MSP Growth: Degenerate Style (EP 777)

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here and we're back with another episode of the IT Business Podcast recording from Orlando, Florida where we are at Zero Trust World and I went over and grabbed a couple of degenerates because they're here and I said let me get them on. I've already recorded Dawn Sizer, Mr. Timm is hiding from me. So I found JP and Martin and we're gonna hang out and let me ask guys, how are you enjoying the conference so far?

[JP Keesy]
I'll take that one. Honestly, it's been good. I enjoy the mix of people that are here.

It's not just focused directly on MSPs. I've enjoyed meeting some of the industry leaders and their own companies and where they're going and the questions that they have are honestly great questions. I know some sports teams have been up, you know their IT, actually the hotel's IT department has been here and their director and really enjoying learning some of the things they learn and knowing that they need to implement some things that they need to implement.

So it's been really good. That's the part I enjoy is that everybody's learning something new.

[Uncle Marv]
Did you ask them about their Wi-Fi?

[JP Keesy]
Well, I did. Some folks got a little caught up on the fact that they couldn't scan their ticket to get out of the hotel parking lot because it was raining but you know, I mean there's all kinds of ideas flying around here.

[Uncle Marv]
There is. I'm surprised. I drove but I valeted so I haven't checked my car since I got here.

Got you.

[Martin Perkins]
Nice.

[JP Keesy]
How about you?

[Martin Perkins]
Kind of echo JP, it's really fun to see the diversity because the MSP bubble can be kind of dense sometimes. We do things a certain way and it's kind of fun to get perspectives from those enterprise reps, their IT professionals that are coming in and kind of sharing what their challenges are and what they're experiencing. It's been a lovely eye-opening experience.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, you guys have a booth over there so is a lot of the feedback you're getting from people coming to the booth?

[Martin Perkins]
We've had a lot of traffic at the booth and it's been pretty good. We've had vendors come, we've had MSPs come, we've had individual IT professionals coming over and that's where I'm getting almost all my talking done because I just haven't had a chance to leave the booth because we seem to always have traffic there. It's been a really good event for that because I think what we bring to the table and the fact that we are a community that is specifically designed to raise the bar for IT, it leaves for a lot of avenues for open conversation and I think that's one of the reasons we've been having so much success over there.

[JP Keesy]
The ability for us to all have one place, whether you're the director for some sports team or the hotel or other MSPs, big, small, other vendors besides even ThreatLocker enabling and a lot of those. To be able to have a place that you can come to, share ideas, talk to, extend the conversations with a group of people in a brain trust that is just beyond anything else. You've got a lot of the, probably going to get in trouble here, but a lot of vendors have driven their communities through Discord and things of that nature but they are really focused in on a lot of that stuff.

They try to expand out of that but I mean they're led and they've got KPIs that they have to meet but we're not. We are born and bred by the technology community in general, not just MSPs. We've had a lot of traffic over there and a lot of good conversations and people going, yeah I'm joining right now and getting on.

I'll be talking and sharing some of the things I had and getting some ideas and some challenging thoughts as well. So that's been really, really good.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, so you mentioned Discord. Is that where the Degenerates started?

[JP Keesy]
No, not exactly. We quickly needed to find a place to call home. We more or less started off with a bunch of us just, we would come to these events specifically to be able to meet up.

Video conferencing and some of that stuff is fine but there's nothing like being able to be in each other's presence and just feel the emotions, the facial expressions, the body languages, the unspoken communication that is so valuable that you don't necessarily get in the visual conversations that go on digitally. And so we started off doing shenanigans because we were all a little bit crazy, more or less Degenerates.

[Uncle Marv]
I avoided you back then.

[JP Keesy]
You did and we sucked you in though I think to some degree. But we also, this was a way for us to kind of give back and get people to let their guard down, you know, to not be afraid to come up and say, hey I like your costume, I like what you're doing. And go, well tell me a little bit about that.

We're not afraid to kind of pull that out of people again and they needed something like that. So then we decided, you know, there's tens and tens and hundreds and all of a sudden we're like, we got to find a place for everybody to go. So we chose Discord.

