Rafael Sanguily of Benji Pays

[00:00:00] and welcome to a May 21st edition of the MSP Initiative, MSP Talk podcast. Man, years flying by, May, my favorite month of the year. I'm a little bit biased. It's my birthday month, but we'll just put that on. My second favorite month of the year, September. Why? That's when the NFL season starts, but I guess I'm not shocking anybody with that if you've been following this show. Here we go. We're going to get some housekeeping out of the way, and then we'll get on with the good stuff.

[00:00:27] So, um, MSP initiative.com. That's where you're going to find all the stuff that we're doing like this very podcast, which we're recording and hopefully you're watching online right now or after the fact. So we park all of the, you know, the episodes online, uh, go to MSP initiative.com where we've linked to YouTube and the podcatchers and you can like, share, subscribe, down, grow a download, do all the good stuff. Um, some, you know, some general things that I know are coming up in the calendar. Again, I'm going to, you know, keep going on my thank you tour.

[00:00:53] Uh, we had an awesome event with enable the empower event in Fort Lauderdale, followed by Kaseya connect global in Vegas. That was our first MSP block party in Vegas. That was a super successful. Thank you to the teams at both of those conferences for working with us. We're coming up on, uh, and of course, earlier in the year, zero trust world and the great team at threat locker, uh, who accommodated us in Orlando. That was awesome. Uh, we are moving forward, uh, for two more events in the next, like less than 30 days.

[00:01:22] It feels like we're just about 30 days. Uh, we're headed over to Europe for the, uh, European version of what happened in Vegas. So Kaseya connect Europe. Uh, you can just Google that it's in Prague, uh, birthplace of the Pilsner beer. If you didn't know that, uh, that they, they, they are proud about that by the way over there. And then, uh, right after that, I believe the week after we're headed to Nashville, literally

[00:01:46] on Broadway for the, uh, flow conference, which is hosted by the good folks over at Roost. Uh, last year was Tampa. This year is Nashville. Looking forward to getting into a new city with that, uh, group of people in that event. It was very successful. Uh, last year, we're looking for another community block party this year as well. So Europe and U S here in Nashville, just a public service announcement.

[00:02:11] Um, uh, if you're, if you're a U S person headed to Europe like me, um, there's now extra steps. Like there's going to be extra steps you have to do once you get there, like scan your fingerprints and they have like a whole new process now that you got to go through. You also need to apply for, you know, like a visa basically. Right. It's, it's, we do something similar on the U S for people coming into the U S for a lot of countries. You got to pay like a fee. Um, guess what?

[00:02:38] Now you got to pay a fee, uh, to go into Europe surprise, you know, fee for you fee for me. So just do your homework ahead of time. So you don't get jammed up when you get off a plane. Um, you know, like it's all online now, you'll see it. It went live earlier this year, uh, I believe in like February. So, uh, definitely don't get jammed up on that. So check that out before you get on a plane. So that is my housekeeping. Um, all of that again on mspinitiative.com. And now my housekeeping is done. I'm going to bring my guest on.

[00:03:08] This is not his first time on the podcast. It may be his first time with this company, but we'll get, we'll get the download on all of that. Uh, welcome. And by the way, my favorite Ninja Turtle name, welcome to the show, Raphael. I call him Raph. What's up, Raph? What's up, buddy? How are you, man? I'm happy. I get to celebrate your entire birthday month, bro. This is not a birthday. It's a birthday month. I like that you get the whole month of majors for you, bro. I have to, I have to take advantage of the whole thing. I mean, you know, one day is just not enough.

[00:03:38] You're not helping me sell this to my daughter, right? Tell her your birthday is a day, not the entire month of April. Wow. Wow. The good part about, you know, being a little bit older and having birthday months is you get to buy birthday things with your birthday month. Let me, let me give you an example. I know I'm a sucker, but you can thank Disney. Who's probably the first company who started this whole phenomenon and it bled into the movies. Look at my Top Gun Maverick popcorn bucket. Okay. That is pretty sick, dude. All right. So that is pretty slick. That is pretty dope.

[00:04:08] And I just picked up a new one right before the show. I wanted to show it to you live. Here we go. Ready? The Mandalorian popcorn. Oh man. Okay. Yeah. I definitely, I need me one of those. I need me one of those. Yes. You better get, yeah. They're going to sell out fast. So you better, right after the show, you better go grab one. I'm going to, that's exactly. You already know. I'm going to head over there. Literally, relax this show. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. All right. I got so many. Hold on. Do you have the Gladiator one? The Coliseum one? Oh, what does it say? This is huge, right?

[00:04:38] This is the Gladiator. That is amazing. Yes. Hold on. Hold on. I got more. I got more. Jurassic World. Oh, that is badass. Hold on. I got more. This is my next favorite one. Yoshi. Oh, nice. So cool, right? Those are all popcorn buckets? Yeah.

[00:05:08] That's badass. I got more, but we could be doing the whole show on popcorn buckets. And I'm sure we got other things to do. Did you get the Gladiator Coliseum one? I didn't. I didn't. I missed that one. But I am looking forward to next week when Masters of the Universe come out. You know, they got the He-Man sword drink. Yes. And then they got Castle Grayskull. So that's going to be great. Yeah, man. I was, it's crazy how all these cartoons that we grew up with as kids are like now becoming like real action movies. You know what I mean?

[00:05:37] I'm waiting for the Thundercats movie, dude. I'm, let's get that going. I'm going to need a petition. I'm happy to lead a petition. And MSP, if you're out there, if you guys are fans of Thundercats, let's get, let's get this movie made, folks. There's just so much good content from, you know, the 80s and the 90s. And I mean, listen, we can all argue Stranger Things and that it's a newer phenomenon. But based in the 80s, it's just all the stuff that we grew up with. Surprisingly, they're like, oh, these guys are now able to spend a lot of money.

[00:06:06] We should make things they can spend money on, right? I'm a sucker for all that shit too, man. Even like the Stranger Things. The Stranger Things is a great show, right? Yeah. If you think about it, it's basically Goonies with like a sci-fi thing attached to it. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. And you know what? Now they're going to do like the, you know, they're coming out with Spaceballs 2. Yeah. After 30 years, right? Why not? And why not, man? So Goonies 2? Look, Goonies 2, the Goonies reboot, they're all old. They're all our age.

[00:06:33] I mean, how many times have they tried to reboot Knight Rider? Dude, my God, so many times. And what's funny is, it's actually now probably the most believable time for Knight Rider with all the AI stuff that's actually out there. But I believe that a lot of our world worked backwards from Knight Rider and Star Trek. 100%, dude. Yeah. Like, it's like the movies have come to life. It's, we are, it's, I don't know if it's art imitating, is it art imitating life or life imitating art?

