and the reason I had the fanny pack was we compete in a singlet that has no pockets, and I was like, where am I going to put my keys and wallet and phone and stuff? And I went on Amazon, and I saw this audacious fanny pack, and I was like, I'm going to buy that, you know, just for the laughs.

I wore it to one conference, and I got so many positive comments about it. I was like, I'm wearing this every single time.

[Adam Kerrigan]
There you go, there you go.

[Uncle Marv]
And so now people say, oh, you're the fanny pack guy. Nice, nice. Yeah, so that's me.

So we're going to stay on this topic. Were you actually lifting before you competed? Yeah, yeah, great question.

So in 2016, I had a near-drowning accident in Lake Mead in Las Vegas, and part of running my MSP is I'd really let myself go. I was tremendously out of shape, overweight, and just unhealthy, and as a result of that, I almost ended up drowning. Thankfully, I did not, and made a decision in 2016, I really need to do something about my health, and so I started training.

I just went to the gym. I didn't know what I was doing. Well, I noticed a group of guys that were coming in super consistently, and they were putting up just massive weight, and I worked up the courage, thinking they would completely reject me, and I went and asked them, can I work in with you guys?

And they were so open and accepting, said absolutely. So I started training with them for two years, but the first time I competed was after I had sold. You know, running a business, it just has a certain level of challenge.

So yeah, started training in 2016, started competing in 2016, or 2018 rather, and really found that I had a knack for it. I went on, I've competed in five national championships. I placed first in four of those, and then I've also completed at the world championship in 2021 and took first place.

Okay, so interesting segue, because I do another podcast called The Unhealthy Podcast, and I interviewed a lady earlier this year who, in her, let's just say, later stages, decided to get in shape, went to a gym, and her trainer said, you should compete, and in her 50s, she started competing and doing these competitions and stuff, and she won in her age group, and she, you know, tributes a lot of that to her getting in the better shape, better mental health, a whole lot of stuff came along with that.

No, that's fantastic. Yeah, look, there are people that are competing at competitions well into their 80s. I mean, it's really mind-blowing to see some of the stuff that we see, but, you know, whether it's competing or not, my view is that the best exercise is the one that people will do, and I think sometimes people get really hung up on, oh, I got to go to the gym, or I got to go run, or whatever it is.

I mean, look, exercise can be gardening, or biking, or walking, or anything. I'm a huge advocate just for overall health, and it makes such a dramatic change in my life, and the reality is, because of my size, I'm 6'2", I'm 250 pounds, I walk around, and I do get noticed, but for me, it's like, my body's just a tool, I want to treat it as good as I can, and my way of expressing myself is through picking up heavy things and putting them back down. It works, it works.

So I did that for the first half of my life, playing sports, football, basketball, track. I retired and said, no more, no more gym. But I did realize I got to do stuff to stay healthy, so we walk with the wife and I, and I do other stuff.

I love it. I may have to go back into the gym, because I found that that was a place that worked for me all those years. Yeah, some people get a lot of stress relief from it, you know, just, it's something different, it challenges our body, right?

It also challenges us mentally to kind of push ourselves to new levels. I think it's a way that we also kind of ward off unhealth, right? As we get older, we're just combating, you know, of course we're all going to have bad joints and sore backs and all that sort of a thing, so training within whatever training means to that person, just find what works, and I think ultimately it's, what are we going to enjoy doing?

Because if, like, look, if we don't enjoy it, it's just not going to last. Well, one of the biggest things, too, is just to keep your body moving. Yes.

Oh, yes. I mean, that's what I found is key, so yeah, even if it's just walking, do something, get your body active, stop being sedentary, tech world, that's half of what we do, is just sit, sit, sit, so I appreciate your being willing to talk about that. Yeah, movement is medicine.

Good. All right, so now let's go back to the MSP side of things. Yes.

You sold your MSP. I know now that you are heavily involved with the M&A side. That's correct, yeah.

