Jared Casner of Blacksmith InfoSec

[00:00:01] Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Today is December 5th. We've been off for a little bit, flying around, you know, because we like airplanes and reward miles. I don't feel like we use those. We just rack them up. I prefer Chick-fil-A points. That's just me.

[00:00:19] But anyway, welcome to the MSP Initiative, MSP Talk. We have been busy, busy, busy, and dizzy. So if you've been following us throughout the year, we talk about all these things that we end up, you know, putting together, which include a lot of after hours activities at a lot of the big conferences that you all know and love.

[00:00:37] So if you were, let's think, Berlin with Pax Apion, then we had Miami with DattoCon, and then we had IT Nation in Orlando, and then we had Sydney with another DattoCon.

[00:00:52] And I think that pretty much closes out the year for us, other than now we're back to catching up on all this stuff. So if you were curious on how all this stuff went, head to our Facebook page at facebook.com slash MSP Initiative, and you will see albums for every single party for the entire year.

[00:01:10] And there's probably some photos from community minds in both Denver and Nashville as well, and some of the earlier parties in the year.

[00:01:17] But before I get too deep into the call, and we introduce our friend Jared, you know, Jared apparently is a very big Commanders fan, formerly the Washington Redskins.

[00:01:27] So I couldn't help but bring my Eagles gear, because I think right now, the way it's trending, the Eagles are not just going to win the NFC East Division.

[00:01:36] I think they're going to be hosting the NFC playoffs in South Philadelphia this year. What do you think there, Jared?

[00:01:42] Yeah, I mean, you guys are playing awfully good football right now.

[00:01:45] Now, Saquon Barkley was a huge pickup. I'm a little bit jealous that you guys picked him up.

[00:01:50] But, you know, at the same time, I think the Commanders are going to give you a little run for your money.

[00:01:55] We got we see you guys one more time in December. So looking for a little redemption from our last time around.

[00:02:03] All right. Rock on. We love a little interdivision rivalry.

[00:02:07] Like we know the Giants are in implosion mode. They're probably in the top five picks now for the draft this upcoming year. Right.

[00:02:12] And I guess after Dak Prescott went down and we don't you know, Dallas imploded.

[00:02:17] I don't know what's going on down there. So this is definitely that is that Washington right now is in the playoffs.

[00:02:23] I believe as it stands right now, if the standings didn't change, it would be Philadelphia and Washington in the playoffs.

[00:02:29] Yeah, it's which let me tell you, as a long suffering commanders, Redskins, whatever you want to call them, fan.

[00:02:37] It is it is nice to see them actually looking a little bit like a football team, although we still managed to find unique and impressive ways to lose like we did at Dallas a couple weeks ago.

[00:02:46] So, well, I think it all starts with a healthy and talented quarterback, which seems like that you do have that, which has been missing for from from Washington for some time.

[00:02:56] I for years have been knocking on Kirk Cousins, who has been stealing money since the second he got into this league.

[00:03:02] And this guy, by the way, here's a trivia question for you, Jared. You know how much money Kirk Cousins has collected to present day from the time he started in Washington until now?

[00:03:12] Do you have any idea how much money is collected as a quarterback in the NFL?

[00:03:16] It's it's going to be a lot. He's he's had a history of getting good contracts.

[00:03:23] So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know the dollar figure, but I what is he eight years in the league now?

[00:03:30] So, you know, call it 30 million, 40 million.

[00:03:35] How about 294 million?

[00:03:37] Are you kidding me?

[00:03:39] I'm not kidding you.

[00:03:41] Guys just laughing all the way to the bank.

[00:03:44] Yeah. Hey, look, he's doing something that's working for him.

[00:03:48] Captain Kirk, man.

[00:03:50] What he's doing is he's not winning, but he's getting paid for it.

[00:03:54] Good luck down there in Atlanta, folks.

[00:03:58] But I digress.

[00:03:59] So welcome to the show, Jared Kastner.

[00:04:02] Hopefully I said that right.

[00:04:05] From Blacksmith Infotech.

[00:04:07] You know, I had not actually met Jared until I was on stage in front of, I don't know, 1800 people in Orlando.

[00:04:15] And, you know, Jared, you definitely caught me by surprise.

[00:04:18] All your posts.

[00:04:19] And, you know, they gave me a microphone once.

[00:04:21] They're doing it again.

[00:04:22] Is this smart?

[00:04:22] Yeah.

[00:04:23] No argument.

[00:04:24] That was not what I expected when I handed you that microphone.

[00:04:27] I'm going to be honest.

[00:04:29] Hey, look, you know, you had never met us.

[00:04:32] Neither had any of the 1800 people that were there met us or seen us before or heard of us.

[00:04:36] And so we had to do something to be memorable.

[00:04:39] No, I, hey, I got many text messages while I was up there saying, really?

[00:04:44] I was like, well, you know, listen, I did not put any, you know, rules or restrictions.

[00:04:50] So they took their time and they used it as they saw fit.

[00:04:54] So definitely memorable.

[00:04:56] No question about it.

[00:04:58] Well, that was a fun time.

[00:05:00] What we're talking about was even though, you know, by the way, as a guy who's come in from the MSP IT industry, that's my background.

[00:05:07] That's where I started, you know, young guy in the sandbox, you know, and now obviously, you know, on the vendor side a little bit and on the community side.

[00:05:17] I never planned to be a professional artist wrangler.

[00:05:22] That was never part of my life, you know, plans as what I wanted to be when I grew up.

[00:05:27] So Flo Rider decided to come out, you know, when he felt like it, you know, 30 minutes after he was supposed to start was not great.

[00:05:34] But when he did come out, man, was that a pretty good show?

[00:05:38] He put on an absolute, you know, like masterclass on performing.

[00:05:44] Just not on time.

[00:05:47] Hey, we don't ask you how or when they, I guess.

[00:05:51] But at the end of the day, you're right.

[00:05:52] He put on a great show.

[00:05:54] I was honestly quite surprised.

[00:05:56] I forgot how many Flo Rider songs there were that I knew.

[00:05:59] It was pretty like, you know, everybody has a process and a science.

[00:06:04] We'll talk about what you do in a little bit.

[00:06:06] But, you know, like when we plan a party like this, there's location science, right?

[00:06:11] Can't have it too far.

[00:06:12] Right.

[00:06:13] This, that, and the other.

[00:06:14] When we're looking for an artist like this, part of this is, hey, what's the demographic of the people coming to this?

[00:06:19] What are they, you know, what would they recognize?

[00:06:22] Right.

[00:06:22] You know, a couple of years ago, we had All American Rejects.

[00:06:25] Last year, we had Better Than Ezra, Sugar Ray, and Tonic as a group.

[00:06:29] And so, like the goal is like every, every group, most of them, you know, they have like two or three songs that you would recognize.

[00:06:36] But then like, what about the other time?

[00:06:39] Right.

[00:06:39] Like that doesn't fill up an entire set.

[00:06:41] Right.

[00:06:43] So, when we go through these artists, other than costs and dates, and can people actually be in certain places at certain times, it's, would you actually be able to, like part of the cool part of a concert is, is like, you know the music, right?

[00:06:55] You're singing along, right?

[00:06:56] Oh, yeah.

[00:06:57] Singing and dancing, having a good time.

[00:06:58] So, yeah, he does have a lot of good, a good, you know, memorable songs.

[00:07:03] And obviously, you know, Apple Bottom Jeans and the Boots and the Fur, we all laugh about it.

[00:07:07] But there's a lot of good songs in there.

[00:07:09] And even Jen, who's behind the scenes here, I mean, she, she said, that's why I was Team Flowrider since day one.

[00:07:17] Jen, who's behind the scenes pressing the buttons, she was one of the lucky people to get one of Flowrider's signed sneakers that he threw out from the stage.

[00:07:26] Did you see this?

[00:07:27] Yeah, I saw that.

[00:07:28] And I saw her walking around with it and clutching it tight.

[00:07:31] You know, holding it tight.

[00:07:33] Honestly, holding it tight is the sake of what holds a rock.

[00:07:35] Like, come on.

[00:07:36] I think you're right.

[00:07:37] I think you're right.

[00:07:37] I think she has it, like, literally, like, as a trophy behind her on the shelf.

