From Software Development to Cybersecurity: A New MSP's Journey with Nerds to Go's Paul Ongioni

[00:00:02] I know you want to hear from other MSPs, and in particular, we want to hear from people that are newer to the space. Why did they join? Well, Paul Ongioni jumped over from software development to launch a managed services provider,

[00:00:16] and he did it through a franchise, launching the first Nerds to Go in Chicago. And he joins me on this bonus episode of the Business of Tech. Well, Paul, thanks for joining me today. Great to be here. So let's start with the easy bit.

[00:00:33] Tell me about Nerds to Go, the organization, and your location in Chicago. Yeah, absolutely. So Nerds to Go is a franchise. It's been around for about 20 years. Started in Connecticut and has been growing over the past several years.

[00:00:50] Really the focus of Nerds to Go in terms of the business model is managed services as well as computer repair. So it started as a computer repair business many years ago, and then over the past several years has shifted its focus to managed services.

[00:01:10] I started the Nerds to Go franchise here in Chicago really just about six months ago. So started the process mid last year, got everything set up. And really what attracted me to Nerds to Go was that the business model of managed services,

[00:01:32] but with other peripheral services as well, both for business and residential customers. So tell me about that. Give me some numbers like revenue size, employees, what's your location look like? And service breakdown would be super helpful. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:01:54] So as I'm fairly new, my focus has been on getting business however I can get it right now. What does that look like? I have signed several MSP clients and in tandem with that, I am doing projects for businesses.

[00:02:17] There have been several instances where I'm working with a person, they own a business, they know someone who owns a business and I'm networking that way. In terms of what the breakdown actually looks like, I would say right now I'm at about probably 50-50 residential versus B2B.

[00:02:36] Okay. And have you got staff at this point? Give me some sense of the size of the business. Yes. So I currently have two full-time technicians. And then I'm the owner, I have a co-owner as well. I am in the business all day, every day.

[00:02:54] Co-owner kind of helps out, has another job as well. And then I have someone helping part-time with sales. Okay. So what was the motivation? I mean, you were doing software development before, so I would think, you know, stable W2 style job.

[00:03:11] What was your motivation to move over and what attracted you to the managed services market? Yeah. So, you know, I've worked in tech for the past 15 years. I was primarily in customer success. I did project management. And it's a comfortable place to be, you know, working in tech.

[00:03:30] It pays well, you know, I enjoyed what I was doing. But I've always enjoyed working for myself. Growing up, I had a little computer sales business. I built computers for people when I was in high school, things like that.

[00:03:44] And so I always kind of wanted to go back and do my own thing and not work for someone else. And I ended up in a situation last year where I was laid off from my role at the time. And I said, this is my opportunity.

[00:03:58] You know, I no longer have the golden handcuffs. So really was exploring how do I use my experience and my interests to start my own business? Interestingly enough, initially, I wanted to open a fitness studio or something like that because I enjoy working out.

[00:04:21] So I started there, but ended up with, you know, looking in tech and looking at how I can apply my previous experience. You know, in tech, I primarily worked in health tech. So I worked for Epic, which is an electronic medical records software company.

[00:04:37] And then I worked for some startups. And one thing that I saw specifically in the healthcare sector is small businesses like clinics, dental offices work with these MSPs. And the MSPs don't know anything about healthcare.

[00:04:51] Healthcare is very specialized in terms of the technologies they use in terms of, you know, how data has to be handled with HIPAA and things like that. And so that's something I have a lot of experience with.

[00:05:05] And one of the reasons I started looking at the MSP space and why that might make sense given my experiences, because I can bring the 15 years I've spent in health tech and working with doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers and provide MSP, you know,

[00:05:26] managed services to these businesses with that expertise. Now, you've already hired some staff. So as somebody who's been doing hiring, give me your sense of observations of the current tech job market. You know, there's been all this talk of downsizing. You've done some hiring.

[00:05:41] Give me a sense of what the lay of the land looks like right now. Yeah, it's been interesting in Chicago anyway. I found there are a lot of people looking. There are, you know, just tech in general.

