Connor Swalm of Phin Security

[00:00:02] Hello ladies and gentlemen

[00:00:04] Welcome to a May 2nd edition of the MSP initiative MSP talk. It is May and for those May babies out there

[00:00:11] I'm one of them happy birthday to events

[00:00:14] Because you know what?

[00:00:16] After this month is beaches and planes and vacations and God knows what else people do during the summertime

[00:00:22] I hope that you're already planning because once the summer times here

[00:00:26] Yeah, don't stop for anybody. Just get some housekeeping out of the way. Here we go

[00:00:31] MSP initiative dot com

[00:00:33] You can see this session and every other session we've ever done

[00:00:37] Recorded in both audio and video format. We put it on the podcatcher's YouTube and this sessions page on MSP initiative comm

[00:00:44] So like share subscribe forward delete download you name it. It's all here rock and roll

[00:00:52] Thank you for everybody that came out to our Nashville MSP community minds

[00:00:55] We're planning to do a second MSP community minds later on this year in Denver

[00:01:00] So we're returning back to the scene of the original MSP community

[00:01:03] minds actually from last year so

[00:01:07] And some of the spaces that you see here that were in Nashville might be joining us again in Denver stay tuned

[00:01:11] But we did MSP panels

[00:01:13] So we want to hear from people that were in the trench like you figuring out what works

[00:01:17] What doesn't work? We had a number of topics

[00:01:19] Then we also had some workshops people who are experts in their fields that surround the MSP ecosystem

[00:01:24] And doing actual two-hour

[00:01:27] workshops with you not just death by PowerPoint with the idea of trying to figure something out but actually how to get there

[00:01:34] So check out the the agenda from Nashville. I think we did a pretty dead bang up job. This was a completely educational event

[00:01:42] Thank you to all the sponsors that helped put us

[00:01:44] Put to help us put this on so they're all right here on the screen threat locker alternative payments b-boy carbon systems coral

[00:01:49] Inova super ops a 20 trend and Taylor business group and our community partner comp here

[00:01:55] So there all that is stay tuned for Denver dates. We will be posting them

[00:02:00] Hopefully soon of course then we get into our after parties black parties nighttime activities, which were well known for

[00:02:06] two of them coming up

[00:02:08] Next month one packs eight beyond Denver in

[00:02:12] June so there's a week of June. I believe it would be June 10th

[00:02:16] That evening so stay tuned. We'll be on the agenda

[00:02:19] We'll be making announcements about that. We're super excited to work with the backs a team

[00:02:23] On their us event and then

[00:02:25] We're gonna jump on a plane

[00:02:27] We're gonna fly over to Dublin like the next day and I believe like two days later not the 10th

[00:02:31] Not the 11th, but the 12th we will be doing a block party in

[00:02:36] Dublin for the casserole data con

[00:02:39] Event that we also did last year. We're doing again this year

[00:02:42] So if you're on the european side of the ocean join us if you're on the us side of the ocean

[00:02:48] Join us if you're flying from one of those two oceans to one of the other events

[00:02:51] Join us because it has an msb cost you absolutely nothing for you to join in on this

[00:02:56] Just register ahead of time so you don't have to stay in a lot

[00:03:01] We have some community offers these are just deals from people around the community that may or may not help you

[00:03:05] Awesome, if you can take advantage and then our industry calendar

[00:03:08] That we put together what a month already look at all these events that are happening

[00:03:11] Goes to the end of the year. Hopefully this helps you just pay attention to what's going on so, you know

[00:03:17] What's happening in the sandbox? So all of that is available at mspinitiative.com

[00:03:24] That is all the housekeeping I did it in like

[00:03:27] Under five minutes pretty good

[00:03:29] Today we bring our special guests on the podcast

[00:03:33] Connor how you doing today connor?

[00:03:36] I'm having a blast. How are you george?

[00:03:38] You know, we were just talking about you know, I

[00:03:41] fixtures and the nicks and

[00:03:44] I you know, charles parkley got on your last night

[00:03:46] He's like why are you letting the nicks fans into the building making noise? I agree charles like it's pho

[00:03:52] I thought we had a rep right? I thought we had to like keep up with like the hey

[00:03:56] You don't even want to walk to the parking lot to get to the stadium noise like why are we letting these people in the building?

[00:04:01] so

[00:04:02] As a guy who you know took some time out of his day on sunday to go see that game info at alphe which we lost

[00:04:09] Then they won and now they're coming back

[00:04:11] Uh, yeah, I mean sports fandom is is at jeopardy here. They should not allow that

[00:04:17] I mean it might just be the the philly curse that everyone knows and loves where it's you know

[00:04:23] Sam hanky process

[00:04:25] I thought I thought the eagles and the phillies finally broke all this and like

[00:04:29] They put the little statue on top of the comcast and like fully in pen and like we broke this but

[00:04:35] I don't know man. The sixes and the flyers have been so bad

[00:04:39] For so long. I almost sometimes forget they are still playing in this town

[00:04:45] That is true that is true like I I was telling my buddy that I went to on the game uh on sunday

[00:04:51] I probably haven't been to the wells for argo center

[00:04:54] In years like seven years ten years something crazy

[00:04:58] But I've been the phillies games have been the eagles games as you know, you know when i'm not working

[00:05:02] I tend to be at one of those two, uh, which one am I ever not working but I digress um

[00:05:09] But yeah next time you get into it with a nix fan at the super g

[00:05:13] You let them know where you're from and you give them a little bit of noise and you tell them that new york nonsense

[00:05:18] We don't like that down here. Yeah, we don't we don't like you got two teams because they're both bad

[00:05:23] Right, I mean like you're that big that you have double of every team and like

[00:05:28] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and you have the same the same city that the jets come from like come on

[00:05:33] I know well I have to remind people all the time that they play in new jersey

[00:05:39] I was like it's called the new york jets. They play in New Jersey. Don't forget. Um

[00:05:43] Which is funny right because I always remind people about that super bowl that was at the meadowlands

[00:05:48] You know where they're like, oh, it's okay

[00:05:50] It'll be fine and then like like half an hour after the end of the game. It was like a blizzard

[00:05:55] And they've never had a yeah, and then of course I say that but then

[00:05:58] I drove to minnesota in like negative 15 degree temperature to go watch eagles patriots

[00:06:03] In 2018, but they're like, oh it's an indoor stadium. I was like you still have to be outside to get insa

[00:06:09] all this stuff outside

[00:06:12] Uh, how how are things going over in your side of the world my friends?

[00:06:15] Things are going great. We're about to enter event season as we were chatting about a little earlier

[00:06:20] I think we got like five different events that we're gonna be at in just june alone

[00:06:26] So

[00:06:27] I'm not as good as busy time for anybody. It doesn't know connor's from a company called fin

[00:06:33] We'll talk about that in a second, but connor for people who don't know you how about just a quick

[00:06:37] Intro right? How did you you know house technology land been treating you?

[00:06:42] How's your journey been and like how do we how do we get to today?

