From 4 Employees to 70: How Niching, Culture, and Adapting Made the Difference (MSP Titan #22)

[00:00:00] As you may know, it's my mission to interview 100 of the fastest growing and most interesting MSPs on the planet. What you may not know is I am distilling all of that knowledge into one battle-tested book. If you'd like early access to that book, make sure to click the link below. We try to make sure that everybody is in a job where the majority of their daily tasks give them energy.

[00:00:24] And because we move so fast and because everything changes so fast, maybe your job description doesn't change, but maybe your job did. And so we're highly aware of when we may get into a situation where maybe the tasks that take away your energy get a little bit too much. And then what we'll do is we'll take those tasks that take away your energy and we'll create a new job. And we'll hire somebody into that job who gets energy from those tasks.

[00:00:50] We think about it, we talk about it all the time because you gotta be excited about getting out of bed in the morning. Hey guys, Damien Stevens, host of MSP Mindset, founder and CEO of Servocity. Today I continue my mission to interview 100 of the fastest growing and most interesting MSPs on the planet. Today I have the blessing of being joined by Mark Jameson.

[00:01:19] Now Mark bought this company with four employees and has grown it to 70 and still growing. And what he learned along the way is there's predictable paths where you're going to hit a wall. He also learned that culture is the secret ingredient. And he shares how he niched not just one way, but three different ways to carve out his own special way to grow.

[00:01:44] And lastly, he shares how they were super early into AI and are already helping their customers drive transformation through AI. Don't miss out on my conversation with Mark today. You came into this business a little different than the typical founder. Tell me how you came to be president and CEO of 2W. Sure.

[00:02:07] So this, it was, so we've been in 2W for 12 years now. And really it was kind of the culmination of a bunch of drunken Thanksgiving conversations between my brother and I when we're, Hey, we need to buy a business. We should buy a business, you know? And so I found myself around that time, you know, the hard part about acquiring a business is finding the opportunity to do the due diligence.

[00:02:35] And so we had, so we started that, I started that process and I stumbled across 2W. And it was a, essentially it was an ERP consulting house. There were four employees and a bunch of 1099, like a lot of those consulting houses were, you know, then. And then we, we did the due diligence. We met the founders, Bill and Diana. We got along real well.

[00:03:05] I understood that business. I'm not from manufacturing, but I do understand enterprise software. And it was a, it was an organization that was a little underserved in the sales and marketing area, but it was, I had a great word of mouth. And so we ended up buying it in September of 2012. Okay. And it's, it's been a journey, a hell of a journey ever since.

[00:03:34] Yeah. So let's kind of try booking. You started, it was four employees. Yeah. So when we bought the, when we bought the company, it was four employees and there was probably about a, about 10 or 11, 1099 consultants. And then shortly, I don't know, maybe a year later, we made the decision that we were going to make everybody an employee. And I think I get a better, you get better quality control when you write somebody a check every other week. Yeah.

[00:04:03] Uh, as opposed to, you know, uh, 1099 folks are great. You know, it, it works well when, you know, business goes down, you don't have to pay them. Business goes up. They're all right there. Um, it does erode into your profitability to some degree because, you know, you, you don't get that economy of scale. Um, but also I think a lot of times it's, uh, you know, when things are good, they're all part of the team. And when things go rugged, they're like, Hey, I'm just an independent contractor.

[00:04:29] So yeah, we, uh, so we made the decision relatively early on that we were going to make that turn and, uh, and hire, um, and hire our people. And now we're, uh, we're about 70 strong. Um, we have a, you know, we, most everybody that you see with 2W works for 2W. We've got a couple of specialty folks that, you know, handle the kind of the one-off stuff that may be, uh, independent contractors.

[00:04:57] Uh, but when we do that, typically they are employees of other companies. Um, so the very similar structure that we have. And I, I have a, uh, I typically have a relationship with their top officers. Um, so again, it's that quality control. Mm-hmm. So tell me about that beginning. Um, a couple of things that struck me. One is you had independent contractors and you, you buy the business and then you make them employees.

[00:05:27] And I think everybody fears the opposite is that you'll make them independent contractors. You'll, you'll, you'll, you'll cut all these slash all these jobs. So, you know, that's, it's interesting. We have not, we have not downsized. So we've made a bunch of acquisitions along the way as well. And we have not downsized, um, you know, through attrition or people decide, Hey, that's not for me. Um, but it's always been kind of in the other direction.

[00:05:55] And so we, um, uh, I mean, there may be some, some administrative stuff that's overlap or whatever, but, um, we, you know, if you're growing your business, you can't get enough smart people. Yes. And when we bought 2W and we decided to make the employee turn, uh, there were some folks who didn't come with us.

[00:06:18] Uh, there were some folks who we, uh, who we kept on and, uh, as 10 99s, but as we grew and we hired around them, uh, you know, they get, they get to the, um, uh, they get, you know, like they eventually get to where you, you need them to be. Or I think my toughest sell was, um, the guy who is now our, uh, chief technology officer. Uh, he was kind of the last holdout.

[00:06:44] And I, uh, uh, but I convinced him to be an employee and he said to me, he said, he said, you know, I, I think I forgot how I haven't, I haven't been an employee since like 98 or something. Right. And so we, uh, uh, but, but we, he, I think he was the last guy to jump on board from that, uh, original regime. This episode is brought to you by Cervosity. Cervosity.

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[00:08:18] Even though you're doing this in your own way, a lot of people think, man, they're just going to like cut costs and ride it out or something. But clearly you came into this with a different mindset. Oh yeah. So we, yeah. So we bought the company to grow it and we bought the company with a mind that if we could make, if we could carve out our niche, we could, we would, you know, have, make acquisitions when they became available. We've been real opportunistic about that.

[00:08:44] But we are, I mean, when, when, when we came in and it was all pro, pro growth. Look, I'm a, I'm a sales guy by, by trade. And so it was all about how do we get more clients? How do we bring more value? How do we, how do we grow the business?

[00:09:08] And I was real fortunate because the founder of the company stayed with us and she actually did a really brilliant thing. She sold me all the business headaches and then she got to do what she likes to do. Um, and when I say founder, I mean, she started the bit, she started 2W, uh, the, the original. Genesis of the organization of the company started back in the early nineties. And so she's, she's still with the company today. She's got a ton of energy.

[00:09:37] She, she'll run me into the ground. Um, but she, uh, she's got her count base. She's got her clients. Her clients love her. Uh, in fact, she just got a, uh, a really nice note from one of her long-term clients. Uh, and, uh, uh, so I think she really enjoys what she's doing and, and she's been good counsel too, you know, as we, especially early on. Um, cause she, I mean, she knew more, obviously more about this business. She forgot more about this business than I'll ever know. And, uh, so it was good. It was good.