So is it something that you do specifically only for the MSP that you're working with, or do you do it for others? Yeah, so look, the official answer is that I'm only doing it for ITX, but here's what I will say, I have gotten so much help in my career from my brothers and sisters that are in the IT space that I feel like just seeing people win is a reward for me. So knowing that there are, you know, look, if anyone's been to a conference, if they've attended any event in the last two years, M&A is the topic that comes up, right?

The reality is ITX is not a fit for everybody, right? We're looking for a specific this or that, and there's a lot of other companies that are out there. I like to see people just succeed; you know?

It's like, just like in my powerlifting, something that drew me in is that, you know, going into it I felt like, oh, it's going to be a bunch of meatheads, a bunch of ego, and a bunch of just kind of this sort of, you know, machismo, but it's not. When I was on the platform competing, everybody was cheering for me, and when somebody else was competing against me and maybe even breaking one of my records, I was cheering for that person, and I feel that in the IT community. So I'm happy to refer people to other places, like, hey, if you're looking for X, Y, and Z, and I know that's not a good fit for us, I'm going to send you to somewhere else, right?

And that's, so that's my personal approach, is I just like to see people win. Okay. So let me ask specifically then about ITX and the fact that there is somebody dedicated to M&A.

So let me first ask, how much growth is a driving force for that company? How big do they want to grow? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is, and you make a great point. So having me in a space where I'm a dedicated, we call it a corporate development or a corporate dev guy, but I'm dedicated to M&A, we're at 50 million revenue.

It's actually uncommon. You typically find that at larger MSPs that are usually do 100 million of revenue or higher. But really what I'm looking to do is I act as kind of like a Sherpa, right, in a way.

And especially having gone through the process myself, it's like, hey, selling your business, unless somebody has sold their business, they really don't know what they're in for. It is so much stress, it's so much work, and having a guide to go through that process to help them navigate climbing Mount Everest, it really can make the difference between success and failure. Is it something, though, that you're actively looking for companies that want to be purchased?

Or are you looking for specific markets that you're not in? I mean, how is that on the board? Yeah, yeah.

So we certainly have a certain criteria. And to your question earlier, from a numbers and dollars and cents, from a spreadsheet, like the most valuable thing for any business is also the hardest thing, and that is new client growth, right? It's the most valuable because it's the hardest to achieve.

So when we're looking at the financials, of course we want to see profitability, of course we want to see growth. We're based mainly in the Western United States, but we're open to opportunity really wherever it takes us, even outside of the United States. But the way that I'm looking for opportunities, again, come to conferences like IT Nation, believe it or not, even cold calling, just pounding the phones, old-school technique.

I've seen some of those emails. Yeah, there's texts, there's calls, there's mailers, there's... I'm imagining somebody out there's knocking on doors on occasion, but yeah.

It is interesting because I look at my business, I'm a boutique, and I've purposely stayed that way, and I get those emails, and I'm like, they're not researching that they're just emailing somebody like me. Oh, it's a shotgun blast, yeah. Yeah, it really is, and I know a lot of people it turns them off.

In fact, I think there's honestly M&E burnout. I don't know if it turns me off because there's a part of me that's like, you know what, at some point I'm going to have to do something. So having that as an option is good, but you're right, the burnout.

I think the fact that there are groups of MSPs that are afraid that this is going to turn into an industry where only the big will survive, and that everybody's going to be gobbled up at some point in time, and of course now with some of the regulations, compliance, only the big ones will be able to do what's necessary for this time. So there's a lot of that. But let me ask this from the standpoint of, let's take a step back in IT, for instance.

What does a $50 million MSP look like? Because most of the people that I talk to in this space are, I would say, around in the range of one to five. It's probably the bulk.

I think they said four is the middle. Yeah, there's a lot that are lower, but that one to five is kind of the sweet spot, and they're just trying to figure out how to get to 10. Oh, 100%.