[00:06:46] The journey has been quite eventful

[00:06:49] Booms and busts of entrepreneurship or whatever. Uh, I don't know. I don't like calling myself an entrepreneur. It feels uh

[00:06:55] Because a little weird

[00:06:57] Definitely not a not a label. I like as well

[00:07:00] I actually was a real estate investor for quite some time, but then I lost all my money

[00:07:03] So had to move back into mama dad's

[00:07:07] For those of you who are just listening, you know, even though I do look very young

[00:07:10] I got the hairline of a 40 year old as you can see I'm 28. I'm 28. All right

[00:07:15] Um

[00:07:16] And uh, it was living in my parents house like, you know what I like software

[00:07:20] I like writing code. I like doing math stuff. So I'm gonna do that

[00:07:25] To cut a very long and adventurous journey short

[00:07:29] I ran across one msp in the midst of that

[00:07:32] And everyone knows msp's there's no shortage of things to complain about and there's no shortage of msp's that will complain about those things

[00:07:39] So that msp I ran into was like these are all the problems I have with all my tools

[00:07:43] Don't build me a better one build me a shittier tool that's easier to use and I'll work with you tomorrow

[00:07:48] It's like bad software is something I can do

[00:07:51] Uh, and so that's how it started like three three years ago. And now uh my team no longer lets me write code

[00:07:57] I am as it turns out and the worst developer

[00:08:00] Uh, and so I have much smarter people who are much more capable

[00:08:03] And uh, frankly, I'd be you know making the company move backwards if I tried to keep writing code

[00:08:09] so

[00:08:10] here we go

[00:08:11] Well, well my team surely doesn't want me writing any code. That's for sure. So we're on the same page there

[00:08:18] The fact that you went into real estate and it like was that because of all the covet stuff like what exactly happened there?

[00:08:24] No, so um in college I was there studying math because I really liked it

[00:08:28] And I decided to flip houses to pay for my loans

[00:08:32] So I got connected with a local wholesaler if anyone knows real estate

[00:08:36] That's a person who finds properties for investors to buy and then makes like a spread in between

[00:08:40] So I got connected with this wholesaler. He taught me everything he knew

[00:08:44] Um, and I was flipping houses in college flipped one a year while I was there paid for most of my loans

[00:08:49] And then when I graduated I had the opportunity to borrow uh, like one and a half million dollars

[00:08:54] I think that was the exact amount actually

[00:08:57] from a local group of real estate investors that I had ingratiated myself with

[00:09:01] And did that and flipped four homes at a time

[00:09:04] I had four different contracting teams that were working for me across the state of Delaware

[00:09:08] It's a small state, but you know two hours top to bottom. So I was driving a lot and um

[00:09:13] Bought a home that I shouldn't have that everyone that I'd ever trusted counseled me not to buy and I essentially

[00:09:19] Told them to go screw themselves

[00:09:20] They were sitting on the sideline for a reason. They had no idea what they were talking

[00:09:24] I'm in the arena as uh that one of investors. I'm doing things

[00:09:28] And uh, just tales oldest time lost all my money lost about 100 grand personally paid all my investors back when the home sold

[00:09:34] But I had to move back into my parents with nothing for the shirt on my back

[00:09:38] And that's when I realized I only did that for the money and now I don't got the money. So I'm done

[00:09:44] That was it

[00:09:46] Hey, that's that's it's actually a good lesson, right? I mean like hey, you took a shot on yourself

[00:09:52] That's good

[00:09:53] You know, you just

[00:09:54] You know you gambled on a decision that didn't work out for you man

[00:09:58] I mean, I still would rather have tried and lost and never tried right. I mean

[00:10:04] You'll learn from those things. I think so. Um

[00:10:08] I learned a ton about myself

[00:10:10] That's the biggest learning lesson was like, uh, oh

[00:10:14] I am not as smart as I think I am i'm not as capable as I believe and

[00:10:19] I should definitely take more time to slow down and listen to people who have

[00:10:25] What is actually valuable things to say?

[00:10:27] um

[00:10:29] And it sucks it sucks going from i'm i have the mightest i'm a 21 year old kid, right

[00:10:34] Might as touch everything i'm touching turns to money

[00:10:37] Got a bunch of money more money than my friends in the bank account making more money than my parents

[00:10:42] and uh

[00:10:44] My head wouldn't fit through the door if you knock down the wall

[00:10:46] But that's that's the kind of connor that existed at that point in time as it turns out

[00:10:51] And I went through this process of like went from that to oh, i'm in my mom's basement

[00:10:57] Because I messed not because anyone else messed up. I had all the opportunity that I messed up only me

[00:11:02] I'm the loser here

[00:11:04] That is a difficult internal

[00:11:06] process to go through but I did

[00:11:09] Uh, and I'm a much better pair. I believe I'm a much better person as a result, but it sucked

[00:11:13] No, I mean listen like I said

[00:11:16] Um, there's a lot of people that I've never tried connor. Let's be honest

[00:11:19] There's a lot of people that follow the elbrich road, right to go to school

[00:11:22] They get a professional gig and then they're in the system and that's it and like

[00:11:27] American dream right anybody can start a business doesn't mean it's gonna be successful

[00:11:31] But they get yours. I'll start one. So um, that's interesting like how do you apply some of the things that you learn then?

[00:11:38] To ultimately what you're in now, right you're in software. You're in msp space

[00:11:43] I mean it is a business software is a little bit different than real estate, but like

[00:11:49] Business is still business. There's things that apply to every company out there small big in between

[00:11:54] so like

[00:11:55] When you decided to also or maybe tell us a little bit about the story of why you decided to go down the path that you did

[00:12:00] and like the category that you chose and then

[00:12:03] Could you apply some of the lessons you you learned onto what you're doing now?

[00:12:07] Yeah, 100%

[00:12:10] So I told you that I was studying math in college

[00:12:14] And I was flipping homes

[00:12:15] I I point that out because what I want people to know is I went to college because I enjoyed it

[00:12:21] I enjoyed the math

[00:12:23] Not because I needed a career nor was I going did I have dreams of having a career?

[00:12:28] uh

[00:12:30] It's because I was I was already making money

[00:12:32] Doing real estate and so I was like, you know what I'll do this because I enjoy it

[00:12:35] You know, I also played the cross there. So I was having a blast

[00:12:38] I think it was just a great experience and but I had never planned to do anything with it

[00:12:42] and

[00:12:44] When when the money left that's when I went back to okay. I actually enjoyed that

[00:12:49] I have nothing to lose because I've lost it all

[00:12:53] Actually like literally lost it all. You know, I'm living with mom and so

[00:12:57] I was like, I'm gonna write code

[00:12:59] And in that process when I when I met that 1msp

[00:13:02] The only thing that I knew of was

[00:13:04] I'm going to work as as as hard as I'm gonna work as hard as I possibly can at this for as long as I'm allowed to

[00:13:11] Like how long are mom and dad gonna give me a few hundred bucks a month to pay for my car insurance?

[00:13:15] I don't know. I'm willing to try

[00:13:18] So I kind of did that for quite some time

[00:13:21] And then

[00:13:23] Kind of the lesson that I learned is how I got my start in the in the msp industry other than talking with that one local msp was

[00:13:30] And that was Spencer and you know, Wes

[00:13:33] And I put

[00:13:34] A meme or my co-founder actually put a meme under one of his photos on linkedin

[00:13:39] And that started a conversation that turned into

[00:13:42] Holy shit

[00:13:43] This guy has some really wise things to say this guy knows

[00:13:47] He you know, he he helped build a successful company. It was perch at the time now. It's connected with sim

[00:13:52] Um, you know, he's on to his next thing empath, but I just remember meeting him. I'm like

[00:13:57] Hey

[00:13:58] I will do anything you tell me to make this work. So I don't care. You ask me to jump

[00:14:03] I'm

[00:14:04] I'm asking you how high and then I'm gonna try to jump a little higher. It's like I

[00:14:08] Because of that experience I went from I know what I'm I know what I'm doing

[00:14:12] I'm gonna keep working hard and I'm I'm the person

[00:14:15] That that has all the ideas too

[00:14:17] Hey, man, I have no idea how to do any of this. I know I can work really hard

[00:14:22] Can you just tell me what to do?