[00:10:06] It was good relationship. It continues to be a good relationship. Um, and, uh, I'm real fortunate. Um, especially in the beginning that I was able to, uh, have that kind of relationship with the former owner. Yeah. Uh, I'd like to talk about something else. It's different or unusual around people talk about standardization. Usually I think that means let's get everybody on the same firewall or other things like that.

[00:10:32] Tell me what you guys have done to, to drive this standardization or uniformity. Yeah. It, I tell you, it took us a while to get here. This is, it was not like a brilliant idea we had out of the shoot. Um, but we have, uh, we standardized on essentially, we have, we have two, uh, two, two partners and it's, uh, epicore is our ERP and Microsoft is our technology stack.

[00:10:59] And so we hold, um, uh, five designations from, uh, from Microsoft. We're a platinum, uh, epicore partner. In fact, we were just named the epicore, uh, partner, global partner of the year. Congratulations. A few months ago. You know, and it's, um, but being able to do that allows you then to focus on that. And then people only need to know your people only need to know those technology stacks. Now, when you take on new clients, especially in the, our infrastructure business.

[00:11:28] Yeah. You do have to live with some, uh, uh, original, you know, installations. But what we do is, is, is we're real upfront about it. Look, we're not going to force you down this path, but when it's time to replace, we're going to replace you with this. And so for firewalls at SonicWall, uh, all the security, all the collaboration tools are all, um, Microsoft.

[00:11:54] Uh, and then again, our ERP system is, um, uh, is, is, is, uh, uh, is epicore. And then we have a, uh, and then when it comes to some of our other disaster recovery stuff, we've standardized on a product or a company called, uh, Axiant. And, uh, they do, uh, we do mostly, that's a lot of our on-prem stuff. We do a lot of our, uh, collaboration, 365 SharePoint backup through them, but that's it.

[00:12:19] And the, uh, uh, and so I, I find that we're, we're a better partner to them because that's our, uh, focus. We understand that stack better. Uh, and we, uh, uh, and I think we're just, I think we're just serving, servicing our clients better. And I, as I talked to some of these guys, like at IT Nation, it, it, it blows my mind how many different pieces and parts that everybody's got to manage to. Yeah.

[00:12:47] So if you would back up, I think you also niche in your client base, right? I think most people don't know too much about, uh, ERP little on epicore. So tell us why and how that niche. Yeah. So almost all of our clients are manufacturing. Okay. Uh, epicore is a, has a, uh, one of their, their, their, uh, bigger ERP, uh, offerings as a manufacturing, uh, uh, focused, uh, ERP. So therefore probably 95% of our clients are manufacturers.

[00:13:18] Um, now we are starting a new initiative that I'm pretty excited about. We're, we're picking up, uh, profit 21, which is the, uh, distribution part of their, uh, epicore ERP system. So we are branching into a new vertical. Um, that will be a challenge. Um, I think it's, it's not a huge putt between manufacturing and distribution. So, uh, but we've got to, you know, we've got to help. How do we bring value to that vertical, but almost all of our clients are manufacturers.

[00:13:45] So, and, and what's really interesting about it is look, doing technology in a manufacturing environment is exceedingly hard. It's either, the building's either too old or too cold or too dusty or too hot. Um, there are language barriers many times between the shop floor and the front office. Uh, there may be, uh, uh, just, you know, manufacturing facilities may be distributed across a geographic area. And there's always budget challenges.

[00:14:13] You know, most manufacturers are lacquered laggards in the, uh, technology adoption curve. Uh, you know, they would rather spend, you know, they'll spend $8 million on a plasma cutter, but they won't spend $8 on a server. Um, so we end up, uh, we end up, uh, uh, understanding that business, learning how to work within the parameters of that business and, and understanding the folks who run manufacturing plants.

[00:14:39] And I think that's also, uh, uh, that focus is, has helped us, um, especially in the Microsoft stack in that, um, you know, a lot of Microsoft partners are kind of a mile wide and an inch deep and we're just the opposite. And, um, the fact that we have this, this, this industrial vertical, um, uh, I think plays pretty well and they like what we're doing and we're able to bring value not only to our partners, but to our, uh, to our clients as well.

[00:15:08] So here's, what's puzzling to me. You chose the, you know, manufacturing too hot, too cold, dusty, you know, all those sorts of things. Manufacturing, which is typically a laggard yet in your standardization, you not only pick just a few partners, but you basically said, I'm going to get rid of on-prem. Yeah.

[00:15:28] So we made a decision, uh, back in 2015, I actually went to a Microsoft seminar where they had, uh, they were talking about this new thing, you know, compute in the cloud Azure. And so I got out of that thing. I called the, uh, the fellow who's now our CTO and he said, I said, Hey, I think we ought to do this. So we ought to think about going there. And, uh, and he basically sent me his plan cause he was thinking the exact same thing.

[00:15:57] And, um, uh, and then he went out to Redmond and worked with Microsoft on the best way to put Epicor in an Azure environment. And then, um, when, you know, we started going down that path. And so we, um, uh, what we did was every time somebody needed a new server, we would say, okay, here's a quote for Azure and here's a quote for server. And almost everybody picked server. Yeah.

[00:16:24] Uh, but slowly but surely we got more and more people started picking the, uh, started picking the Azure instances. And then we started moving their entire networks to Azure, all their infrastructure. We now are standing up manufacturing facilities that have, uh, no, uh, no on-prem hardware with the exception of switches, firewalls, and then whatever device everybody wants to use to interface with the data. Um, it's, uh, uh, it was, it was, uh, it was a long haul.

[00:16:53] I actually don't think we've hit the tipping point yet. Um, but we are doing a lot of business. We are a tier one, um, cloud services provider now for, for Microsoft. We're a managed partner, but it was that focus. It was that, Hey, look, here's a better way to do this.

[00:17:12] And, um, but I think eventually throughout the, you know, that, that first kind of five years ish, um, it, it, it, we, we started, started to see some, some of that stuff catch. And then I think certainly COVID exposed a bunch of really bad networks as they put people home. And, you know, how are we going to get, you know, our big CAD files up and down into people's houses where the engineers now work.

[00:17:39] Uh, and so we were forced in that time to also get some of this remote cloud technology, you know, moving. And, uh, it's, uh, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's works really, really well for us. And more importantly, I think it's a huge value for our clients. Hmm. So give me a little of the details behind there, because it, you know, I know most people would say, oh, let's do cloud.