But those are companies where you're looking at maybe 20 people, 40 people. But a $50 million, what does that look like in terms of people, size, offices, regions? Yeah, I mean, you're 100% right.

Most people never get to five million. Most MSPs get stuck at the two to three million, if they even get past a million. And it's because they're so dependent on owner-led sales, that two to three million is kind of the cap.

To get past that, to get past five million, you really have to build a leadership team. And then at 10 million, it's a whole other scaling sales and everything else. But at 50 million, so we've got about 360 people.

We've done in total about 17 transactions. We're in seven Western states. We're headquartered in Las Vegas.

And we actually look for talent anywhere in the world. I mean, we've got people in South Africa, India, Philippines. In fact, we have about 150 people in the Philippines.

And every year, we actually have a company outing, like a three-day event, where myself and our CEO and some of our other folks, we actually fly all the way out there and spend time with them. And it's so cool, because look, at the end of the day, people are people no matter where they're born. So finding great people, great talent, kind of bringing them in, yeah, hopefully that gives you a little bit of an insight.

[Adam Kerrigan]
It does.

[Uncle Marv]
It does. So the next question is going to be, in terms of what ITS is and what you acquire, I'm assuming you guys have so much in place in terms of processes. You probably have tons of automations, RPAs.

You probably have your own AI built into your stuff. You can't tell this, but we know. Okay.

So in terms of like, for instance, a company that says, okay, I'm at that $1.5 million mark. I'm not going to push myself to make it anymore. I want to be acquired by somebody who will take it and stuff.

What are you looking for in those types of companies? Yeah. I could sit here and say, oh, hey, we're looking for companies that are doing half a million of EBITDA or a million of EBITDA or whatever.

But I suspect that probably what the viewers might get more benefit out of is knowing what they can do. Right? And one of the things that I have found is if you're in that mode of looking to sell, say, in the next year, there's a fantastic book that I'd strongly recommend written by Linda Rose.

It's called Get Acquired for Millions. She sold three of her own businesses. She actually spoke last year at IT Nation, but it's a great process-driven book about how to get your business ready for sale.

If somebody's trying to level up, focus all your efforts on sales. Like we talked a little bit earlier, growth is so difficult, but it's also the absolutely most valuable thing that you can add. And I would even say that growth is more valuable than EBITDA itself.

Really? Because it is so difficult. And especially with 2024, I've talked this year to about 300 MSPs, and I've looked at dozens of profit and loss statements.

And all the way back as early as March, I was noticing this trend in 2024. I was like, why is NRR, like projects, lower and lower? And MSPs, and they finally kind of pieced it together, that it's like, yes, in presidential cycles, there's a lot less spending.

Yeah. Everybody's uncertain. There's a lot of uncertainty.

And what that does is it's dinging the profitability and the growth of companies, and therefore it impacts their valuations. So all these people that are like, oh, I did all this work in 2023, it was a great year, and then they come into 2024, they're not getting the valuations that they were hoping for. So if nothing else, focus on growth.

Interesting, because I was, to be honest, I didn't think about the election, sorry, but I was thinking that the year before a major Windows upgrade is usually slow. Everybody's gearing towards Windows 11 in 2025, not 2024. So that's interesting.

Yeah, actually, Evolve and Peter Kajawa and the team at Connect with, they actually put out a great article on LinkedIn maybe a month or so ago that was showing, they looked at the 2016 election, the 2022 or 2020, the 2024 election, and there's a pattern that the year before the election, that spending is way up. Everybody's making money, hand over fist, but then in the election year, it goes way down. The good news is, though, that in 2025, if the pattern holds, we start to see a rise.

It won't be as good as 2023, but it'll be better than 2024. All right, so a little bit of an uptick coming. Yeah, yeah.

All right. And then back to the question about a company in terms of how to build themselves for sale. Yes, yes.

I know I mentioned the 1.5, because that's mostly what I speak to. But I imagine that in your perspective with ITS, you're probably looking more towards a higher number of companies that you're looking to acquire. Is that correct?