So if you go to our website, TechDegenerates.com, you'll be able to join our Discord and be a part of the whole community.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. What's been the biggest topic before ThreatLocker? Because I'll be honest, every time I open up my app, I'm so far behind that I'm like, I'm not catching up.

[JP Keesy]
You do need to turn the notification off and you have to be intentional sometimes to go in there. But the beauty behind using Discord is you can hit that bottom right button, scroll to the bottom and really you start to read the last three or four comments and you're caught up at that particular moment and the rest of it that happened, that's okay. It's not that you didn't miss anything, it's if you need to go search for a specific thing, hey, what's the topic on AI now?

Then it'll spit back and tell you and take you to those conversations or those channels. But before ThreatLocker, I would say that it had more to do with people's stacks, what vendors they're using, what are they charging, how did they go from hourly and make that transition into the per user per month stuff. And I mean, again, we're talking several years ago that we kind of were all talking about these things.

But and honestly, the topics are so general that it was an extension of being around the bar and sharing the ideas and what you're doing, what am I doing? Am I doing this right? Is there a better way to do this?

And that's really where that all came from. We just wanted an additional place to do that at a carry on the conversation.

[Martin Perkins]
On the security side, just a lot of the chatter has been there's been quite a few zero days on firewalls of people talking how they're dealing with that, how we're working on large scale fixes and things like that. So the those have been popping a lot lately. And that's been a big conversational topic in the cybersecurity channel on Discord.

All right.

[JP Keesy]
Yeah, you get the Mark Menzies and the Matt Lees that jump in and say, Hey, have you guys heard about this?

[Martin Perkins]
And over half of us are like, No, but we're going to now, you know, or Cody chimes in something that, you know, I had no clue was even a thing. But all of a sudden, now it's on my, you know, right in front of my radar, because I know, I know the danger, because if Cody puts it out there, it's going to be something to be working on.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So it seems that this is normally that time of year where people are looking at their stack, looking at their billing and stuff. I've had probably three or four separate sidebar conversations with people on, you know, how do I change it?

How do I force my clients? It always comes back to just do it. I mean, it's one of those things where if you look at every other industry, when you're electric company, when you're a plumber, when they don't tell you that here's the bill, here's how we're charging, take it or leave it.

I don't understand why we are so against that.

[JP Keesy]
I think it has more to do with a, I don't know that it's fair to call it a fear. But I think it's a, hey, it's the unknown. I'm not sure I need to walk through that path.

I'm doing okay. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm all right. I'm not, but I'm not going to grow, but oh gosh, I'm, I'm worried that my big client that's running 50, 60% of my, my total gross revenue, they may be leaving.

And then I'm, then I'm in big trouble.

[Uncle Marv]
That makes sense.

[JP Keesy]
And so when they don't want to upset that natural balance that they feel is the right thing to do, they don't, I generally, when I get a chance to talk to some of the, the, the younger or less operationally mature, uh, MSPs, they don't know all of the things that they probably should about their business. They know the high level stuff. They're entrepreneurs.

So they got great ideas and everything. But the execution side of that from the knowledge and the data is what lacks 90% of the time that I have those conversations with them. And I think that's, what's fearful for them to go.

I need them to raise my prices this year. Well, you didn't, you probably didn't even know that you needed to raise your prices. At least you didn't have the raw data in front of you to go, yeah, I'm losing money until your significant other, your kids go, Hey, I need a little extra money.

And you, you look in your wallet and you go, crap, I only got a $1 bill here. This is not happening. Right.

[Martin Perkins]
Yeah. I think another part of that is, is a lot of, a lot of MSPs don't know that their, their clients are seeing the value. And unless you're doing proactive about doing QBRs and actually illustrating to what you're bringing to the table and how you're, how you're saving the money here or saving the productivity here, or illustrating the amount of work that goes into it.

If you don't, if the client doesn't know the value, then that's probably going to be a very scary conversation. Right.

[JP Keesy]
And the ones that, you know, I mean, we don't, we don't go to Dell and say, Hey, I want to know every microprocessor. I want to know every, every component that's inside of this laptop. And no, I don't want you to change.

I don't want you to change that one. I know it's only a couple of pennies more to get a better one. Or now you're going to put a, you know, I just, we bought a laptop.