[00:05:55] You know, I know a lot of people who have kind of been laid off and, you know, are looking for work. In the technician space, though, in Chicago, I would say there's a lot of people who are either not currently employed and looking or just unhappy with where

[00:06:17] they're at. So I have found that there's a lot of there are a lot of choices. I post, you know, last time I posted a resume, I got a hundred or posted an application. I got 100 resumes in a couple of weeks. So that's what I found.

[00:06:36] So for those that aren't familiar with starting a franchise of a franchise owner, what's supplied by the franchise or what do you have to supply in terms of the responsibilities? Sure. So as a franchisee, I own a completely independent business.

[00:06:53] The first thing I did was sign a franchise agreement with Nerds to Go to get access to their brand and their resources and things like that. And there are certain constraints that I work under.

[00:07:03] So, for example, the branding, you know, I have to have my store or my office in a you know, with specific branding. Our company vehicles have that branding in terms of the services we provide. There are certain services we have to provide.

[00:07:18] You know, the goal being that Nerds to Go around the country all are consistent, essentially. With that being said, you know, I do all my own hiring. You know, I set my own prices. You know, I manage the day to day.

[00:07:34] The reason that I went down the franchise route was because of the resources available. You know, there are experts in different areas. You know, as an example, last week we had a complex networking job and needed some additional advice assistance.

[00:07:49] So I called headquarters and said, hey, you know, they've got some experts who can get on the phone with me and help. In addition to that, we get better prices. So the vendor, their vendor relationships with the whole franchise network. So they negotiate with various vendors.

[00:08:09] So rather than me being an independent MSP where I say, hey, you know, I've got 20 or 50 or 100 or however many managed services clients, we've got a much larger volume across the network. So while I'm. Paying a royalty to nerds to go, I'm also getting better deals with vendors.

[00:08:33] Now, help me understand a little bit, because I know our listeners love to know about the technical stack is some of the technical stack defined for you by headquarters or do you control every portion of your own technical tool set?

[00:08:47] I control my entire tech stack with one exception. We use connect wise and that is across the network. So I do have to use connect wise, but outside of that, we have to use it for PSA and RMM outside of that. I can use any vendor I want.

[00:09:07] So there are negotiated relationships that I have access to. But if I choose to use a different vendor, I can't. Gotcha. OK, now, one of the things that's interesting to me right now, particularly in

[00:09:18] this space, and I want to get a sense from you in the field is I feel like there's a lot of AI demand by customers and a lot of shadow IT happening in AI.

[00:09:27] What are you seeing with the customers that you're talking to right now in terms of their interest slash deployment slash challenges with artificial intelligence? It's a good question. There's certainly a lot of interest and I think a lot not a lot of knowledge.

[00:09:46] Right. And I think there are, at least from my experience, a lot of misconceptions about what AI is and what AI is not. And I think products that are branded as AI that are not.

[00:09:57] And so certainly, you know, we're using AI tools to be more efficient and trying to help our customers make good decisions about how to leverage AI. But in my mind, it's still so new.

[00:10:13] And I think there's a lot of potential and a lot of companies trying to sell things that aren't really AI and aren't necessarily going to help them in the way they they want it to.

[00:10:27] So I'm going to ask the same question then about security, because that's the other area that we hear a lot of a lot of discussions on. I would think in health care that there's also a lot of issues around security that are particularly around

[00:10:37] information set. What are the conversations looking like right now? We're talking in mid 2024. What are those conversations and security look like? There's a lot of fear. There's a lot of fear and I think not a lot of knowledge.

[00:10:54] Here in Chicago, there have been several health care organizations that have been the victim of cyber attacks. As an example, Lurie Children's Hospital, which is about six blocks up the road from here, was a victim of a hack very recently.

[00:11:13] And so no one wants to be the next victim, but no one really knows what to do to prevent it. Right. And so they're depending on MSPs to help with that.