[00:07:42] Yep.

[00:07:43] Precious cargo.

[00:07:44] She actually went and shipped it back to her house.

[00:07:47] Like, went to UPS, was like, I need to ship this sneaker.

[00:07:49] And I think the guy was like, is there another sneaker?

[00:07:53] Or is it just one?

[00:07:55] What's going on here?

[00:07:56] I wonder how you ended up with one sneaker on the side of the highway.

[00:07:58] It's Jen only had one sign, so the other one went out the window.

[00:08:03] That was a great time.

[00:08:04] Hopefully, everybody will remember that one for years to come.

[00:08:08] There are some off-air stories about this whole performance that I'll hold.

[00:08:14] But it is, you know, it is something that, you know, you live and you learn.

[00:08:20] And you, you, you, you, life experiences, right?

[00:08:23] This is how a lot of people learn, right?

[00:08:25] You don't learn from other people.

[00:08:26] You learn through, you know, your own, your own life experiences.

[00:08:29] This one was interesting.

[00:08:31] At least, you know, I still will never forget two years ago, Jared, there was like a hurricane

[00:08:36] during IT Nation.

[00:08:37] They shut down the Orlando airport.

[00:08:39] And we somehow still pulled off a party in the middle of all of this.

[00:08:42] So this one, I, you know, the weather was great.

[00:08:45] Thank God.

[00:08:46] No, I was going to say, we woke up that morning and I saw the pictures that Jen was posting

[00:08:51] in the field in front of Icon for the stage.

[00:08:53] And I was thinking, oh man, this is going to be a muddy show.

[00:08:55] And it turned out, it cleared up.

[00:08:57] It was dry.

[00:08:57] It was, it was gorgeous.

[00:09:00] Yeah, it was awesome.

[00:09:01] And then, you know, a 90 minute set from Flo Rida was great.

[00:09:05] So he actually did, he went, he went over, like he had a certain amount of songs he had

[00:09:10] planned to do.

[00:09:11] He did four more than he originally planned to do.

[00:09:13] Awesome.

[00:09:14] I guess he wanted to make up for the 35 minutes late, I guess.

[00:09:19] But no, it was a great performance.

[00:09:22] And we have a signed sneaker behind the gen to prove that it actually happened.

[00:09:26] And some pictures and some videos.

[00:09:31] So since that was the first time we met and the first time you met a lot of these people

[00:09:35] in the IT MSB industry, why don't we hear a little bit about you?

[00:09:40] You know, tell us your history, your background.

[00:09:42] How did you start and how did you get to where you're at now, like as Jared?

[00:09:45] And then maybe we can figure out how that gets us to blacksmith.

[00:09:49] How far back do you want me to go?

[00:09:50] I mean, went to school and then what?

[00:09:54] Yeah.

[00:09:55] Well, so, you know, honestly, I started off in IT when it was still like IT and I guess

[00:10:03] DevOps before it was DevOps.

[00:10:04] So I started off my career at Visa pulling network cables, configuring servers, things

[00:10:09] like that.

[00:10:10] Really?

[00:10:10] Like the credit card company?

[00:10:11] Yeah.

[00:10:12] And I, at the time it was, they were just moving into debit card processing.

[00:10:17] They just bought the Plus ATM network.

[00:10:18] It was, I helped build out the first data center for the debit processing side of things

[00:10:23] back when it was the Visa check card because nobody knew what a debit card was.

[00:10:27] So it was, let's just wean people off of checks into debit with a check card.

[00:10:32] So I know, hopefully the audience is old enough to remember that.

[00:10:36] I remember.

[00:10:38] But yeah, so that was where I got my start.

[00:10:40] Really wanted to write code though.

[00:10:41] So I moved into some consulting and spent a few years contracting for some of the three

[00:10:48] letter agencies in the intelligence community.

[00:10:51] Got out of that because I don't know, I don't know if you've ever done any work with the federal

[00:10:55] government, but we'll just say the pace of innovation is a little slow.

[00:10:59] So I moved into startup life and I've really never looked back.

[00:11:02] So it's been almost 20 years now that I've been working for startups and progressively

[00:11:09] start smaller and smaller startups along the way.

[00:11:13] Came out to San Francisco about 12 years ago and first started off with some AI companies

[00:11:18] back before AI was cool.

[00:11:19] Like now everybody's, everything is AI today.

[00:11:22] Yeah.

[00:11:24] Now it's cool.

[00:11:25] This is kind of the story of my life, by the way.

[00:11:28] Like I was into D&D before D&D was cool.

[00:11:30] Now D&D is cool.

[00:11:31] I'm like, awesome.

[00:11:33] I was into computers before.

[00:11:34] I feel like things are coming back to being cool.

[00:11:36] That were cool.

[00:11:37] Right?

[00:11:37] Like the nineties are a big thing now.

[00:11:39] Right?

[00:11:40] Yeah.

[00:11:40] I'm not sure D&D was cool in the nineties, but it was a thing in the nineties.

[00:11:45] I got made fun of a lot for playing D&D in the nineties, but now, now it's cool.

[00:11:49] There's all kinds of celebrities doing the D&D live shows.

[00:11:52] Being the smart nerdy person is now like the thing, right?

[00:11:56] That wasn't back in the day, but surely has shifted now.

[00:11:59] Yeah.

[00:12:00] Yeah.

[00:12:00] It's a, it's a, it's a weird, weird world we live in, but yeah.

[00:12:04] So anyhow, did the AI thing for a few years when I first moved to San Francisco and then

[00:12:09] started what, what ended up becoming kind of my security and compliance journey where

[00:12:13] I ran circuit secure or ran software engineering for a handful of fintech and health tech companies

[00:12:20] in the Bay area.

[00:12:21] Uh, and I, every time I'd come into one of these organizations, I'd say, all right, so

[00:12:24] what are we doing to secure social security numbers and health information and things?

[00:12:27] Uh, security.

[00:12:28] Yeah.

[00:12:28] That's, that's your responsibility.

[00:12:29] You go figure that out.

[00:12:30] Uh, that's why we've hired you to run software.

[00:12:32] Okay.

[00:12:33] I guess I need to go learn security.

[00:12:35] Um, that's, uh, so my co-founder, Michael, I've known him for 30 some years now.

[00:12:40] We, we grew up together.

[00:12:41] We, uh, he's been my phone, a friend in the security space for a long time.

[00:12:45] And so, uh, the first time I had a customer call me and say, Hey, we need you to have

[00:12:49] a sock two report.

[00:12:50] And I had, how do you spell sock two?

[00:12:52] I'm like, I'm looking at my feet.

[00:12:53] I've got two socks on.

[00:12:54] That's that close enough.

[00:12:56] Uh, no, not, not going to do the trick here.

[00:12:58] So anyhow, I called Michael and said, Hey, uh, you're a visa.

[00:13:01] So tell me about sock two and what I need to do.

[00:13:03] And so he kind of walked me through the process.

[00:13:05] Um, fast forward to about a year and a half ago.

[00:13:08] Uh, he was looking for work.

[00:13:10] His company, he was at a health tech company that filed chapter 11.

[00:13:12] He was the last man standing asked to lock the doors and turn off the lights on his way

[00:13:16] out.

[00:13:16] Um, I was ready for a change in my career also.

[00:13:19] And, you know, as we're talking about, uh, our, our journey and where we wanted to go

[00:13:24] next, it realized we were both going to end up building a security program from scratch

[00:13:28] again.

[00:13:28] And we said, and this sucks.

[00:13:29] Like we've done this way too many times in our lives, made poor, all the poor life choices

[00:13:34] that ended up like nobody, uh, I shouldn't say nobody, very few people choose to go into

[00:13:39] security and compliance.

[00:13:40] Um, it's, it's like a series of poor life choices that kind of lead you down that path.

[00:13:45] Uh, and so, you know, here we are and said, how do we never have to do this again?

[00:13:50] And so we were initially, honestly, we wrote some software for who we were 10, 15 years

[00:13:55] ago in our career, showed it to some friends and the friend said, Oh, that's actually

[00:13:58] really cool.

[00:13:59] Can we buy that?

[00:14:00] Okay, sure.

[00:14:01] Uh, I guess we can turn this into a company.