[00:14:24] And you would be really shocked how many people will just fucking tell you what to do

[00:14:29] Like they will actually just say go do these things and I promise the work and the the prime example

[00:14:33] I give is I had no idea about the

[00:14:36] um, you know

[00:14:38] Culture around the events here

[00:14:40] Like even msp initiative like the events after the event. It's like I had no idea

[00:14:45] Any any inkling of the msp industry and how they all get together and there's a huge community piece

[00:14:51] But I called west on a friday

[00:14:53] Friday night

[00:14:55] And we were talking and he said hey monday is one of the biggest security events in the industry of the year

[00:15:01] You should show up

[00:15:02] And I had literally I had enough I had a 1200 our credit limit is what I had really

[00:15:06] Um, and my co-founder josh was on that call with me

[00:15:09] It's like, you know, I'm just I don't I'm not feeling it

[00:15:12] I had to book a last minute flight last minute hotel. I'm not doing it

[00:15:16] and josh was like

[00:15:17] Connor will be there

[00:15:19] Thank you west

[00:15:20] And that was it and I booked a flight put it on a credit card booked a hotel

[00:15:24] There's a literally a motel eight down the road like I couldn't stay at the event

[00:15:27] and uh

[00:15:29] Spent every dollar that somebody would lend me which was 1200 on my american express at the time

[00:15:35] And uh went to that event and I was like, what do I do?

[00:15:38] What do I do here?

[00:15:38] He's like your job is to talk to as many people that'll ever listen to you and ask them about what you want

[00:15:43] The problem you want to solve which was awareness training because it's what that one msp had told me they were struggling with

[00:15:48] And I did that and at the end of that event

[00:15:50] I showed west a note that I had in my phone

[00:15:54] Of what ended up being like 60 people that I had a conversation with contact information

[00:15:59] What the conversation was about it was essentially I was hustling

[00:16:01] It's all I had to do

[00:16:02] It's like west is like you're just gonna hustle get here and hustle do whatever you need to

[00:16:06] Bring people over to me leverage me in any way shape or form, but you got to hustle

[00:16:10] I was like

[00:16:11] I had no idea what i'm doing here, but okay, and I did it

[00:16:14] And that that event ended up leading to like 10 or 12 partners that signed up long term

[00:16:18] And also it was our first million and funding that we raised ended up being from people that we had met

[00:16:23] investors advisors

[00:16:25] People who had bought and sold companies in the industry at that event

[00:16:28] And so it's like I had all the faith in the world

[00:16:32] That I have no idea what i'm doing, but I think this guy knows what he's doing

[00:16:35] So

[00:16:37] I'm gonna listen to him

[00:16:38] Um and it ended up working out in west as a great friend of mine

[00:16:40] And I you know every minute I get to spend with that guy is a is a minute. I absolutely love so

[00:16:45] Hey

[00:16:47] again

[00:16:48] A little bit of drive and self determination, but

[00:16:50] Took a check he took a shot right? I mean, it's a great story actually. It's like hey

[00:16:55] I had like no money to my name, but I still took a chance and you know what worked out. That's good

[00:17:01] So

[00:17:02] I mean listen

[00:17:03] There's a lot of security awareness avenues out there right?

[00:17:06] I mean number one is your requirement for a lot of things. Let's not you know forget that that's

[00:17:13] One of the base things if you talk to the brad grosses of the world, right?

[00:17:16] It's like hey, this was like the lowest common denominator that you needed to do and if you didn't

[00:17:21] You leaving yourself open to all sorts of damage it could be prevented by something just literally that simple

[00:17:27] But I digress I like the you know the lawyers talk lawyers

[00:17:32] You know

[00:17:34] Because there are you know and again

[00:17:36] Some of and we can you know not to throw all the the people in the pool on the on the list here

[00:17:41] But like there are some really big companies that do this and then there's a lot of companies that do like a bolt-on, right?

[00:17:46] They're like oh, we're in the security space. We're just gonna

[00:17:49] But you know, you know, there's something to decide

[00:17:51] So like when you went through those 60 people and you started getting all that feedback

[00:17:57] What was it that they told you that they didn't find out there that they were asking you to build?

[00:18:03] The biggest piece was um

[00:18:06] You know honestly now it's like a uh a red flag for me if somebody said I need more automation. It's like

[00:18:12] If you can't tell me what that means you have no idea what you really need

[00:18:16] So it's a red flag but that was essentially what they were saying is like hey go talk like one uh one msp

[00:18:21] That was there the owner I talked to the owner like yeah, yeah, yeah

[00:18:24] I care about this little but you know who really does care about this the tech that I brought

[00:18:28] They complain about it all the time go talk to them

[00:18:30] And then I talk with a technician and their answer was if I create campaign

[00:18:35] I'll get I'll get real specific on some of the functionality if I create a phishing campaign

[00:18:39] Why can't I just click a button and have that run at all my clients right now?

[00:18:42] If I create a training campaign, why can't I do if I upload a piece of video content that I want to deliver?

[00:18:47] Why can't I just say add it to these campaigns go if I connect to your your user sync?

[00:18:52] Why do I have to come back into the platform and keep keep like keep sinking?

[00:18:56] Just do that shit for me. Have the users pull in when you do reporting

[00:18:59] Why do I have to come on the platform or download a report? I don't want to do any of these things

[00:19:03] Now a lot of platforms actually fix a lot of those but at the time this was maybe three or four years ago at this point

[00:19:09] It was like, all right. I just jot down notes

[00:19:11] I was like, all right

[00:19:12] I got 20 things here if I could find a way to solve all 20 of these things

[00:19:15] It sounds like this guy or this girl does far less work to make this awareness training program run in all their clients

[00:19:22] And that was the primary thing that they focused on

[00:19:25] I also interviewed

[00:19:27] Oh the the founders of other awareness training companies because I wanted to know who they were

[00:19:33] Uh, you know, I haven't talked to stew just yet, but you know, we're working on it

[00:19:38] We talked to and I think it ended up being 12

[00:19:40] 12 companies that did awareness training some that focused completely on enterprise

[00:19:44] Some that focus on only super regulated industries like hip, uh, healthcare providers and whatnot

[00:19:49] And some that focus on msp some that focus on

[00:19:52] Small businesses and don't want to work with msp. I talked to anyone that found an awareness training company

[00:19:57] And I asked them why should anyone bother to work with you?

[00:20:00] I'm about to enter the industry

[00:20:02] And i'm a super competitive, you know, whatever. I'm not from philly. I'm near philly, but I'm a super competitive guy

[00:20:07] It's like, yeah, yeah

[00:20:09] uh

[00:20:11] I will be the nicest person in the world

[00:20:12] But yeah, I want to succeed so badly that you know, you got trouble feeding your employees because i'm winning at all

[00:20:18] It's like, I want to compete that badly. I'm gonna be very nice about it

[00:20:21] Never disrespect for nothing like that, but that's how much I want to win

[00:20:24] So I was talking to these competitors and I'm like, why should anyone bother to work with you?