[00:07:00] But yeah, whoever's controlling the current, my current simulation, I want to make a complaint to that operator. I feel like I need to get a switch. I need, I need a reboot. Something's wrong with my- We're in the Matrix. We're in the Matrix. Which is funny because, hey, listen, whether you believe it or not, you know, the government has released all this like UFO stuff. And I'm not even into all of that. I was just going through the feeds and I'm like, let's just see what this is. And I'm going through and I'm like, wow.

[00:07:28] I was like, there's some crazy stuff in here. And I'm like, you know, it doesn't surprise me, right? Like Independence Day, they didn't just draw that up on their own. They had to get to that home. Dude, I'm like, I've fully fallen into that UFO thing. I'm deep in there. I want to believe. I'm full X-Files now. I'm that, I've become that guy. But look, I'll tell you how crazy it is. The government released all the, this is how crazy the world is. We can get into business stuff in a second.

[00:07:51] But how crazy the world is that the government released information saying there is aliens and people are still like, hey, did you see who won the Masked Singer or whatever? Like, oh my God. Dude, if there was, if they would have said that aliens are real 20 years ago, like people would have lost, there would be nothing else. No, anyone was talking about. People are now just like, yeah, whatever. I mean, like. I don't know if we all subscribe though. I think a lot of you are just like, yeah, okay.

[00:08:17] Like nobody's actually seen an alien that's made it to like, you know, mainstream anything. Right. Like. I don't know, man. It's getting pretty. It's getting pretty. I look, dude. I, I was always hardcore. I wanted to believe, but I was always very skeptical. Some of the stuff that's out there now is just, it's just, it's too hard to explain. I don't know. I don't, I'm waiting for a good explanation. Otherwise, I mean, if we got Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was always a hater now kind of starting to buy in. So we'll see. Bottom line, proof's in the pudding. Right.

[00:08:45] If we got, you know, if we, you know, like independence day, if they got chips and, you know, dead aliens somewhere in a lab and floating in a tube. And like, you know. Will Smith flying around in a airspace. Like all this technology that like miraculously became like products on the market, like men in black, you know, that they commercialize things like in part of the storyline in order to pay for all the gizmos. Like, okay. Yeah. Like did the microwave really start from here or did we borrow it from somebody? Look, man, I don't believe half the thing.

[00:09:12] I don't think that, I don't think the, the, the BDR market that we created would have been what happened without aliens. Okay. So I feel like all, you never know. All right. You never know. You know, I'm, I'm just, I want to believe, I hope that, I think that's actually the only thing that's going to calm the entire world down. I think if everyone sees actually like aliens, like if the giant spaceship just popped over like Phoenix or something like that, or like over here, like over the AT&T stadium in Dallas. I think that's like the only thing that'll get people to hopefully be realized that like, do we all need to start getting along a little more, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:40] I, I, I hear that, but then there's a reason why I, I, I, you know, conspiracy theory, George here. I think that all of the space force and all of these like weapons that are supposedly in space that are not allowed to be there, you know, because everybody says that they're not, but you know, that there is probably likely. I wouldn't know for sure, but I'm taking a jump here. Yeah. They're, they're gearing up, man. They're gearing up for something. I think so, man.

[00:10:06] Look, I, and for the MSP folks that are listening, thank you for tuning into our MSP version of InfoWars. I appreciate you guys jumping on with us. Yeah. We went, we went way. Hey, it's still technology. Just like technology. It is. It's my favorite kind of technology, man. So let's rewind. Let's try and go back to the track here. So Raph, you know, that's how he's on my phone. Yeah. That's how I put him in my phone. So Rafael Senghili has been around the industry for a long time and let him tell us his quick, you know, kind of stories.

[00:10:34] If you haven't met Raph before, great dude. Him and his brother have been around the sandbox. I like to call it sandbox for a long time, doing great things. Go for it, Raph. Give him, give everybody your background. Great, man. Well, thanks for having me, George. You know, I love this industry. I've been kind of grew up in this channel. My brother and I started back here way, way back in the early days of, of, of what you call it the sandbox. I call it Hotel California because I feel like once you check in, you're kind of here forever, right?

[00:11:01] So, you know, I think I started back here like 2007-ish, I want to say. I started off at a small MSP in Southern California, turned into MSP University. Those guys have been tremendous. I mean, it's kind of where I learned everything from there. I think that's where I started meeting almost all you guys back, way back in the day. And, you know, going to that experience, I had a chance to work with, we were the one of the first online schools for MSPs that existed kind of at the time. So we grew really fast.

[00:11:28] We had like 60,000 subscribers in like 120 countries in less than like two years. It grew really fast. And then that was nuts. The cool thing was we had a chance to talk to every kind of flavor of MSP that existed all over the world. So I saw every size, shape, style, you know, flavor of MSP at the time that was going around. And it really helped me out a lot because I saw they all kind of dealt with the same problems. Like no matter how big or small or whatever they were, they were all struggling with sales and marketing, struggling how to create separation distinction, right?

[00:11:57] Struggling with operations, all the basic stuff that every business and every MSP deals with. I feel kind of the same, sometimes even more extrapolated or more exasperated, the bigger the MSP got. Some of these smaller issues and fissures became like big problems, right? But it all related around, I think, them just trying to figure out their identity and who they are. And it's funny because we're kind of like, it's like funny how the world goes back around in circles, man. Like some of the same problems we talked about before transitioning from a break-fix company to an MSP company.

[00:12:26] We're seeing that now with companies being freaked out about AI, right? And all this stuff. It's just funny. We've seen that transition with the BDR market that came around. We saw it when Microsoft started doing Office 365. And then everything was going to go to the cloud. But everything is, people, you know, this industry, we all freak out at first and everything new gets introduced. And then you realize the core proposition that we've been talking about for over 20 years of, look, your job is not to be the IT guy.

[00:12:51] Your job is to be a business consultant that just happens to use technology as a tool to make stuff happen, to make these businesses make or save money or work more efficiently. I mean, it's not that, that is the game, right? It's not technology you're creating. And it's, I hate using the business outcomes thing that's so played out, but it's just, you know, you're there to create business outcomes, man. That's really what we're for is technology doing that stuff. So the story has been the same kind of the whole time.