[Uncle Marv]
Right.

[JP Keesy]
We don't get to the nitty gritty.

[Uncle Marv]
Or we find the one that matches what we want. Yes.

[JP Keesy]
Yes. And we review even hardware. You know, we, as an industry, we review hardware and Lenovo's doing a better job or HP's doing a better job at some point.

We move it.

[Uncle Marv]
Yep. So we got to allow our customers to do the same in some degrees. If we're not a fit, we're not a fit, but I get your point where if, if a customer's, you know, you're a big nut, you want to keep that as much as possible.

And I did have one a few years ago where of course they would price shop me every so often. And every time they would come back, they would be like, well, you know, they wanted to charge us per computer per user, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, we don't want to see that.

And I'm like, well, that's what I'm doing. But the way they have their bills, they don't see it like that. So it's kind of interesting, but it is what it is.

Do you find that some people are afraid because, okay, I just lost my thought because I was distracted by that. We'll come back to it.

[JP Keesy]
Sure.

[Uncle Marv]
Sure. What else is popping?

[JP Keesy]
Well, going back to specifically the stack question, I think it's, I think it's very important that you review it. I don't think you need to review it all the time. And a lot of entrepreneurs and MSP owners, they, they see these and they listen to these sales pitches and these shining spoons.

They go, Oh, we want to do this. That's fine. That's okay.

You got to do that. But you should, if you have a written out process that says, Hey, I'm going to review this EBR or this sales or this marketing tool or this, uh, this contract lawyer, whatever the case may be, I'm going to do that very intentionally every 18 to 24 months. Then it's kind of a relief off of your shoulders that you don't have to worry about it.

It's easier to go to these events and have the conversation and say, look, here, here's the specific time. I want you to call me back. You don't call.

I am very interested, but I've made a commitment to my team and to, to my family and the mouths that I'm feeding, because we're all taking the risk to say, Hey, I, I'm going to do this in six months or my review for this particular product is coming up in a year. Please call me back. I don't want to have to remember.

So I'm giving you permission to call me in 12 months and hound me until I make time for you. And they, they like that. They don't, they appreciate it.

[Martin Perkins]
And to echo on that, like, especially in the compliant, if you're in a heavily compliant framework, you may have to do reviews more frequently because things change frequently, but having that cadence also prevents the chasing of shinies. I mean, it's really easy to see a new product. That's amazing.

And you want to jump into it and chase the shiny. Um, and I think most of us as techies are prone to that, that, that new technology that looks really cool, but chasing Chinese can also, you know, jump you into an early on component or area of a company that's, that they're not quite baked yet. Might not be quite prepared to go to market, but they have a great concept, right?

And so having that kind of cadence, you know, forces you to kind of make sure that you're doing your diligence, but you're also not grabbing onto a shiny and throwing that into the mix in the middle of, you know, your, your, your, your, your normal process. Right.

[JP Keesy]
Marvin, can I jump in for something? I'm going to sidetrack. This is my ADHD ticket.

[Martin Perkins]
Okay.

[JP Keesy]
But what he just did is the reason why I wanted, I think it's great to have these podcasts with a couple of people all the time is because I heard your question and consumed it one way and you've got two answers. Hopefully one, obviously one was better than the other, obviously, but, but being able to have and listen to that kind of thing is another reason why I think that people only pick one or two events to go to a year. I really think they should be doing at least one a quarter because you may hear the exact same sales pitch or, uh, the topic being talked about, but you may not consume it the right way every time.

And the next person that you go hear it from, you're going to hear something and go, Oh, okay. Now I get it.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. And a lot of it is, is your own mindset. What's what state of mind are you in when you hear that?

Um, because you might be focused on an area of your business that doesn't relate to what they're talking about. And then the next time you hear them, okay, I've already dealt with that other issue. Now, you know, I'm ready to hear you.

I was going to ask you a question about giving the vendors a guideline as to when to call and that sort of stuff. Do you go back and communicate with your team? Okay.

This is what I've told the vendors. And do they know when the timeframe is that you are willing to talk stack or do they know which vendors you're willing to talk to now as opposed to later?