[00:20:28] And every single one of them their answer was the exact same our content that we build in house is better

[00:20:33] I was like

[00:20:35] Really by like the fourth or the fifth person that it told me that founder that told me I was like

[00:20:39] Hey, uh, so I've heard this from this person this person this person and this person

[00:20:44] They all some of them have content that looks kind of like yours. I get it

[00:20:47] You know whatever i'm not discounting what you're building here

[00:20:50] But like if all of you say this

[00:20:52] Then none of you are saying this right and also I literally had one person to say we we animate like naruto and not dragon ball z

[00:20:59] and I went back to

[00:21:02] I went back to a conversation that happened all the time in college where I would try to explain how excited I was about math to

[00:21:08] anyone

[00:21:09] and

[00:21:10] The instantaneously, uh, yeah, my buddies. I gotta go my buddies. Call me stop talking like I don't want to talk to you

[00:21:15] Goodbye, and I went to the uh the employees of the msp's clients that we were serving

[00:21:21] It's like hey, what's your thoughts on cyber security education?

[00:21:25] Specifically the content that you go through they're like I hate it. I don't I don't want to talk about this

[00:21:30] This sucks. It's like no matter who they were using at the time or what their previous provider was did matter

[00:21:37] Some of them had multiple providers over decades of their employment

[00:21:41] They all had the same complaint which is I fundamentally don't want to this is a roadblock to my own progress

[00:21:45] Which is to just get my boss off my ass. I was like

[00:21:49] Oh

[00:21:50] I can't make my differentiator content. Not only are these other companies already doing it incredibly well

[00:21:55] But if my end goal is to actually teach people to value security in such a way that they'll change their behavior in some way shape or form

[00:22:02] It's like it's not going to be through

[00:22:04] Hiring more expensive celebrities or more expensive voice actors or animating with a better team. It's going to be through something else

[00:22:10] Um and kind of where we hung our hat was well the msp is going to deploy this anyway

[00:22:14] Whether they like it or not cyber insurance regulation have made sure of that as you had mentioned earlier

[00:22:19] so it's like

[00:22:20] um

[00:22:20] There are a few things we do to change the user experience but largely our focus is

[00:22:25] And still it was and still is how do we make this better for the msp?

[00:22:28] Because they're just kind of click a button and turn this on and their clients know that they have to do it

[00:22:33] Yeah, no, I mean let's be honest

[00:22:36] By the way, keith nelson, how are you doing?

[00:22:39] Yes, connor is a philadelphia fan. Sorry for you know, you and mr. Dallas over there

[00:22:43] Yes, he's a cool guy great mind totally agree

[00:22:46] George is the big bucks. I disagree but that's fine. All right, so

[00:22:50] Hmm

[00:22:52] The concept to your point you made a comment like hey if you ask about automation

[00:22:57] And you don't even know what that is you like go back and figure out what that means for you come and talk to me

[00:23:02] I mean but connor they've been saying this word for ever

[00:23:05] I mean in all fairness it's been a word that's been marketed to the msp for as long as i've been in the sandbox

[00:23:12] yeah

[00:23:14] It's almost a little bit of like fools gold right because like nobody ever seems to be able to achieve it

[00:23:21] So like now I know it's a little bit different right fast forward three years down the road

[00:23:25] there's more technology more tools ai machine learning all this other stuff right but like

[00:23:31] Part of the problem that we keep on running into is

[00:23:34] More liability and more work gets dumped on the msp and their

[00:23:38] Resources don't grow with that right that actually I'd say it goes the other way they shrink

[00:23:43] In terms of what they can put towards a problem or the day to day and then like but the workload goes up so

[00:23:49] I'm curious when you talk to all those people who are like, uh, I hate this topic

[00:23:55] Why do they struggle communicating what they actually need versus just the punchline right because like

[00:24:02] I've probably heard the word automation a million times

[00:24:06] Like at what point do we actually get real feedback that you can action out of them or was that part of your like

[00:24:13] Kind of due diligence process when you were trying to figure out what you were building right?

[00:24:16] You're like, I'm not sure this person knows what they want come back to me and talk to me later

[00:24:20] I'll give you a real specific example that we uh one of the things that we do now is if somebody says

[00:24:25] Um specifically with integration. I want to integrate with this. We don't say all right. How do we do it? We say

[00:24:31] What do you want to do with that?

[00:24:33] Mm-hmm. I'll give you a real specific example. We're going through right now. Um connectwise PSA or whatever they call it these days

[00:24:38] It's the names changed too often for me to keep up

[00:24:42] Uh, yeah, we want you to integrate with our PSA great. What do you want to do?

[00:24:45] What kind of information you looking to get out? What do you want to do with that?

[00:24:48] Are you piping this out of your PSA somewhere else? Why don't we just integrate with that thing?

[00:24:51] So it's like you as product owners

[00:24:54] I'm talking about like the the business owners or the vendors

[00:24:56] Or if you have a product manager or product owners on your team, it's like you got to get really good at asking the actual question

[00:25:01] So if somebody says automation, they're not asking for automation

[00:25:05] They're asking for certain jobs and activities that they know they don't want to keep doing that they have to keep doing

[00:25:10] Your job is to enumerate as many as jobs as possible

[00:25:14] As jobs as possible and if that person as it turns out can't enumerate those to you, you know what they don't value

[00:25:21] Automation

[00:25:23] They want something else. They want to change the process in the company

[00:25:25] They want to fire some people and hire others. They feel understaffed whatever the problem is your your your

[00:25:30] Your platform's not going to solve those it can absolutely solve automation

[00:25:34] If you're automating use cases and specific jobs that they know they don't want to keep repeating

[00:25:39] That's it

[00:25:40] So it just goes down to you got to really ask better questions

[00:25:43] And sometimes those are hard questions and we've had conversations with some msp where it's like

[00:25:47] Yeah, you keep saying you want us to integrate with your ps a

[00:25:50] And you haven't really demonstrated like you haven't given us a super

[00:25:55] Valuable solid use case from your point of view yet. So they'll say a whole bunch of things

[00:25:59] But like oh raise tickets. Oh even that that is not a description of what you want to do

[00:26:03] It's like you can do that now with an email

[00:26:06] Just send that shit to your ps a right? So it's like

[00:26:09] Well, actually

[00:26:10] I would like you to raise tickets for my account managers when people aren't doing their training because we have certain clients and

[00:26:16] Regulated industries that if they don't do their training on a consistent basis have horrible things happen to them potentially and they would blame us

[00:26:24] Great. So now you've told me who do I need to identify?

[00:26:27] What kind of information needs to get pushed out in which way do I need to integrate with your ps a

[00:26:31] And how often should I be looking to repeat this process? The answer is every day

[00:26:35] That's like great

[00:26:36] What else what else are you worried about? What else do you want?