[00:13:16] It's just technology changes, but your role should essentially be safe considering the position you have with some of your companies, right? But I went back to my story. So I started MSPU. I went from there to Intel. I did the Intel hybrid cloud for a little while. My brother and I started traditional marketing from there. Then I actually went to Ingram for a little while and helped them launch their, their cloud marketplace. And then after that, I started to come, well, I kind of went back to my brother with, we had digital and we started a company called Glass Hive.

[00:13:44] So if any Glass Hive users are out there, we did that. And then I left Glass Hive about two years ago, went to a company called Alert Ops, helped them get into market. And then now I'm at Benji Pays, man. So I've been at Benji Pays. It'll be my year anniversary coming up here pretty soon in June. So I'm looking forward to it. It's been a great company, man. Top Down Ventures, fantastic backing. And it's just, you know, I feel super blessed and lucky, man. I get to do what I love every day with the people that I love.

[00:14:11] And, you know, this channel, man, I've genuinely, you know how I feel about this channel, George. This thing has helped me grow up so much. And I felt like it's done so much for my family and for, you know, myself and everybody around me that, you know, this is a really special channel, guys. It's something that I feel really lucky to be a part of. Because if you guys have worked in any of the industries and enterprise and different stuff, they don't have what we have here, right? Like, I've had a chance to see the other side. I've been outside of our little, you know, safe little universe here.

[00:14:39] And I've had a chance to come back. And my goodness, people don't understand. Like, what do you mean you're having beers with your competitors? Like, what are you talking about you're taking out? Like, because our channel is very special and unique where we try to take care of each other. I think people don't understand that this community, what drives this community, what makes this community so special is that relationship that we all have with each other of really protecting each other. Like, look, if you're a shady person in this channel, you get found out super fast, right? The word spreads quick.

[00:15:08] But if you're doing a good job and you're actively contributing, you're helping things out, like you guys do with MSP Initiative and all the stuff you guys do, that word spreads just as fast too, right? And it's just really not that hard. Like, how many times have we not talked about this, George? The rest of it, because people come up to you all the time and they come to us and ask us, like, new vendors come in the channel and they're like, so what do you do to be successful with MSPs? And I'm like, honestly, it's pretty simple, man. Just, you know, just don't be a dick. Just be nice and say, do what you say you're going to do.

[00:15:37] And just, you know, care about this channel. It's like, you put your effort outside of just like how much you can make in this channel because you'll make money if you provide a lot of value. And providing a lot of value really is just genuinely helping out and caring and giving a shit and caring about your channel and caring about this community that we all live. Like, I love that we all try to help each other out because I think the common denominator across all the vendors and, you know, all of our friends and people we've worked with so many years is that we believe that a high tide raises all boats, right? So if we can get everybody doing well, then we all do well.

[00:16:08] No, yeah. I mean, listen, I subscribe to that sentiment. Not everybody does, I think. But I think a lot of people do. This industry, like a lot of small business is a relationship business, all right? Like it just is. And pay it forward, I think, is a great theme to rising all tides kind of thing as well. But not everybody does. I wish more people did.

[00:16:34] But, you know, brass tacks are a big picture on all of it is, yeah, what do you have to do to be successful? Well, there's a lot of things, but help people solve things is probably the big theme, right? Yeah. Sometimes it's what you sell. Sometimes it's connecting them with somebody else. Sometimes it's just a tip, right? Hey, I don't know about you, but I've tried this in the past. It worked for me. You know, what do you got to lose, right? Who knows?

[00:17:00] I think that we're very much, as much as we are in a technology industry or a sub-industry of the larger technology industry is very relationship human being driven. It really is. And people are like, how is that? How can that be? And I'm like, it is. Trust me. It's 100% relationship industry, man. Look, it's people that's, again, you get what you put into it and you're going to get out of it, whatever work you want to get out of it. Again, the good thing is you're a shady individual.

[00:17:30] You do things that are unscrupulous. People will find out pretty quickly, right? That's the cool thing about this channel, kind of the dangerous thing too, right? You want to make sure you're doing the right thing as much as possible. I mean, things will happen, right? But I think, look, the good thing is that I love this channel. I love the stuff that you guys are doing with this channel. All the, you know, people think that all the shows and things that you put on, you guys must be making a killing on these things.

[00:17:56] But just because the care that you guys have for this channel that we call home, man. So it's props to you guys for all the stuff you guys do out there. Thank you. 100% true. Definitely a labor of love. It is not printing money. You know, if you think we are, I promise you. It is nowhere near or in a dream world maybe, but not in reality. Um, so the current company you're at, Raph, is called? Benji Pays. Benji Pays.

[00:18:24] So high level, what does Benji Pays do? So basically we help MSPs get paid a lot easier and faster, right? So essentially we're an accounts receivable automation tool. So the way that it works is that we're QuickBooks app also essentially, right? So QuickBooks and Xero. So the moment that you create an invoice and whatever PSA you're using, necessarily using Halo, for example, if you create that invoice, then we automate everything from the moment that invoice is created all the way through collections. So the easy way to think about it is we do three things really well. One, auto-processing.

[00:18:52] So if your people are paying you every month at the same time, that should be like a Netflix bill. That's just happening. It should auto-process. Just take zero minutes a month. Do they just raise the price like with no notice the next day? Does that work? Pretty much. That is the secret. That's, that's the level, level 201 class. We'll talk about that later. But there's, you know, auto-processing. People are paying you, clients are paying you every month on time, the same time. That should be zero months, zero minutes a month of your time spent on that. The second thing is we give you guys a white label payment portal that you guys can go in. Your clients can see all their previous invoices.

[00:19:21] They can make all those payments. They can adjust things. They can pay by bank transfer or by their own credit card. And the third thing that we do really well is our, something we call invoice roger, which is an automated dunning system. So just the follow-ups, all the, hey, reminders and email system, and that's all customizable by client. And sometimes you guys might have that super special secret little squirrel client that needs the extra loving. And some clients, you know, need the extra, need a little bit more tough love type approach. So you guys can give them whatever verbiage or language that makes sense for you there. It's all easy and customizable. And that's pretty much it, man.

[00:19:51] Like I tell people, we're, we're, what we do is not rocket science. We just do something, an automation that works really, really well. And, you know, we try to make it simple. This is, we sell math for the most part. So we just want to make sure this, the math is at the, has to math. I say the math is a math thing all the time. I love that phrase. All right. So just want to be like maybe a one layer granular. Are you a SaaS platform and a merchant processor?