[JP Keesy]
So I, I feel like there's two responses I need to give that one has more to do with the tape to generous one has more to do with, you know, the F1 information technologies, my MSP.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[JP Keesy]
And so what one of them is, yes, I go back to the team and I say, Hey, this is, this is some of the things that I took away from this. And I, I kind of gauge an event success to me taking my time away and going to is if I can ask at least two really good questions of someone else, or someone asked me two questions that made me go, okay, that was a good question. If I get two of those in an event, it was well worth it because it gets my mind to flow in and all that.

So I tell my team, Hey, I've, I've talked to, I don't, I don't know if we're okay.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, we can.

[JP Keesy]
Yeah. Monjur or B-boy for somebody and say, Hey, this is why I like them. I think we, I would like for you guys to go through a demo.

I know we're not reviewing this until this particular month or this year. Is it okay to have a demo now? I really encouraged to do that.

I kind of made, maybe made a promise that we would at least look at a demo, whatever. I let them all know my leadership team specifically on the, on the other part of kind of where I heard. And I think an opportunity here is, is that a lot of times when we're talking to these vendors, you know, whether it's any of us, MSP owners, or if you're in the technology world at all, sometimes they're not, they're not delivering their message quite the way that we may need to have it consumed.

And so part of the tech degenerates, what we want to lift. And we say, we want to lift everybody up. We want to lift our clients up.

So that's why I love zero trust worlds. Cause you, you're getting some of your clients that come to these things as well, right? That's why I like the, the, the MSP world.

So ourselves and everything, and then our teams in there, but our vendors as well, they're all, it takes all of us in this industry to lift each other up. So when I hear something things, let's say for, I don't know, compliancy group or somebody and I'm like, okay, that probably wasn't the best thing. If I don't know the owner or the, the CEO or the tech from a tech degenerate standpoint, then we may go to them if they're especially a brand new vendor and go, Hey, you know, we're here to help you too.

We would love to kind of review how your marketing strategy is and, and give you some pointers here and there, you know, things of that nature is what, because they, they may not get that. They may just get the walk away. You know?

[Uncle Marv]
Well, let me, let me, let me tell you why I asked that. So I'm, I'm building a little MSP slash vendor etiquette series because I'm in one of those positions where I hear from a lot of P MSPs that complain about the vendor callbacks and, you know, my gatekeeper at my office has to hear a lot of times, yeah, Marvin stopped at the booth and he was really interested. And she's like, I don't think because I'll give her, here's two or three people that I talked to that.

Yes. If they call, put them through everybody else, they're going to have to wait. Um, so that's one part of it.

But then the vendor side, you know, where they get frustrated, some of them with me, cause I'll just go grab swag and, but you know, they may feel like they were given the green light, but when they call they're getting, you know, stopped and they're like, wait a minute, you told us, but also whoever's at the event may not be the person that's calling. And you're right. Stuff gets lost in translation, but that whole MSP vendor relationship thing, we got to figure that out.

[JP Keesy]
Yeah. And, and again, it's, it's the way that MSP should be reacting. Most people know I've got an extreme faith.

So I'm, I live by one of those golden rules is treat people the way you want to be treated, not necessarily the way that you are treated. So it is that whole opportunity that they're making that big of an effort and they're not accepting my limitations, my barriers that I'm putting in front of them. Then it's pretty much how you're going to get, you're going to get in front of the stop gap at there, but they need to know that.

And I'm, I'm not afraid to tell them, you know, and I think, but at the same time, I've got to make time for them because they're not going to get better. We're not going to get better for the knowledge that they may be bringing that we don't know. Right.

We just don't know it. And I think that's where wisdom comes in more than anything. It's like, okay, we were once small.

We, we took and had lots of calls and door knocking themselves and everything. We got through it, but it was those ones that we remember that called us back, whether they use this or not, but they at least had a conversation with it that I almost always learned something on how to be better than next time I was going after a new client. So that's my input.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. There's your, uh, there's your piece of the, uh, church of JP. All right.

Go ahead.