You know, it might surprise you. In our existing states, again, our Western states, we're in all the Western states and then also in Illinois and Michigan, we're actually open to companies as small as a million dollars of revenue, which actually surprises a lot of people. I will admit that as we start to go east, aside from Michigan and Illinois, our requirements kind of go up until we get to the east coast.

It probably needs to be about 10 million of revenue to be such a substantial kind of anchor in a region that they've really got to have sales handled and figured out. Do they need to have an infrastructure that is similar to yours in terms of ingestion? Because my guess is if they're using a completely different set of tools, you've got a retrofit there.

Yeah, it's a very common concern. And the reality is our approach is full integration. So we incorporate under one name, one logo.

We have one set of tools, one set of processes. And being an IT guys, most of us IT guys, we like to plant a flag in the ground that this tool is the best out there. My process is the best out there.

The reality is we want to, the client wants an expectation of service, right? The client doesn't care what the tools that we use are. So in our approach, which is different than some others, we're going to come all on one tool set.

We really, it's okay if somebody is on something else. It's really not a problem. We're going to help train their people.

We're going to get them on it. Maybe it's a different PSA. Maybe it's an RMM.

But the reality is we're going to help train them and get them up to speed as quickly as possible. And then ultimately, we've got a bigger team to take care of your clients that really is going to help elevate the level of service that everybody provides. All right.

Sounds all good and well. M&A is here to stay, I think. It is.

You know, kind of going to your comment earlier about, I wonder myself, like, what does the forecast look like for smaller MSPs, say under 3 million, right? And it's a tough, like, look, I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know anybody that does.

I think... Jay McBain. Jay McBain.

Well, that's true. Yeah, yeah. If anybody does, he's probably the closest.

I will say one pattern from the 300 or so just that I've talked to this year is I see a distinct difference in the terms of the performance, the growth, and the profitability of companies that are involved in a peer group. If people are not in a peer group, they are really missing out. And I get the argument for why, Adam, I don't have the time or I don't want to spend the money or I don't want to have to travel and do all this stuff.

But what people in a peer group get in return is accelerated learning, accelerated growth, because what you're avoiding is the need to reinvent the wheel, right? You are getting ahead of the curve. People bond in the problems.

And if you're at 2 million and you're in a group that's got a 5 million and a 6 million and a 1 million and an 8 million, the guys that are bigger than you, they've already solved the problems you're probably dealing with, right? And you can just have a conversation. You don't have to spend months or a year figuring out how to do this or that.

It really helps accelerate your growth. So people that are interested in growing their MSP, I strongly recommend you get into a peer group of any kind. Okay, that's interesting.

I mean, we talk about peer groups all the time, but it usually is from the perspective of, hey, I just need help. But in terms of finding the ones that have gone down the road before and can tell you, you need this process. And I imagine it's not, like you said before, it's not the specific tool.

It's the process. You've got to get your business on a particular track, a particular trajectory with the right processes for growth. And I think you might agree with me as a fellow entrepreneur, it helps to have somebody to hold us accountable.

Because if we're at the top, we can let ourselves off the hook, right? But if we're in a peer group and those people are going to hold us accountable, and we know that we're going to have to face them on a quarterly basis, and they're like, hey, Uncle Marv, you said you're going to do X, Y, and Z, and you didn't even do X. Hey, what are you going to do to fix that, right?

Having those guys and gals hold us accountable, I think, is actually a serious benefit that people underestimate. Yeah. Quarterly would be nice.

Mine's every other week. Okay. It's not as formal as some of the other ones, but it's formal enough for me that, hey, last week, two weeks ago, you said you were going to do this.

Did you do it? No, no. I love that frequency.

And I think that's the beauty, is there's enough groups that, look, if you had a bad experience with one, try another one. Find another. That's right.

Find another one. And look, I've even seen people just start their own, right? It's like, just find people that are like-minded.