[00:20:18] Are you just a SaaS platform that connects to other merchant processors or how does all of that work? So, yes, we do all those things, man. So we basically are, we're, we're, we're primarily first platform. I would say we're a SaaS platform primary, first and foremost. We do have a processor that we also have attached to what we do. And that's something that we offer to everybody. If they don't have one, we're fairly competitive. It's pretty standard across the rates, across the board on the credit card side. But we're, if look, if you're really married to whatever credit card processor that you

[00:20:47] have, and it's some, you know, super special relationships that your brother-in-law's processor or something like that, you want to bring it over and look, we're fine. You can bring that over to us. The only thing that we would do is on the ACH side, I think that's another area that we win pretty well. We don't like, like, we don't like doing all the weird basis points and making it complicated for people to move money around. So we try to keep things really easy with flat rates. Like for the most, I would say 95% of almost every, every MSP's transactions are going to be a dollar on ACH or EFT.

[00:21:17] So we try to make it really easy. Again, our thing is this shouldn't be this hard. It doesn't have to be this hard. And for what we do, it doesn't have to be that complicated. If people are giving you complicated pricing with your current processors or current, you know, merchant processing services, that's usually a good sign. They're trying to bamboozle you and had some hidden fees and little random stuff in there somewhere. So we try to keep things really transparent and clear. Like one of the things I love about Benji Pays when I first came and started working with these guys, I got a chance to meet the leadership, right?

[00:21:46] Like all of our teams are really good. Our support's great. I mean, everybody's fantastic. But the two owners of the company, especially Adam, the guy that started the company, he was a brewer, right? Started at a brewery. Benji Pays was actually born in a brewery, right? So he was spending like 15 hours every Friday, like just reconciling all the stuff in QuickBooks and all his invoices. And he was like, okay. While he was drinking the beer from the brewery? Well, that probably led to most of his drinking. I'm sure after going through all that, right? And then so, but he was there and he was thinking like, this is crazy. He had a coding background.

[00:22:15] He's a developer. So he's like, he just built his own tool for himself. And then some of his other brewery buddies were having the same problem. They're like, hey, we'd like to use this. And then someone told him about the MSP community. Probably somebody was going to one of the breweries and they were like, we could use this. And then boom, that's how Benji Pays was born. He actually, and so if you know anybody who's ever owned a brewery, brewers are, for the most part, they just care about making really good beer. Like they want to keep the lights on and make money, but they're really, it's more about the craft. It's really more about like making something really nice.

[00:22:45] And he takes that same approach to making the software. He just wants to make the software really great. He wants to make the, you know, help the community out, but I always want to keep the lights on. We want to do well, but it's not just about squeezing every single dollar we can out of every part of the works. That's right. It's just, you know, making good beer, making good software. Hey, maybe we need to, for every time you sign up, you get beer. I'm sure you've probably thought about that at one point. Yes. Legally, of course.

[00:23:11] So is your service available where? U.S., Canada? I don't know. Three questions. So right now we're all North America. So U.S. and Canada. We just launched into the U.K. So just fresh out of the oven over there. We're getting started. So next up is going to be Australia later this year. We're going to, we're getting pulled over there quite a bit as well too. So those are the, those are the geos that we're at now. We're going to keep expanding out as we keep growing and doing more.

[00:23:39] Thankfully, we get pulled into a bunch of really cool geos by our partners. MSPs out there have been big fans of us and have been recommending us to their partners in these different geos. So it's just a matter of us, you know, we're a small team. We're growing fast, but give us a little time. We're trying to get out there where you guys are at as soon as possible. If we're not in your geo right now, send a request over to us and look, we'll, we'll, we'll try to get out there as soon as we can. You could also play off the Ninja Turtle theme. And every time you sign up, I send you a pizza. I mean, we could do that.

[00:24:08] I would, man, I am so down. Like we get, we get all your brownies. So our big thing is like brownies, right? So if you guys know, so you guys come to the events, you guys know that our booth, we have a bunch of brownies everywhere. Actually, we're doing something pretty cool. We just launched a video game. So we actually built a video game, started off as just kind of a way to get people to play stuff in between sessions. And, you know, we figured like most MSPs and we come to these shows and most partners, right? Like we don't get a chance to talk to everybody. Right. And we want to still give people a chance to do something fun in between sessions. We built a cool game. It wasn't like, it was kind of the initial thing.

[00:24:38] It was like, how do we get people to do something that's just actually fun when they're not at sessions and they're not in our booth, but they can still hopefully remember us. So the game is actually doing really well. We had, man, we've had over three. So we launched the game at Zero Trust World as beta. Um, then we kind of built a little bit more and had a full kind of like our first real MVP launched at Kaseya Connect. And we had over like a thousand runs at Kaseya Connect. And then, uh, this last one we just did at MSP Geek Con, we had almost 1200 runs.

[00:25:07] So we, it's been, it's been being adopted pretty well. And we're going to start doing a bunch of other really cool stuff out there too with that game. So we're going to start doing some digital campaigns and some online contests and we give away cash prizes, whoever's the highest score. So, um, it's a really fun way just to get to know a little bit of our culture and about our, you know, how a little bit about us, right? I think you said a little earlier, it's about relationships and, you know, we're big into like, Hey, it's not just buying a product. Girls are kind of buying our vibes. Right. So we want to make sure that you get, you get a flavor of our vibe, like how we are, how

[00:25:37] we operate and a little bit of our, you know, we're, we're also, we want to make money, but we want to have fun too. A hundred percent, man. I'm with you. I subscribe. Um, do you want to tell them how to get to the game or they got to see an event to get to the game? Yeah. So look, you guys can play it right now. We have the general play on, so you guys can find us on LinkedIn, but if you want to go to Benji game.com or Benji plays.com, we're still toying with those two year old. That's how new this is, right? They both go to the same game, but it's just Benji game.com or Benji plays.com.

[00:26:06] And you can play the game over there and check it out. Um, also let us know if you prefer Benji game or Benji plays as the URL. We're still kind of internal debate as to which one we're going to end up with this final URL. I like it. I like it a lot. Um, so zooming out, man, like it is quite the time. So I like, I like current events, you know, everybody likes to keep up with their, their, you know, their feeds, speeds and feeds. So current events, let's zoom out.

[00:26:34] So are you, uh, did you hear SpaceX is about to go IPO? Yes. I saw that. That was a trillion dollar valuation. I saw that right into some other, I've heard some other companies might be also going IPO. I've heard, I've heard that fizzing around in the, in the ether somewhere out there. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a big IPO time for sure. But I saw the SpaceX, uh, I, I look, I'm, I'm such a space like UFO nerd. I'm even if this stock tanks, I'm going to buy some, I'll get some of that SpaceX IPO for sure.

[00:27:04] Okay.