[00:26:39] Specifically billing right? That's the biggest one. It's like can you update my customer contract? So I don't have to do that

[00:26:43] it's like

[00:26:45] What do you do now? Like I have to pay someone to update every customer contract with the usage information that you publish every month

[00:26:51] It's like wow, that sucks. That sounds horrible. I'm so sorry like

[00:26:55] Yep, that's very valuable

[00:26:57] What's another use case? So like those those are the things you just need to get to the bottom of what am I actually trying to do here

[00:27:02] The answer is not automate the answer is not integrate the answer is a specific job needs to stop getting done

[00:27:07] So many times because it should just get done by your platform

[00:27:10] I mean

[00:27:11] off all of that points and by the way

[00:27:14] As somebody who's been around for a minute

[00:27:16] I love that you came in like a completely different industry and you just said

[00:27:22] What are you actually looking for and like you force people to actually give you an outcome?

[00:27:27] Right like take the take the marketing terms out. Take the punch line stuff out

[00:27:31] What are you trying to accomplish on the other side of whatever you're asking me to do?

[00:27:35] And like I think as simple as you asked and pose that question. It's something that gets lost for some reason

[00:27:42] Especially because and now that you've been to many events

[00:27:46] So many so many options in every category

[00:27:49] You almost get you almost get lost right?

[00:27:51] I know because everybody's saying the same things and then it's almost to a certain degree what msp's

[00:27:57] Struggle with marketing themselves right from one msp to another msp to another msp in the same area

[00:28:02] Their marketing all says they do the same thing

[00:28:05] Yeah, they're all offering the same stuff. They're all positioning it the same way

[00:28:08] They're all using the same logos same icon the same brand same manufacturers like

[00:28:13] Why pick one versus other other than price?

[00:28:16] Yeah, it's true

[00:28:18] Yeah, so like anyway, it's really interesting from your from your point of view right you came in you're like

[00:28:25] What is that integration actually supposed to do?

[00:28:28] Right. What are you trying to accomplish? It's just amazing that

[00:28:32] Everybody got sucked into the vacuum of hey, you need all these tools to be successful

[00:28:37] And they almost forgot that they can give

[00:28:40] You know, hey, actually I'm looking to do something new that's not available right now

[00:28:45] I don't know. I know I'm going off on the tangent

[00:28:48] Maybe some of that's because they kept on asking and they never got

[00:28:51] Right like how many times they asked like I'm just never gonna hear me right?

[00:28:56] Keith not me. I say I'm not an msp. That's true. I got you Keith

[00:29:00] Uh, you are a technology business process guru

[00:29:03] Or at least a guy that likes to drive in in limous the airport. Um

[00:29:08] Didn't help myself would say that

[00:29:11] So now that you're three years. Yeah, sounds like you're about three plus years in right you got a bunch of partners

[00:29:16] You're an msp land

[00:29:18] It's it's working right you raise some money you got some you know wrote some code not anymore but

[00:29:25] You have some customers. So what did what surprised you about this?

[00:29:30] I call it like a sub industry. I like to call it the sandbox right msp land versus the great technology industry

[00:29:36] What surprised that you learned coming in from the outside to this thing?

[00:29:41] I'll uh

[00:29:42] There's a billion things that have surprised me, but I'll keep it to one good thing one bad thing. Okay

[00:29:48] Uh good thing

[00:29:51] How close of a community it is

[00:29:54] It's like

[00:29:55] I remember vividly when we had just started

[00:30:00] Um, I got you know, I was sweating at the time. I got invited to an msp geek

[00:30:06] After hours online zoom thing I hop in there's like 50 people there. Like I don't know any

[00:30:12] I know one person two people actually it was cow spooner jason slaggle

[00:30:16] and

[00:30:18] instantaneously

[00:30:19] I'm like a part of the the gang. It's like everyone's talking to me. We're all having a blast

[00:30:24] We're all and then like jason slaggle's like hey by the way like i'm trying to break into your shit right now

[00:30:30] I'll let you know how it goes live and he's like pentesting our application live. I'm like, oh god

[00:30:34] I'm like texting my co-founder. I was like, please tell like this is do or die. We're either getting screwed or we're not

[00:30:40] Everything it ended up being fine, but for a very long time. I was sweating there, but there was like

[00:30:45] Insta like I was just invited by these two people were like oh connor's a decent guy

[00:30:49] Let's introduce him to the rest of the gang that's going to show up and instant I had like 50 friends

[00:30:54] and that

[00:30:55] Exact like thing has just continued to happen at a wider and wider scale as people not only

[00:31:01] associate with with fin or as they know people who i'm friends with now in the industry

[00:31:06] It's like the circle just continues to grow. It's like, um

[00:31:10] There is nowhere if you're a shitty person there's nowhere to hide if you're a great person

[00:31:13] There's nowhere to hide so it like it cuts both ways

[00:31:16] Sure, that's the good thing. It's like there's this there is a sense of community at granted, you know

[00:31:20] I'm 28 years old. I barely got some hair on my chin

[00:31:23] So what do I know about business culture?

[00:31:27] Community, I don't know but I do know that I feel very close with a lot of people

[00:31:30] We serve and with a lot of people that exist in the industry

[00:31:33] The bad thing is that there are so and this goes kind of along with what you were talking about like

[00:31:39] You keep saying automation. You can't voice what that means like something is you're confused about something

[00:31:44] I don't know what it is

[00:31:45] Um, the bad thing is that there are so many people that will tell you an msp

[00:31:50] What to do about their business how to run their business how to grow how to build their stack how to sell their services

[00:31:55] How to not sell their services? It's like everywhere you look there's somebody trying to give you advice

[00:31:59] And they're basically saying if you don't take my advice, you're dumb for not taking it

[00:32:04] and

[00:32:05] Well in some cases those people are very right, right?

[00:32:07] There are there is good advice and there is bad advice in a lot of other cases. They're not um

[00:32:12] And I think if msp's were a little more introspect specifically the owners were a little more introspective about their business

[00:32:18] What do you want for it?

[00:32:20] Right, so me for fear. I want to build a giant company

[00:32:23] I want to have I want to do the biggest and the coolest thing I can dream of

[00:32:26] And nothing's gonna stop me from doing that, right?

[00:32:29] For an msp a lot of it's like I'd love to have a super comfortable lifestyle have some money to pass on to my kids

[00:32:34] And I want to stop working so damn hard. It's like that's awesome

[00:32:37] If that is really what you want

[00:32:39] I want nothing more for than for you to get that

[00:32:42] And then when you voice that into the industry like you put it out in the ether there's

[00:32:46] I guess it's like any opinion really especially in Philly, right?

[00:32:49] It's like half the people are like, oh you're stupid for thinking that and the other half. Oh good for you

[00:32:53] That's amazing. And you're like, I don't know who to believe

[00:32:56] So then when you throw in like there's not just two sides of the equation

[00:32:59] There's eight different people that'll tell you you sell them the wrong shit

[00:33:02] There's four more that are telling you you're selling it wrong

[00:33:05] And then there's another eight more that are like if you just take my my money

[00:33:08] You'll have a much bigger company and all of your problems will be solved and it's like

[00:33:12] Hey, I do not envy that you have so many people that are trying to tell you exactly what to do

[00:33:18] You should just be a little more introspective. That's the bad thing

[00:33:21] And a lot of people are great by the way. I'm not saying that the people are bad

[00:33:23] I'm saying the confusion is bad

[00:33:26] And sometimes it's really hard to get out of your own way or to understand what the right perspective is because

[00:33:32] Life is hard. Yeah business is hard

[00:33:35] A lot of voices. Well, I

[00:33:38] By the way, I love those two things. I love the candidness by the way as a Philly guy registering perfectly with me

[00:33:44] um

[00:33:45] Yeah, at the end of the day like

[00:33:47] Everybody will tell you what they want you to hear too, right?