And then the beauty of that is similar to what I run into, where I built a relationship with ITS for two years, is you'll start to build a relationship with those people, and that is a great breeding ground for M&A, right? Because you might find, hey, I really love sales, or I really love ops, but you're going to find somebody in there that you probably connect with that's the ying to your yang, and then you can start to come together and do it again and again and again and grow, and then you can really start to compete with us bigger guys. Look, the reality is smaller companies, they're way more flexible.

They respond in different ways. You know, the VIPs of the clients probably have the owner's cell phone, as much as some people don't like that to be the reality. But the level of service and the flexibility of smaller MSP is going to outweigh any of the titanic MSPs that are out there.

So I hate people to think they're completely outgunned in everything. There's pros and cons to both sides. Well, I have found there are still customers that they won't deal with anybody larger, or they want somebody that is truly local, even though you may have a local office, but you're corporate somewhere else.

They do want, they want to be able to see that person. They want to be able to call the person and get that person. They want that relationship.

Not have to go through the phone tree or stuff like that. So that's kind of how I've stayed. Times may be changing, though, because I've got to do some bigger responses at times.

So we'll see how it goes. I love the word you used, boutique. I think M&A is not for everybody, right?

I think having a small company, I will even say some of the companies that we've acquired, they stayed intentionally small. They were very pragmatic about pruning their list. They were very selective about the clients, kind of the whole pumpkin plan sort of thing.

Every client they had was like an A-level client. It was a great fit, highly profitable. They were tech dependent.

They kind of checked all the boxes, but they got very specific about what it was that they were aiming for. I think anybody can achieve that. Right.

You brought up a point. I'm going to keep going here. We're over our time, but my next guest isn't here, so we're going to keep going.

When you run across those scenarios and you have to tell the customer there's been an acquisition, the name changes, there's a lot of times where those customers are nervous. Oh, yeah. Am I going to get the same level of service?

That is the biggest question. Am I going to be able to have a dedicated person? How do you address things like that?

Yeah, 100%. So the first question in my experience that they ask is, are you the owner leaving? That is always the client's first question.

In our approach, 16 of the 17 partners have stayed involved. So that helps them. They're like, okay, you're saying it, so I'm good.

Then their next question is, is my whole team changing? Now, our approach is we're going to work to maintain the relationships, the names, and the people. The team that's been supporting you is going to continue to be the team that supports you.

We're going to bring more services and more layers, and that helps them decrease emotionally even further. Then their last question is, is my bill going to go up? Our approach is we want to honor the same agreements that you had in place.

Then they're like, okay, so it's the same team at the same price. We're just a bigger team to back you up. Then they're like, okay.

Nice. That tends to be how it goes. Then what's funny is when the owner that sold actually gets some private time with the owner of the client or the CEO, they're like, hey, I've been thinking about selling myself.

How did it go? How was the experience? A lot of times they get congratulations.

They're like, I love it. I've been with you guys for 20 years. I love that you guys have grown this business up.

I know there's going to be some changes. There's probably going to be some bumps and bruises along the way, but we're going to get through this, and I support you guys selling the business. They like the fact that if the owner stays, you're going to go through those bumps and bruises with us.

Yes. We've already gone through them in the past, so we know that we can survive. That is exactly correct.

We've got that capital in the relationship bank. Okay. Let me ask one more question that I was going to ask earlier.

You mentioned the fact that you've talked to 300 MSPs. Do you go around to events like this, or do you have speaking engagements where you actually go and meet with MSPs, or is it the peer groups? Yes.

I've been invited to a number of conferences. I've spoken at Chartec, for instance. I've spoken at IT by Design, Robin Robbins, a number of different places that I've spoken at.

I'm just kind of out and about. People see my shiny fanny pack. They're like, oh, you're a fanny pack guy.

We do all sorts of outreach. We're kind of in that group. If we're doing cold outreach, trying to create relationships, but I think a lot of it is, hey, what peer groups are in?