[00:18:03] But when most people, even if they were smart enough to quote, let's say as you were along with a server, people still pick the server. And I also know nothing about ERP, but just enough to know that if you just grab some software and throw it in the cloud, especially what was on prem and kind of lift and shift, usually that's cost prohibitive. Yeah, it's going to be brutal. Cause you know, if you know anything about a SQL database, you know, that the SQL will take every ounce of compute that you'll throw at it.

[00:18:32] And when you put it in a cloud environment, it's infinite amount of compute. Right. Right. And so that was part of the, the, our secret sauce is we figured out a way to do that where we could have, because then if you dial it down, then your user experience is awful. And so we were able to come up with a method where we made it affordable and, and the user experience was, was, was, was, was stellar. And, and so people tell me this all the time.

[00:19:02] They say, well, you know, the cloud is too expensive. And if, and my response is always, well, if the cloud is too expensive, then you're doing it wrong. Yeah. Um, it's not, I think the biggest mistake that people make is, uh, it's not an analog. You don't stand up the exact server that you have on prem in an Azure environment because it will be expensive, but you need to be able to dial in exactly what the compute needs for the application that you're putting in the cloud.

[00:19:32] Um, because the, you know, the days of, you know, it used to be, you'd drop in a big old server with a whole bunch of cores and a lot of RAM and, you know, a couple of NIC cards and, you know, and then you just throw stuff on there and you just let it go. Well, you can't do that in an Azure environment. It's much more nuanced and it's much more exacting, but if you do it right and you focus on what you need to accomplish, um, what you find is, is that, uh, uh, it is, it is more cost effective.

[00:20:01] It is more flexible. Uh, and then you, you kind of get out of that, that lather, rinse, repeat hardware replacement cycle that, you know, where you got to plunk down a, you know, 40 to 50 K every, you know, three to four years. So I'm curious, was it that you guys were able to make this comparable or maybe less expensive once you re-architected things or. Yeah. And that was the whole idea, right?

[00:20:30] Cause nobody's no, Hey, there aren't a whole lot of manufacturers that buy technology. Cause it's cool. There are some, but they're not enough to build a business on. And so it's got to have a good business, uh, argument to it. Uh, reliability, um, uh, being able to have a good, uh, uh, disaster recovery plan associated with it.

[00:20:52] Um, I mean, it's, it is the, our Azure instances are, are, are so reliable and the, um, uh, and the ability to build that redundancy in for what is basically a, I mean, if you were out of the box, Azure instance, if you were to replicate that on-prem with on-prem hardware and the fault tolerance and all that stuff would cost you literally cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[00:21:21] And, um, but we're able to build them as resilient as they need to be, but out of the box, they're pretty darn resilient. And we have not seen a huge, we have not seen a huge outage, uh, really ever. I mean, we've had, there's been a couple, but not, you know, now that I said that I've just jinxed it, but there is, uh, um, but it's been a, um, uh, it's been very, very reliable and it has a lot less noise.

[00:21:53] And, um, uh, and so I think there's a lot of, uh, we've opened a lot of eyes in kind of this path that we've taken as far as, uh, standing up, um, virtual architecture. Yeah. What do you mean by less noise? Um, it works. It, it, it, it, it, it, it just, there's no, you don't have to screw with it as much. Um, it's, and, and I think people appreciate that. Right.

[00:22:22] I mean, um, it's, you know, look, it, one of the things that I learned early on doing this, uh, is people just want their shit to work. Yeah. They just want to go, right. They want to come in. They want to push the button. They want to do their jobs. They want to push the button. They want to go home. Now there's some weirdos like us who like to mess with the technology. And certainly there's, there's, there's some folks out there, but the majority of human beings, they just want their technology to work.

[00:22:51] When it doesn't work, it's highly frustrating. And so our entire focus for the last probably 10 years is how do we create? And I, I didn't make this up. I actually had a client tell me this. He, look, I just, I don't, I don't, I don't want our network to make any noise. I just don't want to deal with it. And, and so in, when we create noiseless environments, it's less expensive for us to, uh, to service.

[00:23:20] And it's, uh, uh, more economical for the client group because they're starting to get more value for their, for their technology. And we find we can do that in a, in a cloud environment, um, far easier than we can with, uh, physical on-prem hardware. Yeah. When you bring that full circle and you realize the cleaning lady didn't unplug the server every night or, right. There's just a lot less, uh, no, no, no joke.

[00:23:49] Our cleaning, last night, our cleaning people kicked a TV off the stand in the, uh, one of our conference rooms and like it was smashed. Oh, wow. And, uh, uh, we walked into that and I don't know, I think they ran like 10 year olds who put a baseball through the neighbor's window. Um, but yeah, see that, I mean, that's what happens with on-prem stuff. You don't have any of that. You don't have to, security.

[00:24:17] Security is all that physical security that you've got to go through when you're trying to get CMMC or ITAR or NIST or whatever the, your regulatory requirements are. It's, it's a non-factor because you don't have to put a lock on it. You don't have to create, you know, air gapped, you know, man traps in there or anything else. You just stick in the cloud and 90% of your security stuff just, just is on. Mm-hmm.

[00:24:46] So, it seems to me that you have what some people do, which is a niche in terms of the vertical, which is manufacturing. Yep. And then you have kind of layered on your top two partners with ERP from Epicor and cloud Azure from Microsoft. Maybe it's like a, what I would call a second niche. And then it's almost like a third niche wherein you also have taken that and said, you know, we're just going to be all in on cloud.

[00:25:14] And, and, you know, how much of that kind of layering the, from first, second to third layer there, do you think has been responsible for your growth and your ability to handle growth? Um, I think it's, I, I think it's been huge because this enables us to do this. This enables us to run with, uh, with less people. Uh, now they, they have to be better trained.

[00:25:42] So we, we are very, very big in, uh, making sure that all of our people get certified. We give them, um, uh, we give them time to study. We give them, uh, operate, we pay for their, we pay for their tasks. I mean, so you have to be able to do that. Um, but I think it's been, I think it's been huge for us because it, look, I can spin up a server in 20 minutes. All right.

[00:26:06] We've had, we've had, uh, clients where we're responsible for their ERP system, but not their infrastructure, where they've had catastrophic data, data failure, either through lockware attack or hard drive failure or server failure, whatever it happens to be, leather, you know, um, that kind of stuff. And many times the only surviving data is the Epicor data that we're responsible for. Um, uh, we've been able to spin up entire nationwide.