[Martin Perkins]
No, I, I, when it comes to venerate, I mean, I, I'm, I'm, I, I'm not scared to be blunt and say, Hey, we're, we're, we're not entertaining anything right now. If it's a product that I could see some potential in, I'll, I'll give them a timeframe, say, you know, give me, give me, put me in your CRM three months from now, you know, ping me and we'll revisit it if we're interested in going on. But I, I'm also not scared to, if somebody is being overly persistent and doesn't want to take no for an answer to be overly firm as well to say, Hey guys, I appreciate your interest, but we just need to take it off your list.

And so you gotta, you gotta, you gotta put boundaries up or else then you're never going to get stopped.

[JP Keesy]
I think what you're, what you're trying to do there is, is really brilliant because, you know, just as I was saying earlier, when we started understanding our own data, our own numbers and everything is so much easier to go to a client and say, Hey, you know, we're $220 per user per month and they don't want it. It's a lot easier for me to sit there and go, I'm not going to put enough, any more effort into that with them when I know that's not going to work.

[Uncle Marv]
Right.

[JP Keesy]
If we had that etiquette listed in the way that we're both supposed to, the vendor and the MSP, if you're creating that, dude, I think more people should get behind you on that seriously.

[Uncle Marv]
I didn't say I was creating anything. I just said, I'm looking into it.

[Martin Perkins]
I'm going to ask people about what they think.

[Uncle Marv]
That's a lot of work. You guys have been building the degenerates for what? Three years now?

[JP Keesy]
Man. And we do have some of that etiquette, to be honest with you. I just didn't want to step on your toes if you're not building it.

[Uncle Marv]
And stepping on my toes.

[JP Keesy]
Let's partner up. Let's get, let's get some etiquette out there, man.

[Uncle Marv]
Partner up.

[JP Keesy]
Cowboy up. Let's do it. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

[Uncle Marv]
Um, okay. You're leading me down a path. I'm not sure I want to go down, but, um, what other initiatives are going on over there at the degenerates?

[JP Keesy]
Do you want to share any of them in particular?

[Uncle Marv]
We, well, let me ask this first. Are you guys allowed to say that?

[Martin Perkins]
I will say right now we're focusing on, on building the community. And honestly, because we have vendor sponsorships now and we're trying to, we're trying to get that solidified and get it, get it canonized. Um, and then we'll probably, we've, we've, we've had talks of some, some moves, but I think, uh, announcing it right now might be a bit premature.

[JP Keesy]
I would say that the building of the community is instrumental in the next steps that we're trying to take. So the more people that we can get to buy in and be on board with what we're trying to do and, and the, the honesty at which we're trying to do this, um, I think is crucial to the next steps that we're going to be taking and that ability to be able to lift up the entire technology industry, not just segregated into the vendors, the MSPs, the, the clients, the, the, the even getting more granular. Oh, we're, we're only going to lift up the security portion because that's what's going to make everybody the most money type of thing.

But as a whole and be holistic about it, the more that we get on board and start sharing the ideas that we're doing and getting a common place that we can all come together, that will drive us into the next, the next phase of what we're doing.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Let me ask this without naming names. Uh, I assume that there are she can't help me.

Um, I assume that there's obviously a list of vendors that are easy to work with that understand what you're trying to do are behind it. And then there are those vendors that might say they are, but then don't really follow through. And then there are the ones that are like, yeah, not interested.

Uh, what's a percentage of what you guys are running up against in terms of vendors that are, yeah, we're all in or those that are not.

[JP Keesy]
Uh, I don't even know that you could quantify it with a person.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[JP Keesy]
I think that it's really, we've had, we've had some vendors that didn't quite understand it. And I mean, again, it's community. That's the best way that we know how to describe it right now ourselves, or, you know, just the continuation of event after event, after event, all in one place type of a thing, uh, or, or the online bar, you know, where we all stand around and give away our secrets and our secrets.

The technology community is so unique. My wife's a pharmacist and I've gone to some of their events and it's, it's not the same. I've gone to a lot of professional events and they're just, you know, you get into a bunch of rooms with CPAs and it's a little bit cutthroat sometimes.

Some employers and so I've been to some of these. Our industry is honestly, cautiously loving of one another, honestly. And so I don't know that it would even be fair to sit there and say that there's a percentage that, that is buys into it or doesn't buy into it.