[00:14:03] So we incorporated and started selling some software.

[00:14:07] Um, and every one of our customers at the time, they'd get a certain, uh, you know, kind

[00:14:12] of 20, 30% of the way through, through things and say, well, we really need it help.

[00:14:17] Let's get our MSP involved.

[00:14:19] We said, cool, get the MSP involved.

[00:14:21] And the MSP would get involved in the MSPs looked at it and said, well, this is a cool

[00:14:24] platform.

[00:14:25] How do I do this for the rest of my customers?

[00:14:26] And so then we had to, what is an MSP?

[00:14:28] And, and, you know, this is the great thing about Google is like, had to figure out what

[00:14:32] the MSPs were.

[00:14:32] And so this is about nine months ago that we kind of shifted entirely into the MSP channel.

[00:14:36] So close our first MSP.

[00:14:38] Uh, we haven't really looked back.

[00:14:39] And so, you know, you, why haven't you met me before?

[00:14:42] Cause IT Nation was the first show that we really were at, uh, ever.

[00:14:46] And it was worth, you know, again, this is, uh, why does, why did, why did you get to

[00:14:51] meet me there?

[00:14:51] Why did we do something stupid and rap about compliance on stage?

[00:14:54] Like, you know, nobody wants to hear about security or compliance before a Flowrider concert.

[00:14:59] They, so let's find a way to have some fun with it.

[00:15:02] Oh, Hey, you, trust me.

[00:15:04] People remember you after that one for sure.

[00:15:07] Um, security compliance, man.

[00:15:09] I mean, listen, you actually touched on number one, your journey is really cool.

[00:15:13] Um, you, you, you, you went from the credit card company that apparently everybody has to

[00:15:20] deal with to the government who I agree way slow to startup, startup, startup, and now your

[00:15:26] own startup, which is awesome.

[00:15:28] Uh, I love that.

[00:15:29] And like, you know, definitely entrepreneurism is alive and well here in the USA.

[00:15:34] Yeah.

[00:15:35] As a guy who started a few companies myself, love that.

[00:15:38] And, and love people are willing to put a little bit of, you know, time and risk out there in

[00:15:42] order for the upside.

[00:15:43] You know, like that's, that's definitely a story I dig.

[00:15:47] Um, security and compliance.

[00:15:49] I mean, listen, we hear a lot about security and probably more recently about compliance only

[00:15:54] because people, different people in different industries are just having to deal with it.

[00:15:59] Right.

[00:16:00] Um, you know, but security was the big marketing term for a while until AI came out, which you

[00:16:08] mentioned earlier.

[00:16:08] And then now AI is like the new flashy put AI in front of or behind anything.

[00:16:14] And now all of a sudden we're cool.

[00:16:15] And it's like, but is it really AI or are we just saying AI for the sake of AI?

[00:16:21] You know, like bottom line is it's a thing.

[00:16:24] And I think that, you know, for the last, let's just say 2020 till now, right?

[00:16:30] Like COVID beginning right before COVID started till now has been like, I would say if you

[00:16:35] were to go back and ask any 10 MSPs, you know, eight of the 10, seven of the 10 will tell you

[00:16:40] that the majority of increase in revenue they've been able to generate in the last four years

[00:16:45] is under the banner security.

[00:16:47] All right.

[00:16:48] They've been able to go back to all their customers and say, Hey, you don't have to

[00:16:52] believe me.

[00:16:53] Why don't you just like pull up the news and like, look at the next guy, you know, like

[00:16:57] you're, that could be you, right.

[00:16:58] Or, Hey, why don't you go into the chamber of commerce or your association or your doctor

[00:17:03] or lawyer, whatever your group is.

[00:17:06] And why don't you ask anyone if they've been, you know, wire frauded or if they've had a

[00:17:10] any sort of issue that costs them a lot of money that they weren't expecting.

[00:17:14] And all of a sudden they're like, well, if that main street guy could be you, that guy's

[00:17:18] next door, or, you know, that big headline guy could be you.

[00:17:22] If you know, you're in the right situation, let's like not make that be you, right.

[00:17:26] Let's just spend the money now to prevent that.

[00:17:28] Right.

[00:17:28] And that's been, that was an easy path for a lot of MSPs to go back, convince their

[00:17:34] customers to invest, you know, on, on the security side.

[00:17:37] So no question.

[00:17:39] Now, I will say a lot of people walk down a lot of trade show floors, bought a lot of

[00:17:45] stuff with their credit card.

[00:17:46] Do they have an actual program?

[00:17:48] I think they just have a bunch of things that they put together.

[00:17:51] I can't tell you that they even totally know what they're doing.

[00:17:56] Right.

[00:17:56] I think some degree they're relying on a lot of outside help, right.

[00:18:02] Just because they don't have the resources inside of their company to actually run a program

[00:18:06] on their own, which is the status quo for most MSPs.

[00:18:11] Like some MSPs are bigger, most aren't, and they do not have the resources or the skills

[00:18:16] set in-house to do this.

[00:18:17] Right.

[00:18:17] So like when you said, what's SOC 2 and you said, what color socks do I have on?

[00:18:22] That's what they're saying now.

[00:18:23] Right.

[00:18:23] You just had that journey earlier in the process.

[00:18:27] So by the way, as somebody who's looked at what it costs to go through SOC 2, and I

[00:18:32] know depending on your size, that could be a widely varying thing.

[00:18:36] It is not a small thing.

[00:18:38] It is a time consuming and expensive thing.

[00:18:41] And by the way, SOC 2 is great.

[00:18:43] But when you start going into industries and you came from government land, right, like

[00:18:47] CMMC or some of these other things, right?

[00:18:51] Like a lot of MSPs, I think, took business from everywhere because when you're starting

[00:18:59] a company, you'll take any business from anywhere.

[00:19:01] Right.

[00:19:01] That's fair.

[00:19:02] Right.

[00:19:02] And the problem is that they were never verticalized, right?

[00:19:06] They just took anyone who needed technology help.

[00:19:08] And now when we come to the word compliance, Jared, that is not a cheap and simple thing

[00:19:15] to cover at this point.

[00:19:19] But I would like to change that, right?

[00:19:21] That's why we're in business actually is to make it easier for companies, whether they

[00:19:25] go all the way through the audit process to become fully compliant with SOC 2, because

[00:19:30] with SOC 2, you have to have the third party attestation or they're just looking at it

[00:19:34] as, hey, we're going to start.

[00:19:36] And I treat it like a 401k in a lot of ways, right?

[00:19:38] If you wait till you're 60 years old to start putting money into your retirement account,

[00:19:42] guess what?

[00:19:43] You're going to spend a lot of money trying to play catch up to get a nest egg that works

[00:19:47] well for you.

[00:19:48] At the same time, if you start when you're 22, putting small amounts of money in, it's

[00:19:52] going to compound over time.

[00:19:53] That value, the total cost of ownership of your retirement account is going to be way

[00:19:56] less.

[00:19:57] And so it's the same sort of thing with compliance, right?

[00:19:59] If you start investing early, you start putting the right processes in place, you start

[00:20:03] thinking about security and compliance, not for the sake of checking boxes to make a customer

[00:20:08] happy, but because it's the right thing to do for your customers, for yourselves, about

[00:20:13] minimizing risk and investing in yourself and your business.

[00:20:16] Guess what?

[00:20:16] It's going to pay dividends over time and your total cost of ownership for that compliance

[00:20:19] program is going to go away now.

[00:20:21] And sort of to your point, we see this all the time with companies that say, well, hey,

[00:20:29] I've got my EDR solution.

[00:20:31] I've got my, you know, I installed antivirus.

[00:20:34] I turn on MFA, whatever, right?

[00:20:36] Why do I need to have a security program?

[00:20:37] Okay, well, why are you doing those things?

[00:20:39] Well, my security guy told me or my cousin's nephew, whatever, like told me I have to do

[00:20:45] this stuff.

[00:20:46] Cool.

[00:20:46] Cool.

[00:20:47] But if you're doing it without a plan and you're just throwing darts to the dartboard,

[00:20:52] you know, there, there's some things that are obviously going to make your life easier

[00:20:55] and safer.