[00:26:35] We've been able to provide networks within a weekend to get people back into production. Um, when they've had, uh, uh, uh, kind of a pretty onerous lockware event and it doesn't happen all that much, but when we get that call, we do have a process for it. And, uh, we'll, we will create a complete virtual network for somebody out of the blue and take whatever surviving data they may have and make sure that we can put it, put it into place. What, what do you attribute to your growth? Right.

[00:27:05] Most, most MSPs want to be where you are and to gone from four to let's say 70 in 12 years. It's a good pace. I'm really, really fortunate. I work with a lot of really, really smart people and, um, that's mission one because if you don't have smart people, forget about it. Right. People that are dedicated, focused to what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:27:28] Uh, we have a very, almost to a person, our, our, our, our, our teammates are client focused. Right. Um, uh, and it's all about bringing value to the, to the client. Um, but I think it's all of that, right? It's the focus. It's the willing to commit. Look, if you're going to go into something, you can't, you can't halfway it. You got to go all in and, um, uh, you know, going all in on, on, on Epicor.

[00:27:58] Uh, going all in on what they're trying to accomplish, buying off on their direction, buying off on Microsoft's direction. Uh, and then making sure that everybody is, is, is skilled up appropriately. And, uh, and, and you're taking the client's best interest at heart is I think is really the key to it.

[00:28:18] And, and because the best part is, is when someone leaves, like a client will leave an organization and then they'll take you with them. Right. And that happens a lot. Um, which is just, which is just a testament to I think the value that we're bringing to these, uh, to these companies. Hmm. How do you, how are you intentional about that culture with your team? Well, we spend a lot of time on it.

[00:28:48] I mean, a lot of time. We talk about it. We talk about it as a leadership group. We talk about it in, uh, our, um, uh, is it in, at the manager level. We talk about it, um, without, with each other. Um, we have a, um, uh, we have a, we have a meeting, uh, every Friday at noon for everybody, the all hands meeting. And it's, you know, we do stuff.

[00:29:11] We'll, we'll handle, um, you know, we'll go through maybe announcements or some little bit of training or, Hey, here's what's new or here's what's coming. You know, we, we, we, we have the new people introduce themselves to everybody. Uh, and then at the end of the meeting, we, um, uh, we recognize our colleagues for jobs well done and we call it ringing the bell. And it, where it stems from is, is we were in a meeting, I don't know, five, six years ago or whatever, kind of a planning management planning meeting.

[00:29:40] And somebody said, Hey, you know, we don't recognize our successes. We're so busy. We like do it. Okay. That's done. And then we go to the next one. Yeah. And somebody said, we don't recognize it. We don't ring the bell. So I went out and I bought a big bell and I put it on my desk and we literally ring the bell for, for our people. And it's, it's really fun because we recognize, we'll recognize birthdays, recognize anniversary dates.

[00:30:07] Um, and then we'll kind of throw, I'll maybe recognize somebody ring the bell for somebody for, you know, job well done. And then we'll throw it out to everybody else. And sometimes that, that process, that recognition time of our meeting will go on for like 10 or 15 minutes. And it's just people who are appreciative of the efforts of their colleagues. Uh, and they express it in a public thing. And that's just, that's just one thing, right? It's kind of cool.

[00:30:36] It's a highlight of my week, but, um, uh, but we work very, very hard on who we are, what we do. We treat people with respect. We don't tolerate people who don't treat their teammates with respect. Um, and to the point where the organization kind of takes care of that on their own. Like, like, dude, we don't do that here. Right.

[00:30:58] Um, and then, you know, we've got about half of our employees work here at our corporate HQ in Wisconsin and the rest are kind of scattered all over the, uh, actually all over the world. We have some, we have somebody in, um, France now. No, um, the, but the, um, uh, but we're, we're super conscious about it. And we talk about it. We talk about when you're new. Um, it's a, it's an ongoing, it's an ongoing process. And we work real hard.

[00:31:28] Just one more thing about that. We work really, really hard to make sure there's parts of your job that give you energy. Mm-hmm. And then there's parts of your job that take your energy away. And that's why they call it work. Right? It's not fun. It's work. And, and so, but what we try to do is we try to, um, we try to make sure that everybody is in a job where the majority of their daily tasks are give them energy.

[00:31:55] And if they're, they get, and because we move so fast and because everything changes so fast, maybe your job description doesn't change, but maybe your job did. Mm-hmm. And so we're highly aware of when we may get into a situation where maybe the tasks that take away your energy get a little bit too much.

[00:32:13] And so, and then what we'll do is, is we'll, we'll take those tasks and we'll, that take away your energy and we'll create a new job and we'll hire somebody into that job who gets energy from those tasks. And we've got a couple of tools that we utilize for that. Um, but we, we, we think about it and we talk about it all the time because, you know, well, you gotta, you gotta be excited about getting out of bed in the morning. Cause, uh, cause you know, it's work.

[00:32:42] You do it every day. Yeah. Yeah. Um, how do you recognize, right? I'm a big believer in that. And in my team, we've, we've had people give up things and say, Hey, let's throw them out there. Like maybe we have somebody, uh, that we can hire and we've had other times where it's just like the thing that I loathe you, you, you, uh, you enjoy and, uh, vice versa. So we've had, we've done that, but I'm curious, how do you figure out what that, what those tasks are?

[00:33:11] Well, the first thing we do when people start to struggle, right? So in a traditional business setting, when people start to struggle, they go on a, a plan, right? Which is really the euphemism of get your resume together, pal. Cause you're going to be out the door in six weeks. We do the opposite. What we do is we surround them with support and because we hired them for a reason, they came to work here for a reason. And if they're struggling, we surround them with support to try to figure that out.

[00:33:40] We use a tool, uh, called, uh, uh, cultural index, which actually takes the traits. They've been tremendous for us. Um, it basically takes the traits that you were wired with since you were like 12 and it mirrors those to your job behaviors.

[00:33:59] And so we take, so we do that when you first start, cause we want to make sure like for goodness, for, we wouldn't want to, if we had a highly detail oriented job, we wouldn't want to hire somebody who was not detail oriented, for example. Right. Right. And then we take their job behaviors and we, uh, and we mirror them up and do we make sure that their job behaviors are close to what their inherent traits are.

[00:34:22] And, uh, uh, and then we take a picture, uh, about once a year, or if we have somebody who's struggling, we'll take a picture then. Right. Right. And then we'll, we'll work through it and we'll help people. Um, uh, uh, we'll help people get over that hump of, you know, whatever they're struggling with. And, um, I think that sends a really nice message, not just to those people, but to everybody else. Look, we all have ebbs and flows in our lives.