[00:11:27] But in many cases, they're also, you know, with the smaller businesses I'm working with, they also have a limited budget. Right. So it's a lot of the discussions I have is how can they be as protected as possible? But also, how can they do that within their budget?

[00:11:47] And so what does that solution set oftentimes look like? Yeah, so, you know, I'm working with a couple of different vendors that kind of have a packaged cybersecurity product where they're doing a lot of that remote monitoring and they're handling the

[00:12:10] kind of entire package at a discounted rate versus, I think, previously what I had been offering and looking at more of an a la carte model. Right. Where a lot of it is done in-house by our technicians. So let me understand that a little bit more.

[00:12:30] So essentially what you're ending up doing more is you're selling outsourced services that someone else is delivering when it comes to security. Like, what is the main sets of solutions that your customers are purchasing from you?

[00:12:43] Yeah, so I think the easiest way to explain it is we have our core set of tools, you know, with our RMM and with endpoint security and then kind of on top of that layering network monitoring additional cybersecurity tools, which really are needed for health care organizations.

[00:13:06] And kind of that top layer kind of enterprise level of cybersecurity is what I am outsourcing. And there's a couple of vendors that I work with that provide an enterprise level product with 24-7 SOC type

[00:13:26] monitoring that typically, you know, a 10 provider doctor's office wouldn't be able to afford. But being able to offer that at a more reasonable price. So, you know, I just want to do one more time because I'm going to press a little bit here because we're talking to

[00:13:46] fellow MSPs that are going to understand this. So, you know, are you selling a package of your consulting services plus a bunch of additional products? Like what is the end solution for a customer look like?

[00:14:00] So the end solution for a customer is everything is branded nerds to go. Everything has my branding. They are talking to me. They're not talking to this outsource provider. So everything goes through my team. If they have an issue, they open a ticket.

[00:14:19] If the SOC, you know, notice is something that needs to be followed up on or a customer needs to be notified, it'll go to my team. So there's not a direct relationship between the outsource cybersecurity vendor and my customer.

[00:14:42] But I am contracting with them for that level of monitoring. Does that answer your question? Sure. So so let's let's move on then.

[00:14:52] So the element really is that I want to get a sense next is so where do you think the next big opportunity for this space is that excited? You're obviously new to jump into here.

[00:15:03] What do you think the big growth space is in, say, the next one to three years? That's a great question in terms of growth opportunity, I do believe it is in cybersecurity, number one, because.

[00:15:22] Most organizations don't have adequate protection, and whether we're talking about health care or we're talking about.

[00:15:29] You know, even a store or any other small business, you know, a couple examples of businesses I've spoken to this week about cybersecurity, an interior design firm, a fashion boutique that I actually visited this morning that doesn't have something as simple as a firewall.

[00:15:50] But I think more and more companies are realizing that as enterprise organizations are becoming more secure, hackers are targeting small businesses. And just because you're a 20 person company in your only offices in Chicago doesn't mean you're safe from a ransomware attack.

[00:16:09] And so what I have found is a lot of what I'm doing is education and making sure these organizations understand, you know, how they can protect themselves. And so I do see cybersecurity as being number one, and you mentioned AI, do I see growth in AI? Absolutely.

[00:16:31] I don't think even I right now kind of understand what as a managed service provider, what my role is going to be, you know, other than in terms of kind of consulting, advising, I don't know what the what AI is going to look like in two or three years.

[00:16:48] I don't think anyone does. But certainly, I think we know the direction with cybersecurity and you know, what is needed for organizations to be protected.

[00:17:01] Well, Paul Joni is a seasoned tech professional who made the bold move from software development to business ownership, and he opened the first Chicago location of Nerds to Go situated in the bustling Magnificent Mile. Paul, thanks for joining me today. Thank you, Dave.

[00:17:16] With as many breaches and security concerns as I report in this show, it should be obvious that cybersecurity is not just about technology, but also the human expertise needed to interpret and respond to complex threats. Huntress is focused on elevating SMBs and MSPs around the world.

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