[00:27:33] All right. I didn't get deep enough that we saw it sink, but it did not float. That is for sure. Waddle mode. Yeah. Go, go Google that. Uh, guy gets arrested for driving Tesla truck for waddle mode. You'll come right on. I am, I am, I am not surprised, but happy to hear that somebody does something done like that. Okay. All right. How about like all of a sudden, all of these things are popping up. You heard GitHub, which if you're a developer, it's popular to use is like where you park all

[00:28:01] of your code, you know, not even publicly, but privately. It was like a, you know, filing cabinet for developers and all of their stuff. So GitHub, which is what was acquired by Microsoft way back when, um, got hacked. And then all of a sudden, all of these other vulnerabilities, like if you just go on X and you look up like the last week or so of, Hey, this, you know, this Linux vulnerability that had never been plugged for nine years, just found this web server, this, this.

[00:28:28] And I'm just like, did we get to the apocalypse where, you know, all of these new AI tools are just going so fast. Like it's finding stuff that like you just couldn't have put together, you know, sound, it kind of feels like that. What do you, what do you, what do you think? Yeah, man, it goes back to, look, there's a lot of things that we can't control as we're kind of growing and AI is too going to, going to absolutely change the landscape, especially from a cybersecurity perspective.

[00:28:53] I mean, dude, we were walking into absolutely some dark rooms that we don't have full visibility into yet. Right. But, you know, with that said, this, this goes back to something that you mentioned a little earlier with the relationships, right? Somebody hacks your GitHub, does something crazy, you know, messes with code, does something or steal somebody else's code or something like that messes up your product. Cause maybe it might've been a plugin for like a connector for a tool to use. It could be something like that, but now something's not working. Right.

[00:29:18] If your relationship with your customers as an MSP is totally just a commoditized kind of, they only see you when stuff breaks type thing. And, you know, just, they're just sending you, you're basically like a cost for them every month. Cause they look at you as anything, nothing other than a value add, you're going to have a tough time. Cause the value of a relationship is truly tested when, cause it's no matter if things go wrong as an MSP, it's a matter of time. Something will go wrong eventually. Right.

[00:29:49] And you're the relationship that you have, that's what's going to be tested at. Everything is cool when things are great. Right. But when things are not going so great, that's where did you, how did you, how do you respond to those situations? And look, if you, if this is the first time you're showing up to your client's office after that GitHub, you know, situation shows up and you're with your, you know, kind of your hat in your hands and head down, that's going to be a tough talk. So you guys got to get in front of your clients way, way earlier than that, man.

[00:30:15] Like, you know, we talk about like how many guys are still doing quarterly business reviews out there. Right. I see everyone knows they have to do it. I feel like quarterly kind of cooled down into bi-annually or annually. Totally, man. If they're even doing that. And we, and the reason when they do that is like, you show up and you're like, here's all the tickets we did. Here's all the stuff we closed. All right, cool. So I guess we'll see you guys like next in a month and a half or whatever, whenever you guys come back. And it's just, that's not a quarterly business review, right?

[00:30:43] If you're thinking about it's in the name, quarterly business review, right? What business are you reviewing other than just stuff that you, the technical stuff that you did for them, right? So again, if your situation is, if you're actually in there and you have a value added seat with your customers, you're sitting at the table as a strategic part of their business, you're part of that decision-making. When something wrong like that happens, things that are out of control, stuff breaks and you show up to those meetings, it's a much different conversation because now you're talking about remediation planning.

[00:31:11] How do we deal with the situation that came up as opposed to, you know, what the F, John or Jim or Charlie, whoever, right? 100% with you. Obviously time is the big problem there. In my opinion, right? Probably not. You're not, that you're not wanting to do it is you have enough time to get there, right? Before, you know, and keep that, you know, priority up, which comes back to the whole,

[00:31:38] hey, how do we, how do we take time back so we can reallocate that time? But I digress. I know that's talked about a lot. Thoughts about Spirit Airlines being no longer. And since then, according to the internet, that everybody else's flight prices have gone up about 20 to 30% since. Yeah, I mean, look, I think flight prices are going to go up across the board for a lot of people just because of what's going on in global conflicts and stuff for raising gas

[00:32:07] prices and jet fuels going through the roof. So I've seen it kind of across the board, airline prices are going up. So hopefully that calms down. I mean, again, it's stuff we can't control, right? It's above my pay grade, but I, you know, I hope things start to settle down. It's just going to cause, I think, a lot of ripples across tons of different industries as this keeps progressing and time goes on. But Spirit Airlines, man, it's, you know, they were unfortunate. Again, I'm a big fan of Spirit. I didn't fly Spirit very often.

[00:32:35] I've flown Spirit twice in my life, and I'm still sort of having therapy sessions going over that, those flights. Hold on, hold on. Why? It was the only flight available at that time that I can get out to, literally. So there was a couple flights. One was, and they were quick flights, and one was to Vegas, and the other one was to Arizona or something like that. And I thought- From Dallas. From Dallas. So I thought, ah, it should be quick. It should be pretty easy. And what didn't go right?

[00:33:01] I mean, look, it was basically the fact that the seats were, I felt, made of some- I feel like they make them purposely uncomfortable as a punishment. Like, they say, hey, you know what? This is on you for choosing us. Honestly, I felt the entire time I was going through Spirit, I felt like they were punishing me for using them. They're just like, oh, you want water? That's going to be extra. We didn't factor that at all in here. Oh, you have a carry-on bag. You have a backpack? That's not- We can't handle that. It's going to be a little too much. So it's just all these little nickel and dime fees.

[00:33:31] You know what? It felt like a bad SaaS relationship where you go into it with this low cost advertised rate, this fake rate that you go into it with. And we've all been through this. I'm not going to name any names out there, but you guys know what I'm talking about. Some of you guys. Some of these vendors that are out there have done this. Well, you're starting off at this introductory rate, and then you get your bill, and it's like 40% higher. You're like, what the hell is all this? Oh, well, that's this little fee, and that little thing, and that's this little-

[00:34:00] Oh, you wanted the premium support, right? So it's like all these little crazy things. It's honestly what I felt like when I was going through Spirit. I'm like, this is a bad SaaS relationship. This is what it is in person. Speaking of rates, at the end of last year, it came out, and people probably forgot. But next month, Microsoft is raising their prices for $365 million again.

[00:34:26] It feels like every year and a half, year-ish, they just keep coming back. And actually, if you go back to 2022 until now, and you add all of the percentage increases on even the most business basic, business standard, business premium, that number looks a lot different. Where's the glass ceiling, pal? I don't think so, man.