[00:20:56] But if you think about it as a plan and kind of sort of structuring things and kind of

[00:21:01] working through it a little bit more categorically or systemically, guess what?

[00:21:04] You're going to, you're going to end up with a much better result in the end.

[00:21:07] That is about managing the risk for your organization.

[00:21:09] That is solving the problems that you actually have.

[00:21:12] Yeah.

[00:21:13] I'll tell you what we, so in a call with a customer yesterday or prospect yesterday,

[00:21:17] they said, well, what do we need to do to be HIPAA compliant?

[00:21:20] And so we started walking through some HIPAA compliance things.

[00:21:23] They said, well, what about X, Y, and Z?

[00:21:25] Do we have to do those to be HIPAA compliant?

[00:21:27] And we said, time out.

[00:21:28] You like, you seem to be wanting to do the bare minimum required to be HIPAA compliant,

[00:21:31] which don't get me wrong.

[00:21:32] Like, don't get me wrong.

[00:21:34] Like, I get it.

[00:21:35] There's, there's costs.

[00:21:36] There's all these things.

[00:21:37] I totally get that.

[00:21:39] Let me turn, let me ask the question a little bit differently, right?

[00:21:41] So the thing that you're asking about is not actually required for HIPAA compliance.

[00:21:44] What you're asking about, though, is about good, like, rational processes for your business.

[00:21:50] You mentioned wire fraud, right?

[00:21:51] This is exactly the type of thing.

[00:21:53] Security and compliance is not just about the IT side of things.

[00:21:56] It's about the entire organization.

[00:21:58] How do you manage risk broadly, right?

[00:21:59] And so if you're thinking about it just from a, how do I make sure that somebody doesn't

[00:22:03] hack my computer, you're probably missing a trick.

[00:22:05] Because at the end of the day, it's the people that are the weakest link.

[00:22:07] And so if you're giving them the ability to shoot themselves in the foot because you're

[00:22:10] not putting in multi-factor authentication.

[00:22:13] And multi-factor authentication goes beyond just, you know, do I have to click a button

[00:22:17] on my phone or enter a code from my, from Google Authenticator, right?

[00:22:20] It's, if I'm starting a wire transfer, do I have another check on that that says, you

[00:22:25] know, you know, you got Jen in the background, George.

[00:22:28] If you're starting a wire transfer to pay a creditor and Jen's not there or somebody else

[00:22:32] isn't there to say, yep, I agree with that.

[00:22:34] Guess what?

[00:22:35] You get, you get one bad text message that, or that you're like, oh, I'm sure that's the

[00:22:40] right wire information and send it, right?

[00:22:43] It's, it's about checks and balances.

[00:22:44] It's about making sure that you've got these good, smart thought processes involved in how

[00:22:49] you run your business so that you can keep yourself safe.

[00:22:52] No, a hundred percent.

[00:22:53] I mean, at the end of the day, you know, we're trying to take something very complex and deliver

[00:22:57] it to a non-technical person is a gift.

[00:23:01] Okay.

[00:23:01] Some people are really good at it.

[00:23:03] Most people are not.

[00:23:04] And so when you're going to a doctor, a lawyer, a architect, a CPA, and like, they're literally

[00:23:12] running their business, they're in it.

[00:23:13] They're the people doing the work.

[00:23:15] You try and explain to them why they got to spend this not small amount of money in

[00:23:19] order to do these things.

[00:23:20] And they're like, Hey, that's the difference between me taking my family on vacation or,

[00:23:24] or me doing what you're asking me to do.

[00:23:25] Why am I doing this?

[00:23:26] Like, this is what we're talking about for a lot of people.

[00:23:29] Right.

[00:23:31] But just like car insurance, you hope they have it so that when you have an accident,

[00:23:35] you're covered when you don't, oops, cause it's a bad day.

[00:23:39] Right.

[00:23:39] So unfortunately a lot of people are finding out the hard way that it's a bad day.

[00:23:43] And we used to think that small businesses, Jared, like we're too small for the, for the

[00:23:48] bad guys to concentrate on.

[00:23:49] I feel like it's inverted now where they're the easiest people to go after with the least

[00:23:54] amount of effort.

[00:23:55] So that's what they do.

[00:23:57] Yeah.

[00:23:57] There's that crappy old joke.

[00:23:59] Two guys are out in the woods.

[00:24:00] One of them, uh, they, they run into a bear.

[00:24:02] One of them bends down to tie his shoes.

[00:24:03] The other one says, Hey, uh, why are you tying your shoes?

[00:24:05] You can't outrun the bear.

[00:24:06] I don't need to outrun the bear.

[00:24:07] I just need to outrun you.

[00:24:08] Right.

[00:24:08] And so again, it's, it's that low hanging fruit, right?

[00:24:10] Like, uh, the, the adage hackers don't care about my business.

[00:24:15] You're right.

[00:24:15] They don't care about your business, which means they're just going out there.

[00:24:18] They're the spray and pray approach.

[00:24:19] And when they find something that they can pick at the, Oh, let me just pick at this a

[00:24:22] little bit.

[00:24:23] Ooh, I can get in.

[00:24:24] Guess what?

[00:24:24] Next thing you know, you've been ransomware and it's how much money do I think I can extract

[00:24:27] from your business?

[00:24:27] Cause I don't care whether your business succeeds or fails.

[00:24:30] Right.

[00:24:30] If, if you never, if you don't pay me, no skin off my back.

[00:24:33] Like you're already compromised.

[00:24:34] There's nothing you can do.

[00:24:35] Once I've ransomware you like game over.

[00:24:38] And so either you pay me and I turn undo the work that I did, or you don't either way,

[00:24:43] like it's no skin off my back kind of thing.

[00:24:45] Right.

[00:24:46] Um, and so you're right.

[00:24:47] It's, it's, they don't care about the size of the business.

[00:24:51] And, and honestly, if I get a million dollars out of you or a million dollars, like chance,

[00:24:56] in fact, my chances of getting a million dollars out of the small business and their cyber

[00:24:59] insurance paying up for that is a lot higher than trying to get a million dollars out of

[00:25:02] a bank of America that's spending, you know, it's more like three quarters of a

[00:25:05] billion dollars a year on cybersecurity.

[00:25:07] Right.

[00:25:08] So, so a hundred percent agree with you.

[00:25:11] Let's say we're all drinking the same Kool-Aid.

[00:25:14] We're all reading the same book.

[00:25:15] We're all on the same page.

[00:25:17] What is your program doing?

[00:25:19] What is your platform doing?

[00:25:21] What is your service doing that they can't get somewhere else?

[00:25:25] Or are you delivering it in a way that's more cost-effective or, or what is, how is

[00:25:31] it being delivered that the MSP is looking at this saying, well, Hey, I should go down

[00:25:36] this road versus this road.

[00:25:38] Yeah.

[00:25:39] Great question.

[00:25:39] We have tried to take a paint by numbers approach to compliance, right?

[00:25:44] You can go out there and you can, you can hire the, the Bob Ross.

[00:25:48] Who's going to paint the picture for you.

[00:25:49] You can go out and hire and watch Bob Ross on PBS and kind of get something that maybe

[00:25:55] looks like what Bob Ross is painting.

[00:25:57] Or you can take the ours.

[00:25:58] It's like off the shelf canned approach and has the paint by numbers and says, all right,

[00:26:03] first do this and then do this.

[00:26:04] And you're going to fill in this box with a blue color and right.

[00:26:06] And like, make it as easy as possible for people.

[00:26:09] Um, the other analogy we use is like boiling with the bumpers up, right?

[00:26:13] You pull with the bumpers up.

[00:26:14] You're going to, you're going to do pretty well and your score is going to be a lot higher.

[00:26:16] Right.

[00:26:17] And it's, it's the same kind of idea.

[00:26:18] Um, so that's really the philosophy that we have baked into our product from day one

[00:26:22] is number one, it needs to be accessible so that anybody can approach this.

[00:26:26] And then number two, it needs to be affordable because we have been too many times at small

[00:26:29] businesses and startups where to your point, the CEO says, I don't want to spend money

[00:26:34] on that.

[00:26:35] Like, why would I?

[00:26:36] Right.

[00:26:37] Um, they're not going to, they're not going to hack me or Hey, Jared, I have you.