[00:34:50] And, you know, so if I struggle at work, they're just going to shoot me in the head and toss me out back. You know, that's what an awful situation that is. Right. So we just don't do that here. Um, and then, uh, and then I will say this and then, but there are some times where we can't give that person what they want professionally. They've outgrown the company. There's not another path for them to go.

[00:35:17] Um, and in those cases, um, we, uh, we graduate them and we call them alumni. And when you're alumni, you know, don't think about it. When you're alumni of a place, you think fondly of it. You recommend people go there. You still have friends there. Uh, you still have friends that used to be there who are also alumni. And we literally on the all hands meetings, we literally graduate people and we say, Hey, you're graduating. We wish you all the best of luck.

[00:35:45] And we celebrate the time that they were here and we celebrate their, uh, their future. Uh, and I think that's, you know, so we, I think create trying to create alumni when they leave and surrounding people with support where they're here. That just all ends up in that, you know, people are growing every day. That just, that just feeds into that, to that culture of, of this is a positive, pretty cool place to work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:13] I love the analogy of like when you're struggle, you know, we don't just take you out and shoot you in the head and get another. Right. Cause I think we all understand people are not commodities, but the traditional way of dealing with it is, it's kind of, you know, you're on a plan, do the things. Mm-hmm.

[00:36:32] And, uh, I love the nuance of understanding that maybe you're detail oriented, maybe you're technical, maybe you're those things, but there's things as the company's grown that have crept in that, you know, take your energy instead of give you energy. That people's, and that, that's happened. People, you know, their, their jobs have changed ever so slightly over a period of time to a point where they, they're doing things that are taking away their energy and that's how people get burnt out. Mm-hmm.

[00:37:01] So it's our job as, as leaders to be aware of that and recognize that and make sure that we have that conversation going on. You know, I tell people, I say, look, if you want to go get another job, don't, you don't have to be a secret agent around it. You just need to just, you know, tell us that you're not happy. Let's figure out why you're not happy. And if you got to go get another job, hell, I'll be your reference. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a far different level of transparency. Yeah. A hundred percent.

[00:37:32] So you use this cultural index tool to help you understand that individual. Is that right? Yep. And then how do you map that to, okay, I'm detail oriented or I like this or that, but then how do you understand, like, now I'm doing all these things and my original job description was this. And how do you figure out when maybe I'm, what's taking energy and what's giving me energy? So it's, so that's where we start, right? So we start with that and we look at job behaviors.

[00:37:59] And if the job behaviors get outside of, of what we're trying to, of, you know, if it's not a match, right? We start, then that gives us a jumping off point to start talking about it. Who we can start talking about the job. We can start talking about what parts of the job, you know, what, what happened there.

[00:38:23] And it's the first place we go when somebody's struggling, we go right to their, right to their traits pattern. And then we, we look at if we haven't had a good job behavior pattern, you know, a recent one, we'll have them do it again. And, and then it gives us the ability to go through and figure out, you know, like, so for example, right? So you have a, just take your basic frontline IT doc. So a lot of guys in IT, they're not necessarily super social.

[00:38:51] And so we have somebody who's not super social and all of a sudden they found themselves worked into a situation where they're on the phone a lot with clients that may take away their energy. And so we need to go in and we need to figure out what, what, what's going on with that. Right.

[00:39:14] So if they're being forced to take, to, to, to, to be, you know, to make their own decisions in the heat of battle or their own decisions in what they're trying to do, and maybe they're not wired that way. That can, that can exhaust you if you're not, you know, if that's not your thing. Like, so for example, I'm not super detail oriented and if I, I can be detail oriented for a short period of time, but if I'm detail oriented for an extended period of time, it exhausts me. Right.

[00:39:44] You know, I mean, if I, if I had a job that was all detail, I would, I would not last there more than six months. Right. Right. Right. It's funny you mentioned that because as leaders, we should try to understand our team. I think we all say that, but if you don't understand that, you know, your heart's in the right place and you want to do it and you want to help the team and you haven't given up.

[00:40:08] But we're, we're now in a spot where it could be as simple as, like you said, maybe you're not detail oriented to being in it longterm or maybe talking to people all day long, you know, whatever it is, it's taking your energy. And I think it's too often we lose that nuance. We go, oh man, you know, this guy used to be a hard worker and be fired up and now he's lost his, you know, we say stuff like they lost their drive or passion or ability. Why did that happen?

[00:40:36] I mean, there was something has occurred and usually it's not an event. It's, it's, it's a series of actions over time. And so we, we spend a lot of time as a management group talking about that stuff, making sure that we have the right people in the right jobs, making sure that, I mean, the term I use is we really want this to be the job you always wish you had.

[00:40:59] And, and I mean it, and it's, and we spend a lot of time talking about it, making sure that people are fulfilled, making sure that they're growing professionally in the area that they want to grow. So giving them the opportunities to do that. And what's been really nice too is with, because of our growth, there's been a lot of opportunities to grow, right?

[00:41:21] I mean, if this was a static business, we wouldn't have that, that probably that luxury that we have now to, to, to challenge people into kind of moving forward. How do they react when they first come to the organization and you start using language? Like, does this give you energy or take energy, right? That's, that's unusual. People, it's interesting. It's, it's, so when you start here, and this is something that just happened. I don't know why, how this happened, but.

[00:41:49] So when you started at 2W, the announcement goes out, right? I'd like to welcome, you know, so-and-so, you know, he's going to be this person and, you know, and he's going to start on Tuesday and he's going to be based here. You know, please join me in welcoming, right? And all of a sudden there'll be 45 emails from the team going, hey, welcome aboard, welcome aboard, welcome aboard.

[00:42:18] And so, and it was funny because I, I, I would, we just started this, this one fellow not too long ago. And he said, he said, it was wild. He goes, I walked in and I had 50 emails my first day and I went, oh my God, 50 emails. And they were all, hey, glad you're here. Welcome aboard, you know? Yeah. And, and I think, I think it starts there. Hmm. Right.

[00:42:45] And then everybody is, is super helpful. We try to, you know, minimize the, the territorial nature of things, right? And so what we find is everybody's really helpful. Everybody's more than willing to answer questions. And it's just, it's just an attitude and a mindset really. And, and I'd like to say it's, it's, it's, it's all because of brilliant leadership, but

[00:43:14] a lot of it is, you know, hey, I, I think I'm kind of lucky too. Yeah. Yeah. We, you may be able to attribute it to your leadership team if you don't take the credit yourself, right? You probably have an amazing team. Those guys, yeah, they all do a good job. Our HR director, she says, she says, we have a culture of we. She is how she puts it. And it's, I think it's, I think it's pretty spot on.