[00:34:53] One thing Microsoft knows how to do really well is squeeze blood out of a rock, right? Those guys are great at that stuff. So it's like, listen, I'll tell you a funny story about when Microsoft 365 first came out. When it first came out, do you remember the MSP Met channel was losing their whole minds, right? So I was fortunate, unfortunate. I don't know what you want to call it. I was in London, actually. I was in England doing a thing with Ingram Micro. We were on a tour doing this whole teaching people about how to sell a market. Back in the day.

[00:35:23] And the tour that we were on had Microsoft. The very first show that we did at Microsoft was kicking it off. I was going to follow right behind the Microsoft guy, right? And I'm backstage with him. We're right behind the stage where I already go out. And I tell the guy, I'm like, hey, man, how are things going with all this crazy news that's going on? I mean, people seem pretty pissed off back at home. And he's like, no, it's going to be great. It's going to be fine. We've already been messaging like crazy. It's going to be great. I'm just going to go out there and it should be great. As soon as the guy walked on stage, he's like, hi, I'm so-and-so with Microsoft.

[00:35:53] Some guy stood up in the middle of the audience like, F you. And it was just like pandemonium. So listen, the one thing I know is that Mike, and they were able to, obviously, props to that guy for just, man, just taking it on the chin like a champ, that entire 45-minute presentation. But Microsoft's going to be okay. I think they're going to make it. I think they're going to make it. They're okay with pissing people off temporarily. Everyone knows these price hikes are coming. What are you going to do, man?

[00:36:21] It's one of those situations where it's like you don't really have a lot of options from that perspective. So they know that. We all know that. Here's the thing. If you guys, if Microsoft raises the prices, let's just say 10%, and that now causes you to have consternation with your clients, that tells me that your relationship with your clients needs to get looked at, right? I mean, it shouldn't be that. They should understand that you are not literally driving the Microsoft price up, right?

[00:36:47] They should also understand that they trust you to know enough to give them options if that's not the best option for them, right? So if you're getting a ton of heat because Microsoft raises their prices on you from your clients, that's probably a deeper issue there. You should take a look at it. Well, but you do need to make sure that you're covering the difference and you're not billing for it and then finding out that you're basically losing money on your bill every month. Like there is a legitimate problem. That is a legitimate problem for sure.

[00:37:16] But look, that goes back to, I think, communication. It's something, again, we talked about this as something as simple, right? You would think Microsoft, as big as they are, and as much time as they've been in the channels, as much stuff as they have, they would figure simple stuff like that out, just communicate effectively, right? It's like, again, I got a chance to see that at some of the big vendors that I worked with in the past too, that I would think, man, these guys have to have their stuff together, right? And some of these smaller SaaS companies have the same challenge as some of these bigger ones, guys. So I think this goes back to like, again, stuff you can't control, right?

[00:37:44] But the stuff you can control is how your clients feel about you and how they interact with you and what you can do with them. So from MSPs out there, focus on that. Make that your primary, primary goal. Yeah, 100%. So what do you think is going to happen with the next? Like, you know, like we said when Apple, did you ever watch a BlackBerry movie, by the way? No, I haven't seen it. And they told me about it last time I saw you. I know. Put it back on the list.

[00:38:14] After you find the guy with his cyber truck in the water, add this to the list. Got it. Because it goes right in. So when Apple launched the iPhone, I think it was 2008, right? Yeah. We're on iPhone. I think there's been what? 15, 18 revisions of it. It's I lost her, right? Yeah. Do you think they're saying that the mobile phone won't be anything like it is by 2030, which isn't that far away? We're not talking like, hey, in 25 years now, we're talking like in three or four years.

[00:38:43] They're saying could be completely obsolete different, you know? And I'm like, well, then what? How do you get? Like, what is it going to be replaced with? Have you heard this? No. This is, you know, I look, I it's the BlackBerry is a great cautionary tale. I think for anybody that's out there, you know, that also was something crazy. I had the original Microsoft Windows phone, dude. Do you remember that? Yeah. That was dude. HTC, right? Yes.

[00:39:12] It was actually a badass phone, man. I liked it. I liked that phone. I had it. And then the but look at that. I mean, the famous bomber quote of like, no one's gonna want to use their phone as a computer. You know what I mean? It's like infamous last words. I feel like Palm Pilot again, go back and watch a movie. I feel like Palm Pilot was just a little bit ahead of its time. Like they were just, just out just a little bit early. You know, but like everybody came right behind them and then it exploded. It just cleaned up.

[00:39:42] I mean, also made it the one thing that I love about it. I think the big secret is, is it still was like the, the Windows phone was really built for like a tech person to use the phone. Apple realized that they needed to make this, you know, I call, I call, we use this kind of term internally too. Like I call it Homer Simpson simple. Like you have to make things Homer Simpson simple, right? Like it should be like foolproof, totally easy to use. And that's the iPhone was you push the flashy thing, picture on your phone, the thing pops up and things happen. Right.

[00:40:11] And it's like, I think there's something that we can all learn from that. Sometimes the things that are easy for us are no brainers to us that have a little bit more technical acumen or a little bit more, you know, experience with technology. And our job as technology experts is when we're talking to our partners and our businesses out there is really just to like, make it Homer Simpson simple, man. Like, you know, anybody should go to get it, what you're doing for them. Like, again, even what we do for our clients, we can try to give all the titles and all

[00:40:36] the acronyms and the 50 million catchphrases and jargon terms that are out there, but your clients don't care about any of that stuff, man. You know, a hundred percent. But what they do care about is the amount of their power bill. Oh, totally, man. Yes. You ever hear all these, these like communities who are like, oh, the data center just put in for a permit. We don't want the data center. Dude, I've seen a lot of that. Look, also with the water, a lot of water situations get tainted with the data centers and all that. I mean, look, this, it's a big decision.

[00:41:05] We have, we have a lot, like, there's a lot of changes that are going to be coming very, very quickly across just our country and the world and everything else as our need for more technology and making stuff Homer Simpson simple increases with AI and all that. Um, you know, there's going to be a trade-off. We just got to find a way to do it responsibly. We can't, we can't all just, you know, get beat up in this for the sake of making things simple and, and, and getting, even though they're hilarious. I love all the slot videos out there. I love them.

[00:41:31] Like, you know, I have, uh, but you know, there's, there's gotta be a better way to do it or more responsible way to do it. One thing's for sure. Um, energy is important. There's a energy race happening right now. No question. And so the, the, the best way to handle it is to be in control of it. And the best way to control it is to be able to produce it as much as possible. Cause whoever has more power has more ability to compute.