[00:33:49] I mean there's a little bit of that

[00:33:51] Especially the people that either are you know are putting their hand out with something at the string attached or

[00:33:58] They're trying to get something from you too, right? I mean so that goes both ways but uh, but anyway

[00:34:03] Uh Keith Nelson Connor. I went the same thing a comfortable lifestyle

[00:34:07] Like George

[00:34:09] That's hysterical. Um

[00:34:12] Talk to us about

[00:34:14] The value proposition around fin and why they should look at you versus I don't know all the other options out there

[00:34:20] go

[00:34:21] So there's two main reasons why a lot of msp switched to us. The first is the msp focus

[00:34:26] That bleeds into a thousand different ways to operate whether it's monthly invoicing whether it's usage-based billing

[00:34:32] Whether it's month-to-month agreements

[00:34:33] It's like there is a host of ways our business operates to fit what msp's prefer because it works for their business

[00:34:40] Second let's go to the product

[00:34:43] You can onboard a client

[00:34:45] So a brand new client to start a brand new campaign that will never end and always continue

[00:34:50] to

[00:34:51] uh communicate back results to whoever you

[00:34:54] Designate forever, right? That'll happen forever. You can set all of that up in less than 10 minutes

[00:35:00] So when it comes to creating an awareness training program

[00:35:05] That will consistently train and fish people on relevant things

[00:35:08] Check all of the regulation and all of the insurance boxes you could like ever get put in front of

[00:35:14] Setting all of that up forever in perpetuity and never worrying about it again takes less than 10 minutes for that client

[00:35:22] And

[00:35:23] That's the primary draw. Uh, the second is there's a host

[00:35:25] There's a host of end user focusing focus things that we do to reduce the amount of training

[00:35:31] They actually need to get actual valuable information

[00:35:34] Specific example we have is a concept called a learning moment where when we fish you we don't give you more training

[00:35:39] We pull up that fish exactly and we say hey, can you hover over the email information?

[00:35:44] Can you look at this attachment? Can you look at the url? This is actually pointing you to

[00:35:48] Here's why all of these things represented actual vulnerability. Here's how you could have recognized it next time

[00:35:53] That takes 20 seconds. It's not a video that they sit back and watch or mute move and mute on their second monitor

[00:35:59] It is something they have to go through in order for it to actually get completed

[00:36:03] So a lot of end users really like that because it's not like a stick that they could beat over the head with and get called dumb

[00:36:09] It's like, hey, you messed up. Let's figure out how we did that and get back on the right track

[00:36:14] That's I mean listen

[00:36:17] As much as we've taught I mean this topic's been talked about for a long time

[00:36:21] People still get fooled. I mean

[00:36:25] You know, I keep on bringing up the whole

[00:36:27] In a slightly different context, right the whole mgm casino thing back in november and it was like

[00:36:33] Somebody just called in today the number for the help desk, but stay googled

[00:36:37] And they said they were a person's name and they just took that for face value like

[00:36:42] And then they reset their password like that isn't a hack. That's a con

[00:36:47] All right, like the category that we're talking about similarly

[00:36:50] You are conning people you are fooling people to do something that they think is legit. That isn't

[00:36:56] Like whether that's hey, why are some money buy some gift cards?

[00:37:00] You're clicking on your amazon account, but it's not really amazon paypal office whatever

[00:37:05] It's so low hanging fruit that I don't care whether you're the ceo or the janitor somebody's will get a get fooled

[00:37:12] So

[00:37:14] It happens every day to the point where as much as you know, the west benzers of the world will talk about

[00:37:20] cybers insurance and why it's becoming harder and harder and harder

[00:37:23] One of the base things that cyber insurance when they first started offering it

[00:37:27] covered was this

[00:37:30] right you

[00:37:32] Being fraught at to send money to somebody else right you

[00:37:36] Giving up your credentials, right? You know in a fishing scheme, right like

[00:37:40] And I can't stress enough and i'm sure you've heard this a billion times conner but i'm not gonna say that anyway

[00:37:45] There are people that are still using the same password over and over and over and over and over again on everything that they have

[00:37:52] That all it takes is one

[00:37:55] issue

[00:37:56] And like their whole world got unlocked and by the time they realized that

[00:38:00] damage is done. So like

[00:38:02] while we say

[00:38:03] That this is like ah

[00:38:05] I get it set it and forget it whatever it's actually

[00:38:09] It's still happening

[00:38:12] Um

[00:38:13] One of the reasons why I decided to end up in industry is because I looked at forisans db

[00:38:17] I are

[00:38:17] Going back as long as it would and I think at the time it was like an extra like a 10 years of reports

[00:38:23] And every year humans making mistakes became and continued to grow as the number one source of attack

[00:38:32] Expansion once you're within an organization and then actual theft of information access or money

[00:38:37] It was humans doing something that they shouldn't have whether that was

[00:38:41] Not implementing mfa properly or whether that was giving away your mfa code as a result of mfa fatigue attacks or whatever it was

[00:38:48] it was like

[00:38:49] Wait a second if I go to the awareness training companies and I look at their publicly reported earnings during the course of this problem

[00:38:55] Getting worse. What are they showing?

[00:38:58] record-breaking profits and revenue was like ah

[00:39:02] Still feels like there's opportunity here and then I ran across an msp and I was like all right

[00:39:06] I think I got target market. I think I can work with these people and then I think I can get to small businesses as a result

[00:39:12] so

[00:39:13] Yeah, it was like um

[00:39:14] You tell me it's like yeah, there's a lot of competitors in here

[00:39:17] But you tell me how is it that none of us have solved?

[00:39:20] The problem in a measurable way. It's like I tell this to my team and investors all the time

[00:39:25] listen

[00:39:26] If we look at Verizon's db ir and this company

[00:39:29] We're able to reduce the number of attacks that were successful by 1%

[00:39:34] From human behavior, you know what we would be the most valuable company on the face of the planet that is how much cyber crime exists

[00:39:45] The reality is

[00:39:48] You're 100 right it's only getting worse

[00:39:51] The problem is that the sophistication of the attacks seems to be getting simpler and harder, right?

[00:39:57] Like yeah, I don't know why uh other than hey, this is a problem that you're out to solve

[00:40:03] You know here's what it comes down to

[00:40:05] um

[00:40:07] Sometimes I think msp's tell me if you agree sometimes. I think msp's have

[00:40:13] over complicated the actual problem

[00:40:16] To the point where they've forgotten to ask kind of like what you started with

[00:40:20] What is it that you're trying to solve like the most basic question?

[00:40:25] Like they're like, oh no, we already know that

[00:40:27] But you're not asking it because that's where the problem keeps happening not over here where you're like your 18 products deep and

[00:40:34] You know like you know like it always seems to happen over here at the front door for some reason

[00:40:39] I think it's a really

[00:40:42] Really hard thing to do not only in life

[00:40:44] But in business to stay focused on the real outcome that you want and drive all of your efforts for that

[00:40:50] You know even even at fin I see issues with that every day and that just might meet

[00:40:55] Might be me

[00:40:56] You know being introspective and not being satisfied with any amount of growth we ever get really

[00:41:02] but

[00:41:03] I see a lot of msp's but it's it's not an msp focused thing. I think it's just a human thing

[00:41:08] It's hard. It's hard to stay focused on the outcome super specific

[00:41:12] I guess not super specific, but a uh

[00:41:14] An analogy that west came up with that I leverage all the time

[00:41:18] It's like your job as an msp is to go ask your clients. How do you generate money? Tell me about that

[00:41:23] What do you do?