[00:43:41] So I imagine there's a lot that goes on in the transition of an organization from four to 70. Oh yeah. Yeah. So when you look back, were there certain, um, maybe more predictable that you can see in reverse where there, uh, hurdles you're going to hit at certain scale or levels that you had to overcome to reach the next level?

[00:44:09] Yeah, it was, you know, we, there is, and it's, it's, and you hear about it, you know, you read, you know, your business books or whatever, you know, you hit this certain plateau, you hit this certain plateau or whatever. Right. And so, you know, I found that the biggest challenge was we had scaled the organization for a certain level. Um, and our processes were designed around that level.

[00:44:35] And then when you blow past that, you really don't have the opportunity to go back and change your processes. Right. And so you're living with these, maybe these really super inefficient processes, uh, for a, uh, almost until the, the pain becomes too great that you're like, oh hell, we got to change this. Yeah. Right. So it's a, um, uh, so that's a, that's a, that's a piece.

[00:45:04] I think hiring people, you know, when we, the reason we use this, uh, cultural index product is we were experiencing a ton of turnover as we were changing and we were grinding, we couldn't figure out why. And so I networked into this particular tool and, uh, uh, and our consultant has been very, very helpful helping us to the boat. But that was really the change between high turnover, struggling growth, you know, painful

[00:45:34] processes and not was when we implemented that. And we bought into that, that situation. Where, where was that in your journey? Okay. 20 just for COVID. So it's 2019. I think, you know, the whole world is posted. That's right. Right. So, um, about how many folks do you think you had? I'm just kind of curious when you were hitting that, kind of hitting that wall from a skill perspective.

[00:46:01] We were mid teens. Okay. 20, something like that. Probably. So somewhere on the way to 20 is when you really hit this. Yeah. Somewhere on the way to 20 people, probably 20, yeah. 25 people, something like that. Gotcha. Yeah. Um, and that was key was understanding the, the people better figuring out how to build a process.

[00:46:28] And then find yourself, you said adopting, I know it's small, but like there's lots of people that buy tools. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. And, uh, uh, it's, it is, it's, it, it becomes when you, when you start growing, I mean, our hockey stick growth really came in over the last three or four years. And, um, uh, and that's, it's, there's, there's, there's stuff you don't even think about, like

[00:46:58] our laptop replacement, you know, it's like, okay, these things are four years old. Well, I just bought 20 laptops for these new people. And I got to buy 20 more for the people who, you know, like just stuff like that. You just don't, you, you, you, you, you, you don't equate for until it's staring in front of you. And then you're like, holy smokes. I think I got to get a plaque or something. I bought all these laptops and these tools and keyboards and mouse and stuff like that for internal use. Yeah.

[00:47:27] Uh, I'm going to switch gears, Mark. What do you feel like it's been the biggest lesson you've learned all over the years about building this business? Uh, I think it's been, I think it's, I think it's two things really. It's, it's people, right? People matter people that it makes the difference and it's not, it's not, it's not revolutionary. And it wasn't like something I discovered, like hit me like a bolt of lightning or whatever, but it just super rings true that this is us.

[00:47:57] Uh, this is, this, you know, we're, we're a people business, you know, I joke that, you know, my next business is going to be inventory based. Um, but, but it's a people business because, you know, we have clients and those clients are people and those people run businesses of their own and they have the same challenges that we do. And they're trying to be profitable. They're trying to make sure that their technology works and they got to watch their money and all that other stuff.

[00:48:23] And so I think it's really our, uh, our ability to have good people has really resonated. And again, I think that it kind of, there was kind of that pre and post where you have a lot of turnover and a lot of angst and then what was moving forward. And I think the, the other, the other thing is, is simplicity. So one of the dangers that we have in the, in the technology business is to make it really

[00:48:50] complicated because we like complicated, right? So, you know how our clients just want their shit to work. Well, you know, we, we like it when it doesn't work because then we get to get in there and, you know, figure it out. And I think sometimes we can make that, you know, we tend to speak in acronyms and long words and longer sentences. And we have this language all, uh, uh, uh, of our own.

[00:49:17] And I think the challenge is, and we work on this as one of our tenants actually is technology shouldn't make your head hurt. It's, it really is, you have to speak simply and plainly and so that the clients understand what we're doing, why we're doing it, making it simple to that, um, uh, making it simple

[00:49:42] so that they can understand it and shorter words and shorter sentences and, um, and directly and plainly. And we, and I think really, I think the combination of those two things makes a big difference here and makes a big difference to our clients. If there was one thing you could do over or do differently, what would that be? I think I would have, I think I would have been a little more aggressive.

[00:50:09] I think I would have made some decisions faster, especially early on. Um, you know, you're tentative cause you don't really know and you're trying to figure it out. So I think that we're, um, where I, I, I, I think that the, um, uh, I, I think that I would have made, you know, I would have made decisions faster and I probably would have leaned into some stuff a little quicker.

[00:50:37] Um, but to be honest, this journey, it's, it's kind of like that Frank Sinatra song. I mean, there might be some regrets, but they're really not worth mentioning. Well, you've made it to where a few MSPs do. Yeah. Growing happy employees, happy customers, 70 employees. What's your biggest challenge now? Uh, finding people, finding people. We'd beat a hundred people if I could find them. Wow.

[00:51:07] Right. Yeah. Um, it's, uh, uh, we've got, there is so much opportunity for us. Uh, and there's, we just, we can't take advantage of all of it because we just can't find the people. Uh, cause you know, what's funny is this, you know, unfortunately what's happened is, is we have this attitude and this culture here, but a lot of people have been sort of scarred from past jobs and they don't understand what we're doing here. Yeah. And so they're not good fits. Right.

[00:51:37] And so finding the people with the skillsets that want to accomplish what we're accomplishing, uh, is, uh, been, um, has probably been the challenge is probably the biggest challenge right now. That and answering all my email. Yeah. When will that ever be a, be a thing, right?