I think it's more of they're not, they're cautious on to how much they want to buy it because I think everyone buys into it. I don't know that I've talked to anybody that doesn't at the ground level, the fundamental level of, Hey, you want, you want me to help? Or I, you want to help me or we're going to help a vendor together.

It's all about helping and giving back. We all want to do it, you know, together. We want to do it in uplifting and we're going to do it one way or another.

We're going to force everybody into it.

[Martin Perkins]
I think that I'm not going to say the most negative, the least positive reaction I've gotten has been one of confusion because we're trying to figure out how we're, how we're, how we're making money. And, and, and it goes back to that. That's not, that's not the goal, but that's the goal, not the goal of this organization.

This has been a passion project for the founders since we started it. I mean, uh, we, we were truly motivated by raising the bar, having conversations that aren't being had at events, you know, making sure we're filling those gaps and giving people resources and, and voices that they may not have if they can't attend the venture, things like that. So, um, that's, I would say probably the least positive reaction I've got because they're, they're in their head trying to work out the logistics of it and it don't make sense because.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, I think that's probably where I was trying to go more because as I talk to more and more organizations from the outside looking in, you know, whether it's, you know, I mean, ASCII's on the banner behind you, but you know, ASCII's been around the GTIA, formerly known as CompTIA, all of the vendors are trying to build their own community. And then you've got the degenerates, you've got the MSPAA, all these groups are trying to do this. And I always feel like, okay, everybody's fighting each other to do the same thing.

I want to know, can't we just, you know, work together a little more? I don't see why we can't.

[JP Keesy]
I, I, the vendors led communities are very specific in that they're trying to allow for a place for, uh, the MSP and the IT community in general to come to, to get answers primarily around their.

[Uncle Marv]
Right.

[JP Keesy]
Yeah, they're partner driven. So, so those communities are, are focused and that's great. That's fine.

I think it's, it's needed, uh, absolutely. But to be able to have that ability to come in and, and go to a community like at these events, and I can sit down at any table and I'm not even sitting around my peers slash competitors. I'm sitting around a group of vendors and a group of, of, of true customers of all the, the IT community.

And they're consuming and they're listening. They're asking questions differently than we, than we are. So the ability to have some of these other ones that you're talking about have that same effect as what we're trying to do with the tech degenerates.

I just, I don't see it. This is why we decided to form the tech degenerates. Good.

[Martin Perkins]
And we're, we're happy to, you know, more communities, the better, the more we can help, you know, that people are getting together and sharing ideas. And, and I guess that one of the, one of our goals was to just remove any barriers to entry to that, to our community. So, you know, it's free to play, just come in and participate, be honest, be upfront.

And so, but, you know, if you're a member of us and everybody, all the others, we, we, we have no compunction about that. We're more than happy that people are getting, getting information where they need it. But we're, we're, we're trying to give a, give a, give a arena where it's a completely level playing field as far as access goes.

I think that's a big part.

[JP Keesy]
Maybe I said what I said wrong. No, you didn't. You can't, you can't backtrack.

But that's just it. This you'll explain. You'll understand why I'm not backtracking.

I think a better way is back to what I was saying. If you're sitting around a circle of friends and I say to you a story, pass it around by the time it gets back to you, it's not the same story. So I think all of these communities are needed because you can, that's why I said, go to multiple events is you're going to hear the same thing at each one of these things, but someone's going to say it differently that you can consume it better.

And so I think that all of them are needed, that they don't necessarily need to be combined into that's what I was trying to say.

[Martin Perkins]
Okay.

[JP Keesy]
Does that make some more sense? That works. Okay.

[Martin Perkins]
Well, I've seen it. I've seen a ton of, of, or how do we tell people come and say, I don't understand why I should use this vendor. All they do is X, Y, and Z.

Well, did you know that they, cause I may, I may have an, did you know that they do ABCD and E as well? Yep. Like, Oh wait, I didn't realize that.

[Uncle Marv]
Or that, or do you know that they compliment this?

[Martin Perkins]
Yes. Or this, this feeds into this or yeah. So it's, it's, it's a, the, the mind, honestly, because when I started doing, going to do the conferences, the biggest benefit, yes, exposure to vendors was, was great.