[00:41:25] And then secure everything that they say leads to them making money everything else

[00:41:30] Get to it after if you end up solving all of the things that generate money and all you fix all the risk around

[00:41:36] processes and systems and software and hardware that they that they need to generate money

[00:41:40] If you ever finish that then you can look at all the other shit. Don't do anything before you've done that

[00:41:45] and it's like

[00:41:46] Yeah, wait a second

[00:41:48] Why does security exist?

[00:41:50] Well cyber security is an industry. It's like to prevent cyber crimes like and why it's like so the business can continue operating and make money

[00:41:57] It's like, all right. It's our job to secure the convenience which is software and hardware

[00:42:03] It's convenience for the average worker

[00:42:05] So that the business can continue to operate and make money

[00:42:09] Don't lose sight of that

[00:42:10] No, I agree 100 percent

[00:42:16] Rewind three ish years years ago

[00:42:19] What would you go back and tell yourself getting into msp land on the vendor side or just in general?

[00:42:25] That you didn't know then that you know now

[00:42:28] Hmm that I didn't know then I mean there's a host of things I'd build differently

[00:42:35] But I'm trying to think of like what's what's an advice? What's an advice I'd give

[00:42:43] um

[00:42:47] You know a lot of people have a general anxiety around giving without expectations

[00:42:52] Right. They like they feel like they'll get taken advantage of and that's why a lot of giving without expectations doesn't exist

[00:42:58] or rather

[00:42:59] they

[00:43:00] If you have expectations for the giving that that you're

[00:43:03] Doing just state them right so the advice I would give to myself is

[00:43:09] Do not be worried about giving to the community no expectation of return

[00:43:15] Because in my experience so far

[00:43:17] anytime I've gone out on a limb to do something nice or to

[00:43:22] educate and say, you know

[00:43:25] altruism altruism aside because that doesn't really exist in this world but be as

[00:43:29] Transparent as I possibly can about what I expect in return and making that you know as

[00:43:36] Little as possible. Maybe it's just a conversation

[00:43:39] Um or just a friendship

[00:43:41] Don't be afraid to do those things. It is always a worthwhile investment

[00:43:44] In fact double down on it give more just give it back way more because

[00:43:48] The statement I made earlier is like it's a super tight-knit community. So if you're shitty, there's nowhere to hide

[00:43:53] If you're great, there's also nowhere to hide

[00:43:56] So it's like I I've definitely

[00:43:58] um through

[00:44:00] Acting in a way that I believe is right not saying I've always acted properly the entire time

[00:44:04] You know, I'm a human as is everyone else but then listening to the people who I trust as well

[00:44:09] It's like just behave in this way act this way

[00:44:13] Be the person be a good person in general

[00:44:15] Every time I've doubled down on that and their advice it's always come back

[00:44:19] Uh, so again now it's like a pattern now

[00:44:21] I'm like, all right selfishly if I just act a little better if I if I do these things

[00:44:27] I don't expect anything in return. It's like

[00:44:30] I know how that's gonna play like in the community. It's just like people like helping people that they like

[00:44:35] um

[00:44:36] And that was kind of the the gist of the advice I'd gotten and the adjust that I'd give to myself three years ago

[00:44:42] People will help people they like be someone that they like

[00:44:46] Pretty good advice for anyone and be honest not just yeah

[00:44:49] Not just msp. Yeah, that's some good advice. Keith. He's like msp an undefined title

[00:44:54] Yes, we know

[00:44:56] Are all too often focused on being a technical superhero versus aligning with business

[00:45:00] All of your security must be focused on being a part of the business culture work

[00:45:04] Close process business outcomes not bolt-ons add-on. Yeah

[00:45:08] Okay

[00:45:09] No, no, I think Jason slaggle does that really well. I'll call him out here

[00:45:13] So you you're in the business of selling transformation

[00:45:16] Even if that's you turn widget a into widget b own it just own the fact that that's the transfer transformation you sell

[00:45:23] um

[00:45:23] And if you become the best person at selling that transformation, you will be the best

[00:45:27] company in a local region that'll end up seeing a lot of success and so

[00:45:31] Uh every time I've talked to Jason about it that that's essentially where he goes

[00:45:34] It's like, what do you actually want to do with me? Like it goes back to what do we actually want out of this?

[00:45:39] It's like well every business is like I want to grow

[00:45:42] I want to have more money to give back to my employees or go buy myself a boat screw my employees. I want a bigger boat

[00:45:47] It's like just be honest about it. It's like what's the transformation i'm selling here and in that case you're not selling security

[00:45:53] You're selling that that person that owner gets a bigger boat. You're showing that the employees get a bigger bonus

[00:45:57] You're selling that they get to grow operations to another city that they would love to operate and it's like you're selling transformation

[00:46:03] you're not selling

[00:46:06] Better security

[00:46:08] Yeah, I agree 100 so

[00:46:11] Big picture

[00:46:13] Do the Sixers make it out of this series?

[00:46:17] George

[00:46:18] I gotta be honest with you. I'm a transparent individual

[00:46:23] Uh for the same reason I think the attendance by philly's fan for game

[00:46:27] Three was laxadaisical

[00:46:30] I believe it is because of a general sentiment that reigns to be true about the philadelphia 76ers

[00:46:35] Is that we get to this point every year and then we're done

[00:46:38] so

[00:46:40] If I were a betting man and I had to put money on a bet it's that we're not getting out of the series

[00:46:43] What does my heart say it's like you know joella means coming back fierce tyrese max

[00:46:47] He's gonna keep blowing up whole nine yards hinky watching from the rafters and he's looking down on us and smiling

[00:46:54] I don't think we're getting out. That's that's my honest opinion, but

[00:46:58] Yeah, it sounds like lebron slakers. Thanks. Keith appreciate that

[00:47:02] Does that satisfy the age old debate michael versus lebron?

[00:47:06] Michael never made it michael made it through many more finals to get to the championship

[00:47:13] Lebron lebron didn't and doesn't continues to not

[00:47:16] He's also like 38 right, so it's like he's getting out there

[00:47:19] I heard a rumor that lebron might become the philadelphia. I was like why would we learn that?

[00:47:25] I actually have information on that like a while ago

[00:47:28] Um when brawny was looking for schools. Yeah lebron towards salazianum

[00:47:34] Which is a school here in willaminton because he was evaluating coming to the 76ers and one of the know where his kids would be going to school

[00:47:40] Really, but that happened that actually happened. Yeah

[00:47:44] And he toured other stuff in like lower uh southern pennsylvania too like other private schools

[00:47:49] So it's like oh shit like lebron's actually thinking about this and bead and lebron on the same roster

[00:47:55] Okay

[00:47:57] Um

[00:47:59] The brawn is crap to watch no love of the game not a personality like michael kobe shack dr. J iverson

[00:48:06] He will never be a fan favorite. Okay. Well, I'm sure he was a fan favorite in cleveland when he finally did it right?