[00:41:59] If you have more ability to compute, you can go faster on all the stuff we're talking about. That's just one-to-one stuff in my opinion. And so, uh, I don't know. I read just like everybody else, you know, I guess we'll find out how it all shakes out, but I wouldn't be surprised that we're going to see a lot more nuclear power than we did recently. Like, man, I've, I've actually been a proponent of nuclear power for a long time. I think it's actually, it's, I mean, it's not 1950 anymore, guys. It's just 2026. There's things have gotten better since then. Right.

[00:42:27] So we're not computing on vacuum tubes and stuff anymore. You know what I mean? So there's, you know, some of those old nuclear power plants are running on technology. That's like your Nintendo 64 would have the same level of technology in some of these places. Right. So like the way I look at it is there's, there is safer, better ways to do this now that, you know, we'd have to worry about blowing up half of like Idaho or something. Which actually brings me back around. Cause you know, back to, uh, other, you know, have you, have you, you have, uh, I mean, all the streaming services, you have Apple TV plus. Yes.

[00:42:57] Yes. Have you watched for all mankind? Not yet. That's my next one. Actually. Add it to the list, dude. I'm giving you your whole. You're giving me some jam, dude. You're dropping some gems on me right now, man. For all mankind. Uh, hold on. Let me put that on the shelf for two seconds. Did you ever hear of the Amazon prime series called the man in the high castle? Yes. Okay. So that for anybody who doesn't know man in the high castle. Awesome. Go watch it. Uh, it's like, what happens if America didn't world win world war two, what happens if Germany and Japan did instead?

[00:43:27] And like, they've kind of permutate that into the future. So for, uh, for all mankind is a similar theme. It's like, what happens if the Russians got to the moon first? And then like, what happens to the rest of the planet as you move forward in time from that point, it's like an alternate reality. Right. And they did such a good job. It's in the last season right now. And, uh, and no surprise here. A lot of the teams we're hearing about in real life, like Mars and the moon and asteroids and making money from space.

[00:43:56] Like that is all in there. Okay. Like space hotels. Like we've heard this, right? Like that's all in there. So go watch it. Um, Raph's put it on the beer, uh, after Blackberry, after the guy with the Tesla truck. Um, so in that show there, you know, they're basically like, Hey, listen, being able to create energy. Right. And like, I was thinking about, Hey, remember when, you know, we got to the moon first. Right. And like Neil Armstrong and all that jazz. Like it was a space race.

[00:44:25] I was like the technology that they had at that time, back to vacuum tubes. It was like, you have more power exponentially in your iPhone or your Android device. And they had in the entire rocket spaceship that they used to go to the moon and back. Right. And I asked myself, and again, this isn't, I'm trying to not just be conspiracy George here, but it's like, Hey, we just did that slingshot around the moon. Right. Right. Like it was like two months ago. Right. It was like a whole big thing. They successfully got there. Everything was safe. All good. Came back. It was like three or four days.

[00:44:55] Yep. It's been like 40 or 50 years since that. We actually did that the first time and technology so far, like into the future. Like why was it so long and so hard to go back and do that? Man. Great question. But I think it just goes back to focus and leadership, man. It's like anything else you want to do even cool new company. Look again, guys, it's, it's funny that I'm getting older. I'm just starting to see the same like internal issues that you deal with in your regular life. Just get extrapolated out to different, you know, whatever it is.

[00:45:23] It's, it's who's in charge and do they believe in your vision? If that's not part of the vision, that's not part of the leadership's, you know, goal and their eyes not focused on it, then they're not going to do it. And that's the same thing that happens in your own companies, right? How many times do you not have a cool idea or something you did one time that's really cool and you never get back to it because other stuff takes priority, takes priority, right? It's just, you know, if it's not in your vision, you're not tracking, you're actually working towards it. It's never going to happen. I think that's kind of what happened. We just took our eyes off the ball. We should have, I mean, you know, we've considering that's kind of

[00:45:53] what propelled us, you know, into, you know, the world we have now, right? And our standing in the world, a lot of it had to do with technology that we built around that time to try to be, you know, our adversaries to get to the moon first. You know, definitely go back. And if you haven't watched it, if you're watching, you're hearing this podcast, go add that to your watch list. I promise you, especially if you're like a sci-fi techie person, you will love for all mankind. Please put it on the watch list. But a hundred percent agree with you.

[00:46:21] So I just saw this morning as I was drinking my, you know, you know, morning, uh, you know, energy drink to wake up. Um, Home Depot is launching AI customer service agents. Now I want you, I want Raf's personal opinion. Yes. You know, like you already said spirit airlines twice had no other choice. Not great. Horrible experience.

[00:46:48] Did it only because, you know, I had, my back was against the wall and now they're out of business. I know that's not a one-to-one, but just bear with her. Are you a Chick-fil-A drive-thru guy or a Wendy's McDonald's drive-thru guy? I mean, Chick-fil-A dude, for sure. You know, although not just because of the food, but I'm talking about the experience. Oh man. Experience. I mean, it depends on how long the line at Chick-fil-A is dude.

[00:47:17] Cause that's kind of the dirty fermenting factor right there. The, the Wendy's line look. But Baconator is a great, great burger. So I I'm down to get a Baconator or the chicken Nostiago anytime. Right. So sometimes I'm in the mood for that, but like Chick-fil-A is just superior food compared to both of those. Right. The challenge is, it's just the line. Now it is. The fact that they are able to get through that line in what seemingly is warp speed compared to other people. Right. Agreed, man. Look, they, they are way more efficient.

[00:47:44] They are way more efficient for moving people through the line than most fast food places for sure. So, okay. When you're not flying spirit, the two times that you did, what's your preferred airline? I mean, just cause I've been in Dallas is American, but they've been, they've been a little sketch lately. American. You guys hear this. All right. You guys hear this American get your shit together a little bit. So, um, but Delta, I look, I kind of like Delta. I just wish to have more flights out of Dallas. Okay.

[00:48:12] So Delta is the, is the premium like status and like Americans supposed to, be up there, but kind of in the middle and you got spirit who ultimately shut down at the bottom. Okay. So do you personally want to interact with a human being when you're trying to do something or are you, are you okay with the computer, the chat bot, the AI answering service, whatever you want to call it?

[00:48:41] What's your main go-to? So you brought up something really, really important. I think that there for low level, kind of like, I'm just checking out. I actually don't like talking to anybody ever. I want to just get in and out of there as fast as human. You're the self-checkout guy. I am the, I am like, I have both headphones in my ears, like podcasts, something blue, like while I'm doing checking out, I don't want to talk or see anybody while I'm in a store. Right. As social as I am, I love talking to people. You guys know me social butterfly. Right.