Who are the people that we know? What are the relationships that we've built? Ultimately, something like this comes down to a lot of trust, especially when someone's going to stay involved.

They get one shot at selling their business, and the fear of making a mistake is what holds a lot of people back. I'm going to make the wrong decision with the wrong people. I don't know what to do.

There's a lot of fear that goes into this, and so kind of helping people navigate that really becomes my role. Nice. Nice.

All right. Well, Adam, it was nice to meet you. Yeah.

Thank you for sitting down and chatting with me. I hope we can chat again, and I think I have a friend who has a podcast that may want to get you to talk about health. I would love that.

Although, that's not mine. I may want you for that, but I have somebody in the tech space. I would love that.

Yeah. We'll do that and see if that'll work. But for now, Adam Kerrigan, folks, ITS, M&A fanatic, champion power lifter, and you should probably do some Amazon links to fanny packs and see if he can make some money off that.

All right. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, folks.

We'll be back with more here from IT Nation. Check out the webcam. I think I'm going to go to lunch, but we'll see how that goes, but we'll be back soon.

Talk to you later. Bye. Hello, friends.

Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast coming to you live from Orlando at IT Nation Connect. We are well into day two. In fact, it's lunchtime now, so I'm going to try to get through this so my guests can go have some lunch.

We are brought to you by Thread, the winner of last year's picture competition, and we are powered by Rhythms, internet in a box, so I am able to livestream to you here. So I have with me somebody that I haven't spoken to yet, but a company that you know well in the industry. I have Dave Nankervis from Cork.

Dave, how are you? I'm doing pretty well. How are you doing today, Marv?

I am doing good. And just to let the listeners know, we had a little bit of a chat when we sat down. You had fun at Flo Rida last night.

[David Nankervis]
Yes, I was one of the guys dancing up on stage.

[Uncle Marv]
You looked away, right? Yeah, I looked away. Sure.

That was a nice event and very good. So how are you enjoying the rest of IT Nation?

[David Nankervis]
It's great. You know, it's funny. I feel like I'm at sneaker con because now I'm seeing everybody with different pairs of Nike Dunks on, expensive sneakers, so I think it's like a shoe competition out here, but it's been great.

Tons of people, tons of fun so far.

[Uncle Marv]
How are things at Cork? It's been a while since I've chatted and my buddy's not here, but that's all right. Who's your buddy?

I'm not going to say. He'll yell at me.

[David Nankervis]
Okay.

[David Nankervis]
Cork is great. Yeah, nice. I've been with the company for six months so far.

We're doubling month over month and really expanding the message about what we're doing and it's been a great ride so far and we're really starting to plan 2025 right now. So really my focus here is to really listen to the trends of what's going on in 2025 and so we can start to build our go-to-market strategy and see where we go from there.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So for those that don't know Cork, C-O-R-K, is a company that started out that most of us just understood it as a cyber warranty company where, yeah, we can provide some money to our client if they have an issue, if they don't have cyber insurance or a gap in between their cyber insurance if they wanted to lower premiums and stuff like that. I know that I've seen a lot of stuff in the last few months, a lot of changes and stuff.

So I've not had Cork on so let's see if we can chat about some of those changes.

[David Nankervis]
Yeah, it sounds great. So when Cork went to market, especially January of this year, MSPs, we really went to market with a warranty message like, hey, we're Cork warranty. So everyone's like, well, what's this Cork warranty?

Is it too good to be true? Are you guys going up against cybersecurity insurance or are you not? Are you friend or foe?

And so we shifted that message because really at the core, we're a platform. We're an insights platform that's looking across your cybersecurity stack, telling you whether or not that endpoint's in compliance or not, and we're backing that with a financial warranty. So one of the things that we've changed as well is now we offer a financial warranty for the MSP space as well.

So now you get an internal warranty that's a $500,000 warranty that you can protect yourself as the MSP and they can go to market and sell through to your end customers.