[00:26:42] What you're, you telling me that the worst that you've written secure code.

[00:26:45] That's, that's awesome.

[00:26:46] Like, why do I need to worry about this stuff?

[00:26:48] Well, okay.

[00:26:48] Well, cause there's, again, there's, there's whether, even if I, even if I believed that

[00:26:53] I was writing bug-free code, which I don't, uh, even if I believed that I was writing

[00:26:57] perfectly secure code, which I don't, um, like there's still other factors in the business

[00:27:03] that are not, uh, IT related that are also part of this risk program and part of the compliance

[00:27:09] journey.

[00:27:09] And so, you know, let's think about this more holistically and make this as easy as possible

[00:27:13] for people to, to have those risk conversations.

[00:27:17] So, all right.

[00:27:19] MSP comes to you and says, blacksmith, I, I, you know, are you offering compliance as

[00:27:25] a service?

[00:27:26] Like does, do the components that I'm already using for security, you know, look, if I already

[00:27:31] use a SOC vendor, if I'm already using a specific EDR tool, if I'm already using some log collection

[00:27:38] seam platform, like what does that mean to you?

[00:27:42] Yeah.

[00:27:43] Great.

[00:27:43] Please bring all those.

[00:27:44] Cause we're not doing any of that.

[00:27:45] So we are the bucket that we fit into there are the, the category that I think everybody

[00:27:50] in the MSP space that sees us as is compliance as a service.

[00:27:53] We think about it more as security program in a box really, cause again, we're giving

[00:27:57] the, uh, all the tools and, and sort of taking the Microsoft approach where it's like the

[00:28:01] 80% solution across the entire stack.

[00:28:03] Uh, but again, we're not doing the EDR.

[00:28:06] We're, we're telling you the what, not the how, right?

[00:28:08] So it's, um, you know, we're going to tell you, make sure you have endpoint protect your

[00:28:12] endpoints protected.

[00:28:13] Okay.

[00:28:14] Well, what guess George, you're the expert.

[00:28:16] You know, you know what, uh, which EDR solution for, to protect endpoints for your customers

[00:28:21] is best for you and your stack.

[00:28:23] Um, I don't want to tell you which one to use and I'd be a, a doing a disservice to all

[00:28:29] of the EDR vendors out there.

[00:28:30] If I tried to pick a favorite, cause there's some, a lot of really good ones out there.

[00:28:33] Same thing with your sock service and your SIM service and whatever, right?

[00:28:36] Whatever you're using across the stack, please bring all of those in.

[00:28:39] Uh, we're telling you here are the things that you need to do in order to be compliant

[00:28:43] with sock to HIPAA, CMMC, 800, one 71.

[00:28:46] You pick your framework and we're going to give you the, the, what it's up to you to

[00:28:51] then go, go and figure out how to do that.

[00:28:52] And again, that's where the, the value of the, of, uh, the MSP relationship really comes

[00:28:58] for us.

[00:28:58] And again, this is why all of our, our, uh, when we started off direct to business, every

[00:29:02] one of them, we told them, Hey, go do this thing.

[00:29:04] And they, you know, turn on MFA.

[00:29:06] I can do that.

[00:29:06] That's easy.

[00:29:07] And then beyond that, it's, I need a firewall.

[00:29:09] I need an endpoint protection.

[00:29:11] Like, can I just use a Norton antivirus?

[00:29:14] No, we can't use Norton antivirus.

[00:29:15] Oh, I shouldn't say that.

[00:29:16] Like some people are using it and happy with it.

[00:29:18] Like more power to you.

[00:29:19] I don't want to dog any, any vendors out there.

[00:29:21] Like, great.

[00:29:22] By all means use the thing that you think is going to reduce the risk properly for your

[00:29:26] business.

[00:29:27] Uh, but there are some really cool next generation.

[00:29:30] All right.

[00:29:30] So you log into this platform, you say, I'm interested in this particular framework, right?

[00:29:36] Let's call it framework, whether it's, you know, NIST or, or CIS, or, you know, you

[00:29:41] said SOC2, HIPAA.

[00:29:44] I'm sure there's others I'm missing.

[00:29:45] Right.

[00:29:46] Um, but yeah, just throwing out.

[00:29:48] We could, we could be listing frameworks for the next hour.

[00:29:50] So you got a bunch of frameworks on the list.

[00:29:52] You click on it and then it, and then you, you, you give, you start giving them a workflow

[00:29:57] to follow.

[00:29:58] It sounds like.

[00:29:59] Yeah.

[00:29:59] Essentially.

[00:30:00] So the workflow is, uh, and I'm going to oversimplify compliance for you.

[00:30:04] Right.

[00:30:04] And I apologize to all of your listeners out there who are compliance experts and are

[00:30:07] going to just cringe in there, but, but compliance boils down to say it, do it, prove it.

[00:30:11] Right.

[00:30:12] That's like the simplest way to think about it.

[00:30:14] Right.

[00:30:14] So say it is your policies and your procedures.

[00:30:16] These are the things that you are doing every, like you're saying that you're going to do,

[00:30:19] you're going to have a strong password policies.

[00:30:22] You're going to have endpoint protection.

[00:30:24] You're going to have logs and log retention and data, uh, backups and recoveries and things

[00:30:28] like that.

[00:30:28] So that's your say it, but do it is the actual implementation, right?

[00:30:32] It's, it's actually installing these on the devices and having your RMM go out and configure

[00:30:36] all of the different endpoints and making sure everything is, is set up and secure.

[00:30:40] And then the, uh, prove it is when the auditor comes through and says, all right, show me

[00:30:44] the evidence that you have, that George's device has, uh, his hard drive is encrypted and

[00:30:49] that he's taken a security awareness training.

[00:30:51] Right.

[00:30:51] That's the prove it side of things.

[00:30:52] And so, um, on the say it side, we help you write the policies.

[00:30:57] And so again, if you've got 10 clients that each have their own unique thing, great.

[00:31:01] Like multi-tenancy, uh, table stakes, right?

[00:31:05] So, uh, if you come in for each of your clients, you're going to say, all right, um, BVOIP

[00:31:09] needs X, Y, and Z and, uh, MSP initiative only needs, uh, NIST CSF.

[00:31:15] And, uh, you know, Blacksmith is a software company, so we need to make sure we have SOC two.

[00:31:20] And right.

[00:31:20] So each, uh, each of your clients is going to get their own, uh, frameworks that they, that

[00:31:25] they care about.

[00:31:26] We're going to help you write those policies in minutes.

[00:31:29] Again, with, with the idea of this is paint by numbers.

[00:31:32] So you're, you're going to go through, you're going to answer a handful of questions and,

[00:31:35] and, and get policies.

[00:31:36] And that's the say it side of things.

[00:31:38] Then you get to the do it.

[00:31:39] And so this is where we, we just make it as easy as possible to collect evidence across

[00:31:42] the board so that you can track your user audits and you can make sure that you're managing

[00:31:46] your risk program and you can actually check off your compliance tasks and, and, and get

[00:31:50] that full roadmap that says, all right, now that you've, now that you've said it,

[00:31:53] here are the things that you, you've just said you're going to do, go do them.

[00:31:56] And we're prioritizing them for you and making it as easy as possible.

[00:31:59] So now you can treat this as a, as an IT project.

[00:32:02] So you get both the MRR from a compliance program that you're managing on behalf of your customer.

[00:32:07] Uh, and then you get the NRR, the non-recurring revenue from all the project worth.

[00:32:11] It's like, Hey, remember when we said you needed to do X, Y, and Z?

[00:32:14] Guess what?

[00:32:14] Here's some more evidence that you need to do that.

[00:32:16] And here's the risk associated with not doing it.

[00:32:18] And all of that stuff is kind of baked into the platform to make it really easy for your, uh,

[00:32:22] for your sales team to go out and sell that non-recurring revenue into your clients.

[00:32:26] Um, and then all that evidence collection is baked into the platform.

[00:32:28] So you can, uh, when the auditor comes along, you can say, Oh, great.

[00:32:32] Let me show you George's profile and where George has acknowledged his policies

[00:32:35] and completed his training and all of that stuff is right there.

[00:32:38] I've got a single pane of glass for George.