[00:52:02] Uh, is that part of what drove you to hire remotely or was that just kind of an side effect of COVID or? No, we, we've, we've always had people scattered around. We, we hire, um, we tend to hire the skilled people wherever they stand. Okay. Right. We have some, we have some groups that are here on purpose so we can have, you know, onsite collaboration or whatever, but, uh, the highly skilled folks, a lot of the Epicor

[00:52:33] consultants and Epicor people, we, we hire wherever they happen to live. Well, given all the change in the industry, I mean, we haven't covered MNA, we haven't covered all the blinky lights and all the new trends. I'm curious, what are you looking forward to the most? Um, well, I'll tell you, there's a couple of things. One is, um, I'm really kind of jacked up about some of the new initiatives we have this new, uh, uh, movement into the, uh, distribution space.

[00:53:02] I'm very excited about, um, we have just introduced a, uh, an AI product that actually we developed for ourselves, uh, year, uh, we've been working on it. Uh, uh, we started about two years ago. Uh, and it's because we, we, we, we do some ISV work for, for Microsoft and they, uh, so we get access to some of their early release stuff.

[00:53:28] And so we were able to, uh, get, uh, access to some of the cognitive services. This was just before chat GPT even came out. Um, and so we've been working with it, um, and we have implemented it internally and it has revolutionized the way that we do business. Um, we have it integrated into ConnectWise. It reads every ticket. It gives us feedback on those tickets.

[00:53:54] It routes it to sometimes, uh, depending if it's super obvious, it will respond back to clients' questions. Um, we, uh, we use it internally to, uh, for meeting notes, to create rough drafts of scopes of work. Uh, we have a language model that we've trained to our business.

[00:54:12] Um, and we have, um, uh, now we've started to offer it to our clients and that, uh, and, and, and that ability to do that is pretty neat. And I, it's, I equate it just like when we started doing, here's your server quote, here's your Azure quote. Um, and only, I think it's going to move a lot faster. Um, but again, there's also this big question mark as to what do I use it for? Right?

[00:54:42] Like I know I need to do AI, but I don't know what I need to do it with or for or to. Um, and so the ability to take that knowledge that we have and, and, and introduce our clients to it and to show them some use cases. I mean, we're, we're, I mean, we're doing some pretty neat things just internally. We, in fact, there's just a LinkedIn post that we put out, but we took our billing process.

[00:55:12] At first it was three days and we took it to four hours and now it's 20 minutes. Wow. Utilizing, uh, our, our product called resolve IQ. The reason we call it resolve IQ is because that's what it told us its name was.

[00:55:27] Uh, so we, uh, so, so being able to offer that to our clients and to bring that, uh, to the table and to be able to show them how they can harness the power of that either operationally or just for analytics purposes has been, uh, uh, starting to become a really cool conversation that we're having with our clients. I'm curious, is that a custom development type of project or is that like a subscription?

[00:55:57] Service that's, you know, Hey, um, it's a little both. So we did a, um, so what we did was we created some modules. So there's some modules that, um, uh, uh, that, that are available, um, to create the initial language model is, uh, is a one-time fee. And then there's some, uh, there's some usage fees along the way, but we really, we really focused in on trying to make it affordable because you know, you go and you're like, well, it's going to cost you.

[00:56:27] And what we found is, is that with, with, with, with, uh, AI. So there's a lot of application specific AI products, right? So you've got co-pilot, you've got, uh, Epicor has got its AI product, uh, and their application specific product. So they're, they're, they're grounded in the application and maybe the data that is yours in that application.

[00:56:49] And so what we found is, is that we create a language model that knows who you are and what you do and what business you're in and the information about, uh, your business and your terms and your language. Um, and then we start to hook it into some of those application specific, you know, uh, AI bolt-ons. It's far more productive and it's far more accurate.

[00:57:16] Um, and I mean, I can go to resolve IQ and I can ask it, you know, who are you and who do you work for? And it'll tell you all about 2W. It'll tell you why 2W is a cool place to work. Um, because it's built and it's grounded in, in, in our, in our business. Um, which gives us a way and it's segmented off from the world. So you don't have to worry about, you know, there's some real question about some of these publicly available AI tools and where that data goes.

[00:57:46] And with the way that we've designed this product is it's your data. It stays where you have it and where you've put it and it doesn't go anywhere else. What would you say to MSPs that are unsure that are kind of sitting on the sidelines right now with AI? Um, well, I, well, here's what I do. First, first and foremost, I think I would, you got to make the commitment, right? And, and so learn it internally, eat your own dog food.

[00:58:15] Um, that's been our mantra since the beginning, uh, with the Azure piece, with the Microsoft piece, with, uh, some of the Microsoft, um, uh, internal stuff, uh, with the Epicor stuff. We, we eat our own dog food. And I would recommend that that's where you start is learn on yourself. Mm-hmm.

[00:58:36] Um, I mean, we're fortunate we have a dev group and we've been able to build, we built this on, look, we let the billion dollar companies do the billion dollar work, you know, and we leverage all that stuff. Um, so we're not reinventing anything that somebody else hasn't, you know, that Microsoft, it's all built on Microsoft framework. Um, but I, it's, it's like anything else.

[00:58:57] It's whether you want to get into cloud infrastructure, whether you want to, you want to start looking at what value AI will bring to you, uh, whether you're looking at an acquisition, you know, maybe you're going to buy the MSP down the road or whatever. You have to commit. You can't, you just, you can't put a toe in. You got to commit. You got to say, here's what we're going to do.

[00:59:20] When we made the commitment to Microsoft, we hired a person who was a former Microsoft employee to do nothing but interface Microsoft. That's her whole job. So her job is to take all that data that Microsoft throws at us and pull out the parts that matter and then work with Microsoft so they understand what we're doing. And, and that's, I mean, we have, you know, FTE understands, I mean, who understands 365 licenses?

[00:59:48] There's like a thousand 365 SKUs. Business premium has over 110 pieces of different functionality modules. It's complicated. And that's her job. That's what she does. And the fact that we were able to make, and she does a terrific, terrific at it. And because we were able to make that commitment to ourselves and to our partner in the terms of a, a really, really talented, really smart FTE. That's what I mean by commitment.

[01:00:17] I mean, you got to look, you got to scratch the check. You got to close your eyes and jump off the bridge and be pretty sure that there's water at the bottom. Um, cause that's, that, that, that's how you, that's how you get to where you want to go. I think. Hmm. So you were early with Azure, you know, sending this quotes and you had to learn about it. Your team had to learn about it. 365. Now AI.

[01:00:42] I, um, what I found personally about AIs, I could spend a little bit of time and know a little, or I could spend all my time and still know a little. So how do you think about that? How do you, how do you figure out like how much resources to devote? How, how big to bet on this? If you think it's a big deal or not a big deal and just, just the practical, like.