[00:48:12] But yeah, certainly get it

[00:48:14] um

[00:48:16] What do you think of the eagles drought?

[00:48:20] Uh, I to be honest. I didn't even watch it. I'm not a um

[00:48:23] I'm not a uh football guy, but

[00:48:26] I want to talk about keith's comment here keith

[00:48:28] I'm shocked that you left out when in my mind the most entertaining entertaining basketball player to have ever lived then is rodman

[00:48:36] Oh, no, here we go. Now. Now i'm gonna do something dangerous. Here we go keith nelson there. Yeah on on the show go for

[00:48:44] You know what connor you're right

[00:48:46] When my son was growing up the one that played called football

[00:48:50] He was a huge rodman fan

[00:48:52] He we even had the rodman doll

[00:48:55] And I don't know if you even remember that where he had a wedding dress

[00:48:59] Yeah, and a basketball uniform. Yep

[00:49:02] yeah, and uh

[00:49:04] Yeah, and and he used to live um pretty close to me in newport

[00:49:08] New and hang out. I mean you could see him all time

[00:49:12] He uh, he was a character. It's also kind of why my favorite golfer is john daly

[00:49:16] It's like even though, you know tigers the goat and everyone loves him

[00:49:18] It's like john daly was a guy. He was a character. There was one john daly and it was him

[00:49:23] Same thing with denise rodman. You're john daly makes us all think we can become golfers. He's the greatest golfer of all times

[00:49:30] He's like me has a beard like me

[00:49:34] He just has a lot more talent than me. He's got some some just fire quotes too like, uh, he's like john

[00:49:40] Why are you never injured? Uh, it's easy. I can't pull fat

[00:49:43] yeah

[00:49:45] One of my favorite quote stats is like it was him and tiger at a major and it's like tiger was like

[00:49:52] Up and down percentages all that and then on john daly's card. It was like 21 bags of peanut m&m's

[00:49:57] 46 diet coax three packs of marlboro lights. It's just like that was his stat card

[00:50:01] It's just like how insane is john daly? Yeah

[00:50:05] I you just gotta imagine if he was

[00:50:08] A serious really a serious training athlete

[00:50:13] How great he'd be

[00:50:16] What's like, um, they said this about iverson right the guy just showed up on the court and left it all out in the court every time

[00:50:21] But I don't know how much practice

[00:50:24] Dude spent you know, I mean like actually going hard

[00:50:26] So how much longer like today right to have this like load mat management concept where it's like oh

[00:50:32] Well, we don't want to work at your arts. We can extend your career

[00:50:35] That didn't exist back in the day right you just played until you dropped

[00:50:39] so

[00:50:40] It'd be interesting to see like if you applied the same

[00:50:43] Things that they're doing now in the 2020s

[00:50:46] Backwards how much longer would a jordan play how much longer would uh iverson have made it how much longer would a shack

[00:50:53] made it um

[00:50:54] I think iverson liked the contract that michael jordan helped him get what you'll always tell you

[00:51:00] You almost took the cash and took the long-term deal

[00:51:03] I think he liked the money better than playing by the way

[00:51:05] That's the only athlete out of philadelphia that I respect and his best videos are his high school football videos

[00:51:13] Which you can still find on youtube iverson was a friggin awesome football player

[00:51:19] I mean him and mike vic we're battling each other. That's crazy

[00:51:23] Yeah

[00:51:24] You could imagine but I don't know I mean I asked myself that question

[00:51:28] How would iverson have played out as a quarterback it's kind of short

[00:51:31] You know and then about right

[00:51:34] Uh

[00:51:35] Who knows yeah exactly well well keith

[00:51:39] I mean since we had a few minutes left

[00:51:42] How about them cowboys?

[00:51:44] Are we are you satisfied with the off season that jerry?

[00:51:50] A lot of things up in the air

[00:51:52] they passed on

[00:51:55] Receivers, I think they should have got

[00:51:57] You know you need dak needs a security blanket

[00:52:01] To get to the next level. I mean all stats regular season are pretty darn good

[00:52:06] right

[00:52:07] um, but he's still if he's

[00:52:10] If you take cd lamb out of the game he's gone

[00:52:14] And you see look at you say what was great about akeman he had three receivers

[00:52:20] And he had a he had a great running back he could depend on

[00:52:25] It'll be interesting to see if dak prescott's

[00:52:28] Long term for the cowboys at this point, but we'll see

[00:52:31] I'm worried about you know, they they took a linebacker who's a beast

[00:52:35] Friggin animal, but that's not an nfl linebacker that works in college

[00:52:39] But all the nfl linebackers are almost defensive backs as well

[00:52:43] Yeah

[00:52:45] And um, we took some linemen which you never know we were getting there. That's always a hard thing for me to predict

[00:52:51] Sure how an offensive lineman matures into an nfl lineman

[00:52:56] You know, we we we picked up some depth there if they're if they're all decent players

[00:53:02] I think that offensive linemen is one of the biggest strikeouts nfl teams make all the time

[00:53:07] They still get the pr because they're not so high in the draft. They're not paid as much

[00:53:12] But you look at how many guys that were award winners that never played it down in the nfl

[00:53:16] Yeah, that's true. I've seen a couple of them come through philadelphia

[00:53:20] Yeah

[00:53:20] Well for everybody that isn't paying attention to nfl the nfl season opens up in brazil

[00:53:25] I believe on september 9th, which is a friday night. You will need comcast. I'm sorry peacock as a subscription to watch that game

[00:53:33] surprise

[00:53:34] Uh, I don't know maybe keith nelson if it was the cowboys may be taking a trip down to uh to brazil

[00:53:40] But I wish I had american teams playing in that game, but that's different sort

[00:53:44] south american teams

[00:53:45] Uh, Connor, where do people find more information about fin? Maybe they want to check it out talk somebody

[00:53:51] Demo trial all that good stuff

[00:53:53] So I'd say you can find fin at our website phin

[00:53:56] s ec dot i o fin sec dot i o if you'd like to connect with me or just you know

[00:54:01] Be in my universe linkedin is where you can find me just connor dash swarm

[00:54:05] I'm pretty active there and i'm willing to spout what I believe to be correct nonsense

[00:54:10] But feel free to disagree with me. I always love the conversation

[00:54:13] I love it

[00:54:14] Uh, even though he's from delaware. I still call me feel a guy

[00:54:17] Um this by the way just in case you're listening to this and you're not seeing the video part of it

[00:54:22] Connor's last name spelled s w a l m. So when you go on linkedin connor swarm, there you go. Um and fin ph in right

[00:54:31] You know kind of a I felt like a philadelphia

[00:54:34] Swing at it uh ph um

[00:54:37] This session was recorded

[00:54:39] We're going to post it on all the channels you can see it mspinisha.com on their sessions

[00:54:43] Sure, we're gonna see both keith nelson and connor in person on the road. I'm sure it's just a

[00:54:48] Time uh because we already heard from connor's could be on the road all over the place in june that being said

[00:54:54] Looking looking forward to seeing people in person. We love the screen time

[00:54:57] But you know nothing's better than a little bit of community like connor said some beers maybe

[00:55:02] Some good some good banter. We all love that

[00:55:05] Catch you guys on the next one and uh safe travels

[00:55:09] Thanks, dr