[00:32:40] Uh, Oh, you want to look at my, uh, Microsoft and how I'm managing that?

[00:32:43] Great.

[00:32:43] Here's the evidence about Microsoft.

[00:32:45] And, uh, from when I did my user audits and, and, um, how that process worked and,

[00:32:50] and kind of the workflow baked into that user auditing.

[00:32:52] So that's, that's really sort of the way to think about it.

[00:32:55] That's awesome.

[00:32:56] So is this more of a self-service approach or do you have, uh, like, uh, a pro services model

[00:33:03] where you can actually help do some of this or how does, how is this designed?

[00:33:08] Yeah, it is designed to be more self-service, uh, and, and really, uh, that we are moving

[00:33:13] more and more towards that self-service model and away from the pro survey.

[00:33:16] We, you know, we bootstrapped the business and which means we're doing some pro services

[00:33:19] today, but trying very hard to get out of that pro serve model because that, uh, again,

[00:33:26] the experts are at the MSP from an IT standpoint.

[00:33:28] We want to, we want to lean on the, uh, on the experts from the IT side and, and, uh,

[00:33:33] focus more.

[00:33:33] Let us be the compliance experts that you can be the, the IT experts and, uh, partner together.

[00:33:38] That's fair.

[00:33:39] And then is there any sort of integration tie in where some of the evidence collection

[00:33:44] part, I guess is some of it's logging, some of it's, you know, you know, like anything

[00:33:50] that can be, you know, tied in, you know, is it possible or how does that work?

[00:33:54] Um, yeah, today we don't have a whole lot of the integrations.

[00:33:58] Um, those are all coming.

[00:34:00] And I say soon with an asterisk here, it's, it's all partner driven.

[00:34:03] So as people come, uh, as MSPs come to us and say, you know what I really need to make

[00:34:07] this, uh, like we're started, we're successful to go that next step.

[00:34:11] Right.

[00:34:11] So that's, that's where we're driving a lot of our integrations.

[00:34:13] Um, so today it's, it's really about the connect wise integration and being able to build

[00:34:17] the projects and it's about monetizing the compliance program.

[00:34:20] Um, we are very quickly shifting from the monetization side into the, how do I make this easier to

[00:34:26] run long-term?

[00:34:27] Um, and so it's, it's more of that operational efficiency is kind of the next, next level

[00:34:32] of the evolution here.

[00:34:33] Got it.

[00:34:33] Understand.

[00:34:34] So the integration has been built is so that, you know, you kick off this workflow and it'll

[00:34:40] go into connect wise and it'll create a project and put all your steps in and put all the

[00:34:45] time expectations in and like build that whole program out.

[00:34:48] Yeah.

[00:34:49] It gives you that entire project, the phased out project plan for you ready to go.

[00:34:53] So now your IT project manager and a level two tech can move somebody into, into a compliance

[00:34:58] state.

[00:34:59] That's cool.

[00:35:00] That's awesome.

[00:35:01] Um, so this is like, how long have you been in MSP land doing this and how many partners

[00:35:07] do you think you have right now?

[00:35:09] Yeah, we are, we're nine months into the MSP journey.

[00:35:12] Uh, we, we started very slowly and honestly, again, I, we joke that we learned.

[00:35:18] We learned how to spell MSP about nine months ago when we signed our first MSP where it's

[00:35:21] like, and we've worked with MSPs in the past and our past, like, because we were too small

[00:35:24] to have IT teams ourselves.

[00:35:26] Um, but had never thought about, and, and honestly never even knew that the channel existed.

[00:35:30] This is like this weird, magical, wonderful place that, that is very new to us.

[00:35:35] And, and we are absolutely loving.

[00:35:37] And, uh, it's, it's been honestly just, that's been maybe the most fun piece is getting to

[00:35:42] meet everybody in the channel and, and, and getting deeper in that.

[00:35:45] Anyhow.

[00:35:46] So, uh, we started slowly in the MSP space because we needed to learn and we needed to

[00:35:49] make sure what we were building for MSPs was actually what MSPs wanted and not just like,

[00:35:54] oh, we're going to slap multi-tenancy on and call it MSP friendly.

[00:35:57] No, like we needed to actually understand what MSPs need to be successful.

[00:36:00] And so, uh, that's, we've been kind of slowly moving our way into the MSP space.

[00:36:04] We've got about a dozen MSPs on the platform today, which is, you know, not where we'd like

[00:36:08] to be, but at the same time, we wanted to make sure that it was, uh, the slow growth that

[00:36:12] gave us an opportunity to, uh, break things in and learn along the way.

[00:36:17] And, uh, you know, we've, uh, we will be a lot further along very quickly here.

[00:36:23] We've got a bunch of prospects in the, in the pipeline because of IT Nation, because

[00:36:27] of the MSP initiative block party, right?

[00:36:29] These things have helped.

[00:36:30] I hope people are like, yeah, now it's an epic rap.

[00:36:33] I need to get to talk to these guys.

[00:36:35] Look, if people don't buy because of our rap, then why, why are they even talking to us?

[00:36:41] No, Hey, listen, we, you know, everybody's had to start somewhere.

[00:36:44] It's, it's a great time to be in the MSP industry for sure.

[00:36:47] And, you know, as somebody servicing the MSP, you know, community, um, you know, there's

[00:36:51] a lot of upside for sure.

[00:36:53] You know, how did you, how, how is your program structured from a cost basis?

[00:36:57] It's like, is MSP versus the MSP's customer?

[00:37:01] Like, how do you structure your program?

[00:37:03] Yeah.

[00:37:03] We are a sell through, not a sell to.

[00:37:05] So, um, and that's, that's part of, honestly, even part of our, our, our challenge from a

[00:37:10] sales standpoint is learning how, not just to, to sell the MSP on why it's important.

[00:37:14] Cause I think the MSPs all get it.

[00:37:16] It's, um, okay.

[00:37:18] It's great that I understand it, but I can't, my, my customers don't want to pay for this.

[00:37:21] They don't.

[00:37:21] Right.

[00:37:21] And so that's been the next, next piece of it for us.

[00:37:24] And so we, we are about to launch a, uh, a sales toolkit for MSP so they can go out and

[00:37:28] make their lives easier to sell, um, when it comes to the compliance side of things.

[00:37:31] Um, so that's coming very soon.

[00:37:34] Um, and my marketing team will, will hopefully be, uh, not cringing as I say, uh, since a

[00:37:40] lot of the work is on, on them, but, uh, yeah, so, so the, uh, sales toolkit is coming

[00:37:45] very quickly here.

[00:37:46] Um, but yeah, because we're a sell through it's, uh, honestly, it's a low monthly fee

[00:37:53] for the MSP and it's on a per client basis.

[00:37:56] This goes back to my own, uh, what's near and dear to me.

[00:37:58] I want it to be accessible and I want, it's gotta be affordable.

[00:38:02] Right.

[00:38:02] And so that's, we, we priced it to at a low enough price point that any small business

[00:38:07] in America can afford to pay for it.

[00:38:09] Uh, it's, it's like stupid, stupid, simple, stupid, affordable, uh, with the idea that

[00:38:15] really where you're going to make your margin as an MSP is not in the value of the software,

[00:38:19] but in the value that you're adding on top of that, because you're bringing the expertise

[00:38:22] because you're bringing the, the it know-how and being able to actually implement this

[00:38:25] on behalf for a customer.

[00:38:26] That's, that's where all the margins are coming up from.

[00:38:29] And then by the way, we also give an NFR license for the MSP so that they can manage

[00:38:32] their own internal security program.

[00:38:33] Cause guess what?

[00:38:34] If your clients are being asked about a SOC two or, or compliance programs, they're going

[00:38:39] to be asking you for what, how, where your compliance is and what the status of your compliance

[00:38:44] program is.

[00:38:44] Oh yeah.

[00:38:45] Guess what?

[00:38:46] Gotta have that too.

[00:38:47] No, no, that's absolutely a hundred percent fair.

[00:38:50] Um, that's great.

[00:38:51] I mean, so, you know, every, you know, everybody loves free stuff as long as they do something

[00:38:55] with it.

[00:38:56] Uh, so that MSP gets at NFR great, um, affordable, you know, uh, program, any small business in

[00:39:02] America should be able to afford it.