[01:01:06] Well, part of it is honestly, part of it's what gives me energy, which is the, the, and our CTO says this, he goes, the cool thing. The thing about our CEO is he loves all the cool shit and it's true. And that's what gives me energy. And if we can, you know, so when they bring stuff to me, um, I'm like, yeah, let's go. Right. And then, but you got to watch it. You gotta, you gotta pay attention to it. You just can't let it run wild. You gotta watch it.

[01:01:35] You gotta figure out where the value is. We figured early on that there was such value to the AI process internally. That if I never sell one resolve IQ to a client, uh, it was well worth the development effort. Um, uh, and, and I think. You know, so some of it is educated gut. We'll call it. Right. It just, the, the Azure thing just made sense to me. Right.

[01:02:03] The whole, you know, servers, you know, you know, the, what's Moore's law. Is it Moore's law that, uh, everything gets twice as fast every other year or whatever, and half as expensive or whatever. Yeah. The whole thing is, uh, the whole server thing is, uh, is just a losing proposition over time. Uh, and it's not a great business model where I can charge our clients a monthly fee. I can keep them up to date, new technology. They have no downtime.

[01:02:31] I can make it as resilient, as redundant as they need to be. They can access it from their, from their facilities in Costa Rica, as well as in Chicago. Um, it just, it just made sense that that that's where technology is going to go. Yeah. I couldn't agree more, but we still have a lot of MSPs doing on-prem every day. So you gotta, you gotta pick your side, right? You gotta make that bet. It's, it's, it's tough because I get it. It's hard to let go of the stuff that you know and you understand. Yeah.

[01:03:01] Um, but I think if I were to, so here's what's, here's what's happening to us because of the stuff with AI, because of the stuff with Microsoft, because of the cloud stuff, we are creating, um, we are creating networks that make very little noise. Um, and we are also then creating, um, environments where because of the AI component of it.

[01:03:30] So look, you put in a ticket here. There's a chance that AI may resolve IQ might respond to you and say, Hey, try these three things while you're waiting for your callback. Cause we're starting to get feedback that says, Oh, you know what? I did one of those three things and it works. Thanks for checking in. Um, I think that that part of our business is slowly going to become that whole break fix part of our MSP business is going to become less and less and less.

[01:03:58] And our clients are going to start to look at, look to us for guidance and leadership as to what comes next and what should I use this? Look, there's a lot of confusion in technology right now. Nobody knows. They don't know where to go, right? Do I do this? Do I do that? Do I do this other thing over here? I Googled security and, you know, Googling security is like going to web, my web MD and Googling headache. You know, it's either you need a nap and an aspirin or you'll be dead in six weeks. Yeah.

[01:04:26] And it's, and, and I think that guidance and that consulting will become more and more important to our clients than the old fashioned. My computer doesn't work. My computer doesn't work. I've got a virus. I'm going to run out. I'm going to, you know, put up my Superman cape and swoop in and be the hero. I don't, I see that becoming less and less.

[01:04:52] I see the consulting part of this, the guidance part of this becoming more and more. And I, I truly believe, and I've said this more than all, pretty frequently. I think the future of, of our technology and of our business, our MSP business is going to end up being the interconnectivity of everything to everything else. Hmm.

[01:05:15] And, um, you know, I mean with, you know, cloud, like I run my entire business off my iPad. And when I need to access a windows machine, I open up a cloud PC and it's, and it's all right there, you know? And so it's, um, uh, uh, uh, and that human interface device being, it doesn't matter what it is, right?

[01:05:41] It's whatever you prefer it to be like, you know, like the kids, I, I am old. So I, I, I talk like I'm old and the kids, they prefer screens that are about this big, right? I like screens that are maybe that big. Right. Yeah. Um, the, I think the, uh, I think that part of our business, the whole break, traditional break fix, you know, level one, level two pieces eventually going to become the

[01:06:10] there's always, look, there's always going to be people who can't make their printers work and there's always going to be people who forget their passwords. Sure. Um, but I think the other part of that is going to start to become more and more, um, more and more not an issue. And I think we need to, I think as an, I think as an industry, I think we need to gear up for that. Hmm. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. That's some, some great advice.

[01:06:38] Uh, what's the one book you would recommend that's helped you the most, Mark? Um, well, I'll tell you, it's funny asking, cause I just recommended this to some people. Uh, it's an old, it's been around forever. It's called, uh, Crossing the Chasm by Jeffrey Moore. And it's how people identify, uh, uh, adopt technology. And so with the AI piece, it's, you know, we're looking for innovators. We're not looking for laggards, right? We're looking for the innovators.

[01:07:07] We're looking for the visionaries, you know, and then we need to put the effort in to get it into the early majority. Uh, you know, Azure was the same way, right? Uh, those folks that are willing to walk, to, to, to, to take the leap, to, uh, walk away from traditional on-prem iron. Um, it's important that we understand who we're talking to and that we can identify who those people are. And so I've been, I found myself kind of leaning into that a little bit more.

[01:07:35] And then I literally, I have, it's on my shelf in my office and I literally walked it up to our social media and communications person. And I said, here, you need to read this. So I guess that would be it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great book. I think too often we forget, especially when we are the guys that like to play with the new tech, that, that is not most of the world and certainly not most of our client base. They're not the innovators.

[01:08:03] Uh, yeah, you know, you're, you're exactly right. Cause we are, we're innovators, right? Or we're visionaries. And in my world, most of my clients are late majority or laggards. Yeah. So we have to understand that, right? Yeah. You're not even dealing with early majority. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You've got to have proof sources and references and yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Super interesting business that you built where you can be developing your own AI, right?

[01:08:31] If you, if somebody would have said, there's this really innovative MSP that's all in on Azure and in the cloud and was early to that and develop their own AI application already that they can sell. But this, but there's this MSP that serves like the, you know, manufacturing market. I would have said, those are not the same. Those are not the same entities. 12 years ago, if you would have said that to me, you know, eight years ago, you would have said to me, I'd been like, what?

[01:09:00] That's no way. That is amazing accomplishment. Mark, how could people find you online? Sure. I'm on LinkedIn. Mark Jameson, 2W Tech. LinkedIn's a good way to do it. 2W Tech.com is our website. I have a, a link tree I think is on my LinkedIn profile.

[01:09:28] Again, I, I take no credit for any of that. That's all our social media people. I, I'm just sort of along for the ride and a lot of that stuff. But, but that's usually a, that's usually a good place to, to check me out and to find me. Awesome. Well, this has been a really fun interview and a tremendous gift. Thank you for being on MSP Mindset. Hey, thanks for inviting me. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you.