I got a lot of new tool sets that I didn't know were available, you know, just as a, you know, stay at home MSP. But, um, the collaboration between my peers was by far the biggest one. I mean, honestly, I feel like it's kind of what I'm trying to recreate is that, is that atmosphere where we're collaborating, we're helping each other out and, and just doing that mind share where, you know, we're filling each other's gaps and blinders are called blinders for a reason.

You don't, it's not that you're ignoring it or willfully not doing something. It's because you're not functionally aware that it's there. And you know, somebody's over there telling you that it's there.

It helps you clear out those blinders and actually provide a more cohesive and comprehensive solution.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So I dragged you guys over here, said, we'll talk about whatever comes to mind. So, uh, I've driven the conversation.

Let me ask you guys any questions for me, any thoughts that you want to get out?

[JP Keesy]
I let's let that last question, let's throw it back on you. Do you envision is your entrepreneurial spirit, is your entrepreneurial spirit, see some sort of a bigger collaboration idea on the, on the communities that are being created?

[Uncle Marv]
The short answer is, I don't know, in my head, I'm thinking there should be, but the industry is huge. So I think that there's room for all of us and all of them, uh, to work together. I think the problem I see from my perspective is I see a lot of the same vendors trying to do all of them while there are other vendors doing none of them.

And I, I don't think that's the way it should be. I agree.

[JP Keesy]
I, and I think that when they learn, you know, there's, so we follow EOS in our MSP, very strict about it. And the one thing that I've learned following EOS is that my entrepreneurial, you know, rose colored glasses, see a squirrel, I'm jumping at the first thing I can and trying to go get it going is balanced by my business partner, um, from a more methodical and thought out and, and very intentional. Yes, we should do that or no, we shouldn't, but he's always trying to figure out how to do it.

He's not always trying to figure out how not to do it, which is why he and I worked so well. And it's not that we stay on our lanes. It's just that we bring different ideas and reasons slash excuses of why we shouldn't do something only after we've tried from a permanent to make it.

So I don't, I don't know if that even leads you into another question, but I, I think that it is not necessarily that we're all going to be great together, but I think it's where the different mindsets of those vendors that say, I'm not even going to try this because they're looking at it, their business in a very, very specific way that they just don't see a value or a, a way that they can measure the value that that's going to bring in any sort of way.

And this is why I think we all exist to try to get and lift everybody up to understanding it at a bigger level. Yeah.

[Martin Perkins]
One of the things just in general that I'm excited about is this like the past year and a half that you've seen, because small vendors have typically approached groups like ours, like just because they know they, they can get some exposure and maybe very well fully buy into what we're doing. But here in the last year and a half, the bigger vendors out there are starting to realize that community is integral to how this, this, the MSP channel works. And so they've been doing a lot more embracing of it and encouraging it.

And so it's, it's been fun to see that happen. And I think as long as that continues on without, you know, communities being snapped up and things like that, I think it's going to be a really good thing for, for all of us in that respect.

[Uncle Marv]
So Kaseya is trying to get into the degenerates. Is that what I'm hearing? And then you do not hear that.

Yeah, they've talked to me. Yeah. They tried to get me to buy more stuff because I was, I was doing a dump and they were like, what are you doing?

So yeah, I was even down at the, uh, the mothership a few months ago. I don't think they're happy with me, but I was there. I made it to DattoCon.

So we'll see how it goes.

[JP Keesy]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
One more year, one more. So, all right. Well guys, thank you very much for coming over, hanging out.

[JP Keesy]
Thanks for having us. We appreciate it. Anytime we get to talk.

[Uncle Marv]
Next time when I ask you'll be a little bit more, uh, eager to join, right?

[Martin Perkins]
It wasn't nearly as painful as you promised.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So guys, um, enjoy the rest of the show and I think we're getting ready for a break here. So the noise level will pick up.

So I'm going to end this before we do and the camera switch. Look at that.

[Martin Perkins]
You got cut out. Conveniently.

[Uncle Marv]
Yep. All right. We'll see you back here.

More from Orlando at Zero Trust World. Holla!