[00:39:03] Awesome.

[00:39:03] Love to hear that, you know, music to my ears.

[00:39:06] And then, you know, upside is all the work that needs to be done in order to make sure

[00:39:10] that, uh, you know, you can progress down the workflow is all technology work, right?

[00:39:14] Or a lot of it.

[00:39:15] So that means that MSP is doing a lot of project-based work in order to actually get

[00:39:19] there.

[00:39:21] Yeah.

[00:39:21] And, and again, it's about managing risk.

[00:39:23] And so one of the things that, that really helps for an MSP is that we're, we're giving

[00:39:27] you the tools to become that strategic partner and think about, or help your customers think

[00:39:31] about how they're managing risk across the organization and not just in the IT and security

[00:39:35] side of things.

[00:39:35] And what makes you stickier to your, to a customer?

[00:39:38] The fact that you can implement the RMM tool, which they don't even know or care about,

[00:39:42] or the, the endpoint protection, which they're never even going to notice is running.

[00:39:45] If you're picking the right endpoint protection is they're never even going to notice is not

[00:39:48] running on their system.

[00:39:49] Um, or, or being the strategic partner that's actually helping them make better business

[00:39:53] decisions and drive, right?

[00:39:55] Like they want a partner.

[00:39:56] They, if, if IT is commoditized, or at least in their mind is commoditized, you're not very

[00:40:01] sticky because they can just go to their, uh, when their cousin graduates from college

[00:40:05] or high school or whatever and says, I can do that IT thing for you.

[00:40:08] They like that.

[00:40:12] We need to make the MSP not be, uh, that commodity good.

[00:40:16] That's just selling IT services, but it is actually selling a managed service that is

[00:40:20] creating value for the, for their customers.

[00:40:22] So it's not just a cost center.

[00:40:24] It's also a value center.

[00:40:26] No, fair.

[00:40:27] A hundred percent.

[00:40:27] I agree with you.

[00:40:28] Um, that's cool.

[00:40:30] I'm glad that, you know, like this is a, you know, number one, I love seeing new businesses

[00:40:34] pop up.

[00:40:34] You know, I'm a fan.

[00:40:35] I've done it.

[00:40:36] It's the beginning part of any new businesses equally frustrating, but exciting at the same

[00:40:42] time.

[00:40:42] So, I mean, you know, the, that, the inverse of that is you go into corporate America,

[00:40:48] big companies move slow red tape.

[00:40:50] You know, I guess it depends on, on what you like and what you don't like, but I digress

[00:40:54] or the government for that matter, who moves even slower and has even more.

[00:40:59] Uh, but no, MSP line's exciting.

[00:41:01] I'm excited for you.

[00:41:02] Uh, you know, you're, you're coming at a time in the industry where things are, you

[00:41:06] know, way more mature now than they were when I first got involved.

[00:41:10] That's for sure.

[00:41:11] Uh, so it was bigger.

[00:41:13] There's more people involved.

[00:41:14] You know, it's a little bit more formalized.

[00:41:15] These are all good things.

[00:41:17] Um, this is not a small topic.

[00:41:19] And I think that there's definitely awareness, more awareness now in 2024 than there was in

[00:41:23] prior years about the compliance part of it.

[00:41:26] Um, how much gets outsourced versus how much is done in source has really been, I think

[00:41:31] the question, I guess third question is how much of you ignored and just not done anything,

[00:41:35] but that, that back to your, back to your 401k analogy that, that hurts you in the end.

[00:41:40] Right.

[00:41:41] Uh, cause you end up paying a lot more than you do now.

[00:41:43] So I agree with you there.

[00:41:45] Um, yeah, no, I'm excited.

[00:41:47] You know, like, you know, I would say, you know, if your goal, like we're December 5th,

[00:41:53] 24, if I had to fast forward 12 months from now, December 5th, 25, how many partners are

[00:41:58] you forecasting?

[00:41:59] If you were to have it your way, how many people, how many MSPs would you like to have on your

[00:42:03] platform?

[00:42:04] Uh, so our, our target for 2025 is to have a hundred MSPs on the platform by the end of

[00:42:08] the year.

[00:42:08] So we're, we're looking to very rapidly accelerate from where we are today.

[00:42:12] And it's again, we have gone all in on the channel and are excited about it.

[00:42:16] And, uh, so the rap that you saw a couple of weeks ago is not the last.

[00:42:21] It's recorded.

[00:42:22] It's recorded.

[00:42:23] It's online.

[00:42:23] The internet never forgets either.

[00:42:25] Uh, you know, and it's funny.

[00:42:28] So I'm pretty active at my kid's school.

[00:42:30] Also, George, uh, uh, you know, went on Facebook and LinkedIn.

[00:42:33] And so it was a drop off for school, like a couple of days after this.

[00:42:37] And I heard some of the moms talking about that, that, and some woman in the crowd, y'all

[00:42:42] take it off as we unzipped our, our hoodies.

[00:42:44] Uh, and so they're, they're, they're talking about this and, uh, one of them says, wait,

[00:42:50] this was at a PTA event.

[00:42:52] I said, no.

[00:42:55] Yeah, that's funny.

[00:42:56] Uh, Hey, listen, uh, like I said, you definitely made a splash.

[00:43:01] I think that's what you're at.

[00:43:02] You had to, you had to, you were in the right place at the right time for the right people

[00:43:05] for sure.

[00:43:06] Uh, hopefully the moms in line aren't, you know, got it straight and it wasn't that

[00:43:11] a PTA.

[00:43:11] Yeah.

[00:43:11] We, we got it all sorted out.

[00:43:13] Uh, I am, I am under, uh, strict orders to, at the next PTA meeting to, to come out

[00:43:18] with some sort of PTA related rap.

[00:43:19] So I'll have to think about that a little bit.

[00:43:21] I am not a good rapper.

[00:43:23] Like, I think we all learned that pretty quickly.

[00:43:26] So, uh, well, so the, so between now and the next PTA meeting, we'll have to see how,

[00:43:32] well, when, when is that?

[00:43:33] Now I'm going to look it up.

[00:43:34] They, you know, at least for the regular season, the commanders and the Eagles next meet in Washington

[00:43:42] because they already came to Philadelphia.

[00:43:43] Yep.

[00:43:44] So let's see.

[00:43:45] Pulling up the schedule now.

[00:43:47] December 22nd, I think.

[00:43:48] Okay.

[00:43:50] All right.

[00:43:51] Well, we'll have to, uh, it's not that far.

[00:43:53] It's only a couple of weeks out.

[00:43:55] No.

[00:43:56] Yeah.

[00:43:56] Set 22nd week 16.

[00:43:58] Yeah.

[00:43:58] Sunday one o'clock.

[00:43:59] Okay.

[00:44:00] So you'll have your next PTA rap figured out and then we'll know whether the, you know,

[00:44:05] the Eagles and the commanders are going to be at that point.

[00:44:08] It will be like the last couple of weeks of the season.

[00:44:09] We'll see what the playoffs look like.

[00:44:11] My friend.

[00:44:12] Yeah.

[00:44:12] Well, it's, uh, like I said, I'm a long suffering commanders fan here and I am, I'm not holding

[00:44:20] any, I don't know.

[00:44:21] I'm not holding my breath that they managed to finish out the season the way they started

[00:44:24] the season.

[00:44:25] It's like, I, I, I would love to see it.

[00:44:27] I'm, I've been enjoying the hell out of this season.

[00:44:29] It's been so much fun to watch.

[00:44:31] And even, even those couple of games where we've like found unique and creative ways

[00:44:36] to win, like we did at, uh, in Dallas.

[00:44:38] Uh, I, I, I think there's so, so forever it's worth new quarterback, not a book out

[00:44:45] on him, new coaching team.

[00:44:47] Don't know what the playbook is going to be.

[00:44:49] Right.

[00:44:49] So you get the, the, the element of surprise in the beginning of all of that.

[00:44:53] Right.

[00:44:54] Then, you know, like what happened to the Eagles, right?

[00:44:57] They didn't change their playbook from one year to the next.

[00:44:59] They have a book on you.

[00:45:00] You either have to refresh it or you're in trouble.

[00:45:02] Right.

[00:45:02] Right.