[Uncle Marv]
Which was key because now we can say, hey, we use this ourselves and that makes it easier for the customer to understand, okay, well, if you're doing it, then it must be something that's good for us too.

[David Nankervis]
Yeah. So you hear that term, eat your own dog food. We say drink your own champagne, Cork, no pun intended.

Yes, that's what we do. So that's what we go to market now. It's a land and expand type of model.

So really when you think about Cork and our messaging, we're that platform first. We're the only platform that you can look across all of your endpoints and see if they're eligible for financial coverage if they get breached or attacked.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. So it's not just checking to see if you're cyber ready for insurance. You can actually pinpoint and say, yes, this endpoint meets these qualifications.

[David Nankervis]
That's correct. And we're not telling you as the MSP which vendors to use as well. So we're vendor agnostic.

So we have about 70 integrations right now. So whatever RMM you're using, whatever EDR you're using, whatever BCDR you're using, whatever email you're using, MFA, you're able to plug that into our platform. We tell you if it's connected or not.

And if everything is connected and it's compliant, that's when we're backing you with the warranty piece.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Because I know that I've talked to you guys before and I don't think you had that many a while back. So it sounds like you guys, you may have tripled or quadrupled the number in the last year.

[David Nankervis]
Yeah. So we tripled that. And the reason for that is we're putting a lot of our expenses into the partner program and engineering as well.

Okay. So we're really starting to develop this product further and further on the platform piece because we already have the warranty. Now we're just trying to make the platform a lot stronger.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Now, on the technical side of the platform, I assume that there's got to be some sort of agent or dashboard that we plug into one of our tools or is it completely separate?

[David Nankervis]
Yeah. So we start off with plugging into the RMAN. And there's no agent required because we're going via API.

[David Nankervis]
Okay.

[David Nankervis]
So in order for an end user to be eligible for a warranty, you have to have the RMAN connected, EDR connected. That user has to have MFA turned on, cloud-based email, and backup on critical servers. Okay.

As long as all those are connected, you get that warranty.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So now let's turn to you and your position because CRO, I've talked to a few, and it's a little bit different depending on the company what CRO does. So in terms of what Cork brought you in for, I know that growth for them was just exploding with the number of MSPs and the number of endpoints that were coming in.

So are you here to kind of control that growth or direct it or how is it working?

[David Nankervis]
Yeah. So I always say spreading the gospel. So my grandfather's a pastor, so I just grew up with that.

But really just getting our message out there and who Cork is as a company because I still, a lot of MSPs don't really understand what Cork does and still going back to kind of, hey, you're that warranty product, right?

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So rebranding is not the word. What is the word I was thinking of?

[David Nankervis]
We changed our whole go-to-market messaging.

[Uncle Marv]
Go-to-market messaging.

[Adam Kerrigan]
So I really got on board to kind of evaluate our go-to-market. What does the messaging look like? And also how do we control the market in a way that they can truly understand what Cork does and not compete against cybersecurity insurance?

We don't want to be in the insurance industry at all. So we actually launched a partnership with DataStream as well.

[David Nankervis]
Okay.

[David Nankervis]
So now MSPs are able to get a cybersecurity quote within our platform and save around 30% to 40% off of their premium by using Cork because DataStream is using Cork to underwrite all their policies.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. So that's great. Has it been fun trying to get that new message out or people just like, oh, we know who you are.

Don't want to disappoint.

[David Nankervis]
Yeah. No, it's been great. So one of the key components of that is going to these events and having speaking engagements to really getting our messaging out there.

And we're finally getting to the point where MSPs are starting to say, okay, now understand who Cork is as a company. Because when I first started about six months ago, we hear all the time, oh, it's too good to be true. This warranty, what is this?

Some type of thing that's made up or what and now.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, I mean, when I talk to my customers about it, the one thing I got was, oh, so I don't need insurance if I have this. Yeah. And I was like, no, you still need insurance.

[David Nankervis]
Yes. And, you know, really depends. So we offer two different plans.