[00:45:02] Cause people can see tendencies and patterns and all that jazz.

[00:45:06] All that being said, talent on the field makes, you know, it is important.

[00:45:09] I think you guys definitely overperformed in the beginning of the season.

[00:45:13] Not a, not a bad thing, you know, but it's a whole season, right?

[00:45:16] We've got to get to the end.

[00:45:17] Then we've got a new season in the playoffs.

[00:45:19] So we'll see what happens.

[00:45:20] I think in Philadelphia for whatever it's worth, we're a little bit confused that the

[00:45:24] current ownership group of the Sixers is the, also the current ownership group of the

[00:45:29] New Jersey Devils is also the current ownership group of the Washington.

[00:45:31] Like, you know, like this cross city thing is not normal for us.

[00:45:37] No, it's, it's not normal for any of us here.

[00:45:40] But I guess Daniel Snyder was not well received.

[00:45:44] So it was anything was better.

[00:45:46] I heard.

[00:45:47] Yeah.

[00:45:47] Getting that, getting that man out of the organization was just, just a unadulterated good thing.

[00:45:56] Okay.

[00:45:56] Hold on.

[00:45:57] I got a couple of questions for you on the topic then.

[00:46:00] They're talking about changing the name.

[00:46:01] Either there's something else or back.

[00:46:04] So I guess the back would be the Washington football team or the Redskins.

[00:46:08] What's your opinion?

[00:46:09] So I, I doubt that it ever goes.

[00:46:11] And in fact, the organization has pretty clearly said it's not going back to the Redskins.

[00:46:14] Although the logo might come back to the old Redskins logo, which I think would be pretty

[00:46:17] cool.

[00:46:18] I hate the commanders.

[00:46:19] So it's like, all I can think about is let's go commies, right?

[00:46:23] Which does not fly very, especially with a Red.

[00:46:27] Anyhow, like.

[00:46:28] I'm with you.

[00:46:29] Yeah.

[00:46:29] So personally, I would be much hugely in support of even the Washington football team coming

[00:46:36] back.

[00:46:36] But I think there's, there's some talk about maybe going back to the old RFK stadium, revamping

[00:46:40] that and bringing them back into DC proper, which I think would be a great change for

[00:46:44] the organization.

[00:46:46] You know, I miss the games at RFK that those were, those are a lot of fun.

[00:46:50] But I'll tell you what, the new stadium is, you know, it's part of a huge part of the

[00:46:54] valuation of any team is the stadium.

[00:46:57] So I would love to see what if, whether they build a new one or something, right?

[00:47:01] Like I would love to see, I would love to see a new stadium for the commanders that FedEx

[00:47:06] field stinks.

[00:47:07] Yeah.

[00:47:08] And it's not even that old.

[00:47:10] It like, it was never that.

[00:47:13] I feel like they took the old stadium model and they just put concrete into it and they

[00:47:17] just dropped it.

[00:47:18] Like, like, I don't know why they're, the look and feel and just like the old school

[00:47:22] circle bowl thing.

[00:47:24] I don't know what they were doing.

[00:47:26] Yeah.

[00:47:26] I mean, I, so I lived in Denver for a long time and the old mile high to the new mile

[00:47:30] high, like the old mile high was a great stadium and was super loud, but the new mile

[00:47:33] high looks and feels like a great stadium.

[00:47:36] And, and so, you know, when to go, uh, the DC area, having going from the RFK that had

[00:47:42] such a great, like character to it, to FedEx was, was hard.

[00:47:47] Um, I gotta tell you, I'm like the 49, I'm in San Francisco now, the 49er stadium, the

[00:47:52] new one is like, it's so far out of San Francisco and it's, it's beautiful, but it's also kind

[00:47:58] of a weird feel to it.

[00:47:59] It's so it's, you know, it doesn't have like, uh, the old Oakland Coliseum had, had like

[00:48:05] character.

[00:48:05] Um, I never managed to get to a Niners game of candlestick.

[00:48:09] Um, but you know, anyhow, that's.

[00:48:13] Well, I, I never made it to candlestick either.

[00:48:15] I got to make it to Levi's.

[00:48:16] It's been open for a little bit now.

[00:48:17] Uh, I've obviously here in the Northeast, but I've been to, I think I've been to like 18

[00:48:21] or 19 of the 29 NFL stadiums.

[00:48:24] Um, so I still got a few more to go there, but, uh, I've actually been back to like, you

[00:48:29] know, old giant stadium, new giant stadium, old Dallas stadium, new Dallas stadium, hopefully

[00:48:33] old Redskins stadium, new Redskins.

[00:48:35] Yeah.

[00:48:36] But, uh, yeah, the, definitely the vet in Philadelphia had plenty of character, probably not the character

[00:48:43] that we love, you know, for 40 years later with snowballs at Santa Claus.

[00:48:48] Uh, I wasn't even alive.

[00:48:49] Snowballs batteries.

[00:48:50] Come on, man.

[00:48:50] I mean, I wasn't even alive for the snowballs.

[00:48:53] Uh, so, but the batteries, yeah.

[00:48:55] I guess I was alive for that.

[00:48:57] Uh, but yeah, the new, the new Lincoln financial field is, uh, definitely, and, and, you know,

[00:49:02] funny enough, people forget that the Pittsburgh stadium, Heinz field at the time and Lincoln

[00:49:06] financial field got open, like literally within 12 months of each other.

[00:49:09] So fun times here in Pennsylvania, but we will see, I will, uh, maybe I'll have to make

[00:49:14] you a fun wager as we get closer to that game.

[00:49:16] We'll see how things are going.

[00:49:18] Yeah.

[00:49:18] Well, we can find something fun to do that.

[00:49:21] Yeah.

[00:49:22] Yeah.

[00:49:22] I'm, I'm totally down for something.

[00:49:24] Not a rap though.

[00:49:25] We'll have to do something else.

[00:49:27] I'm looking forward to you rapping.

[00:49:28] Come on.

[00:49:29] Oh no, no.

[00:49:30] You don't want me to do that.

[00:49:31] I mean, you're once Philadelphia born and raised, right?

[00:49:33] But everybody knows that song and it's hip.

[00:49:35] That's about it.

[00:49:36] Right?

[00:49:37] Like that's, I don't know if that's a, I qualify that as rap.

[00:49:40] I, you know, I think that's good.

[00:49:41] I don't think it qualifies as rap, but yeah.

[00:49:44] Hip hop, I guess.

[00:49:46] Yeah.

[00:49:46] Good old Will Smith there in the Fresh Prince.

[00:49:48] All right, my friend.

[00:49:49] Well, where can people find more information about you?

[00:49:52] Blacksmith, the MSP program, how to get in touch, maybe check things out.

[00:49:56] Talk to somebody.

[00:49:57] Yeah.

[00:49:58] Blacksmithinfosec.com is probably the easiest way.

[00:50:00] We've got a book a demo button.

[00:50:02] And you can go ahead and actually sign up for a 30 day free trial right from our website.

[00:50:05] So jump on in and start kicking around if you're one of the tinker type of MSPs and want

[00:50:10] to just play with the system.

[00:50:12] But yeah, if you'd rather talk to us and kind of walk through the system, happy to book a

[00:50:17] demo and would love to talk to anybody.

[00:50:21] Yep.

[00:50:21] A hundred percent.

[00:50:22] Awesome.

[00:50:23] Well, we will see you on the other side of the new year.

[00:50:26] Hopefully, you know, between now and then with lots of stuff going on, but happy holidays

[00:50:31] to you and the team over there.

[00:50:33] And we'll catch you on the other side.

[00:50:35] Sounds great.

[00:50:35] Thanks, George.

[00:50:36] Happy holidays to you and your team as well.

[00:50:37] And we'll talk soon.

[00:50:38] Awesome.

[00:50:38] For everyone else, this session was recorded.

[00:50:40] I'm sure you're watching it on YouTube or listening to it on your podcast or on MSPinitiative.com

[00:50:45] under sessions.

[00:50:47] We are doing these until the end of the year and then we pick back up after the new year.

[00:50:50] So stick with us as we're now off the road and we'll talk more about fun things.

[00:50:56] Catch you later, everyone.

[00:50:57] Thanks.