It's a $100,000 warranty or $500,000 warranty. So, you know, one of your customers is $500,000 enough for them. They could use this potentially as supplemental coverage, but we don't recommend that.

So cybersecurity insurance is still, you know, you need cybersecurity insurance. What you want to think about with Cork is we're that gap coverage. And so if a breach were to happen, we're providing you with immediate financial relief.

In the meantime, while you submit that insurance claim, and then also on top of that is, you know, your end customers might send out, just say, for instance, $500 worth of gift cards thinking they're sending it to their CFO, right? We're seeing that more and more common with their texting. And 91% of cyber-attacks actually start via email with phishing.

Right. So if one of your end customers sends out $500 of gift cards, they're not going to really submit a cybersecurity insurance claim. It's going to cost them more in the deductible in order to do that.

So they use Cork to kind of bridge that gap and cover those costs there as well. That wouldn't be worth submitting a claim for.

[Uncle Marv]
Are you guys still providing that virtual credit card or whatever so that if something happens, boom, it's almost available immediately?

[David Nankervis]
Yes. So actually we had a claim about two months ago where an MSP had a law firm. That user at that law firm clicked the link, got access to their SharePoint, and sent out thousands of files.

Well, Cork was able to alert that MSP saying, hey, this user logged in from an unknown location. Plus, we're getting duo notifications from an unknown random location as well. And that MSP was able to shut down that account in 39 minutes.

And so right off the bat when they submitted that claim, we sent them a $10,000 virtual credit card to help them remediate and alleviate some financial burden on them, which is labor hours. And actually we ended up paying for the pizza for the MSP team as they worked on this over the weekend as well.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Is that a case study available? That is a case study as well that we published.

Because my biggest vertical is law firms.

[David Nankervis]
Oh, OK. Great. Yeah.

I'll send it to you. I have it right on my phone.

[Uncle Marv]
So yeah, I'll show you that. I'll use that and send that to them.

[David Nankervis]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So that'll be great. Yeah. All right.

So we're coming up to the end of the year. Last big conference of the year. Anything untapped yet for it?

There's our guy. Yeah, Nick. There he is.

Yeah. Yeah. He's with me.

Me and him. All right. Funny.

I wasn't going to say his name, but here he is walking by.

[David Nankervis]
Nick won't miss a conference, right? Especially in Orlando. He's what you call a Disney adult.

[Uncle Marv]
There you go.

[David Nankervis]
So he loves Disney. So he definitely made a trip here. So yeah.

So it's me and him at this event. OK.

[Uncle Marv]
So what I was getting ready to ask is, end of the year, last big conference, do you guys have stuff slated already for 2025 or any plans, I'm assuming? Continued growth.

[David Nankervis]
Yeah. Continued growth. We have really what we're trying to establish in 2025 is really a broader market presence.

And we're trying to double our partner count month over month. OK. And so 2025, we're being strategic with where we're going to be going to event-wise, but then also really focusing on our platform piece and really enhancing that with alerting, reporting, things we're really listening to the MSP community on what they're looking for within our platform.

Because the warranty piece is already developed, but it's really the platform that we're really going to be focusing on. So you should see a lot of advancements over the next six months on that. Very nice.

Very nice.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, Dave, it was nice to meet you. And oh, food is coming.

[David Nankervis]
Now we just have to walk three feet to get lunch.

[Uncle Marv]
So yeah. This makes life so much easier.

[David Nankervis]
Exactly.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, nice to meet you. Hope your first six months has gone well there.

And look forward to speaking to you, hopefully in another six months. I'll reach out to you instead of Nick. Yeah.

[David Nankervis]
Sounds good. All right. Thanks, Marv.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice to meet you, Dave. Nice to meet you as well. All right, folks.

That's it. We're going to go grab some lunch. So we will see you guys later.

And we continue more with interviews from IT Nation Connect. That's it, folks. Holla.

All right. Bye. Bye.