[00:49:10] But like when actual, like if I know something serious or important, now this is when I hate talking to AI or robots and I want to talk to somebody like an actual human being. And I think that's actually something for us to kind of keep in mind too, as we're going through this AI revolution. Right. And all of us in the hunt to try to automate and make things faster and more convenient and easier. You still got to still remember, what are you trading off in terms of the vibe that you're giving off to your customers and clients?

[00:49:35] If you're passing off support tickets or things like that to full AI, and you don't have anybody talking to people when they're pissed off about technology, that's, I don't think that's going to be a recipe for success personally. I mean, have you guys ever had to like go through the dialer on your phone and try to get a hold of customer success or you guys ever had to like talk to the chat bot on the website of this company that you're like arguing with? That is a pain in the ass for everybody. That's an instant turnoff. And you know, as a brand, as a company, the last thing you'd want is I don't want my people

[00:50:04] associating me with a bad time in any way. Right. So that's the, that's the thing you got to think about. Like I, people, there's a big rush to AI. Dude, we use AI here every single day. I'm, I am, I am all in. I am not like the anti AI guy. I literally use it all the time. It's how I built the game. I do all this stuff. I use it every day. But with that said, you know, I understand there's limitations to it. I also understand the value of, I think, human to human interaction for really important interactions. Yeah.

[00:50:31] Like as much, like, like even this, I'd, this would be so weird if I was talking to a robot, man. Like I'd much rather talk to you. Like here are two guys generate a podcast. What? Yeah. Dude, that actually exists. That is a thing. But like, who wants to watch two fake dudes talking about like, you know what I mean? So. No bad. I like, I actually have heard. I'm a big sports radio guy in between my calls. I'm listening to Philly sports radio in the background. Surprise. Anyway. So they were like, oh, well, some radio stations, they've literally took over by AI. Like the ones that just play music. Yeah.

[00:51:01] It's like the, you know, the person coming back, hey, the next one on the top 100. And that's like an AI thing. And I'm like, okay. Like I couldn't imagine a sports talk radio station being completely AI. I mean, look, that is coming. I have a strong feeling that's going to come too. It's good. It's, you know, we'll see who survives this whole AI revolution shakedown thing that's happening to us here. Look, there are some things that are super efficient. I saw that. What's it?

[00:51:28] When, when that those Chinese customers support like, like the retail kind of robots. Listen, have you seen those things? Dude, next time. Okay. Now I'm gonna give you one. The next time we're off this call, go on YouTube and look up like they're like in every set, their version of 7-Eleven, like whatever their little liquor stores are out there and everywhere else. They have just a robot that's like gets you all your stuff, does the whole thing. And it's kind of like the back to the future scene when the dude goes, you know, Marty

[00:51:56] goes into the future, he goes to the cafe and it's like Pepsi Max and it just pops out. Dude, kind of. I mean, it's like, I mean, it is, you can see the application, but they have those, they have those like retail robots all over the place. Like they use them not just in those stores, but like in all kinds of things. Again, I think for some of those transactions, I can see where that makes sense. Look, I don't need, I don't need, I love my barista, right? But if I can just get my coffee, that'd be awesome too. Okay, hold on, hold on.

[00:52:25] Would you buy your Chick-fil-A from a vending machine? A Chick-fil-A vending machine? Not enough. If the burger was exactly the same and it made the process of me getting to my Chick-fil-A sandwich faster and with less friction, that is a low value thing that I'm happy to just go through a robot, right? Okay. Would you go iRobot like that Will Smith movie and put a robot in your house? No. Hell no. Even, although I have a Roomba, I don't know if that counts, but I don't, other than that,

[00:52:55] no, I just feel like those things, there's, like, I have, like, I have technology for a lot of things in my life. Having a robot that could, I'm not saying it will, but if it really wanted to, could kill me or my family. Now it's just in the house. I don't know, man. I'm not there yet. I mean, we'll, we'll see. Maybe, maybe in the PlayStation 4 or 5 version of the, of that, whatever that looks like, I'll consider it at that time. But definitely not the PS1. Whatever that is. All right. You're not the early adopter on that one. No.

[00:53:25] I mean, how about you? Would you want, would you want a robot in your house, dude? Like, a full humanoid robot? Like, you know, again, if it was the one from Rocky, from Rocky, was it Rocky 4? Maybe. Okay. I, that, that one's cool. But like an actual humanoid, Rocky 3, sorry. Humanoid, if it was humanoid robot, I robot in my house, scary ass robot, man. I, I just, I just imagine myself waking up to go use a restroom and seeing that scary ass robot in my living room. Dude, no thanks. Yeah.

[00:53:53] And I, in the movie, I robot, the company was US Robotics. Remember? And they're like, at that time, that was a real company who made like modems. Yes. I remember. I was like, did they, did they pay for that spot or did we just copy their name? Did it, did we have some company recently too, some AI company called themselves Skynet? Oh my. If they did. Yeah. That's not a good, that's a bad omen, man. Don't do that. I'd be like, run that through an IMDB once or twice, bud. Just before you get in there, ask, ask the AI, where did this name come from?

[00:54:21] Which, by the way, I think, um, I saw it on my feed. I re-shared at one point. Isn't like the one Terminator movie? Like, it's like 2027. Yes, dude. That's next year. I know, man. I don't know. Did, I don't know if really Scott gets going to tip. I don't know what happened there, but that is, that's terrifying. Yeah. And Arnold's still around. I'm just saying. Dude. He, he might be a robot at this point. Who knows? All right. He might actually be a T-1000. He said he was going to be back. I'm just saying. That's true.

[00:54:51] Raph, you're on the road a lot. Obviously, we talked about, like, you're at Zero Trust. You're at Kasei. You're at MSB Geek. What's coming up next? Man, a lot of cool stuff. We got PAX 8 Beyond coming up here in a couple of weeks. We're excited about that. Getting back to the city of Salt by the lake. So it's going to be nice. When's the last time you were there to go back? I used to go to, I used to go to all the time, actually. So I used to work for storage. For work for things or personal things? No, for work for things. Actually, in Salt Lake City, like, Utah is a beautiful state. If you guys have never been there, get a chance to go up through great skiing, mountain stuff.

[00:55:21] It's beautiful up there, everything else. But I used to actually, I had a, I was working for storage craft for a little while. So I was going up to Salt Lake City for quite a bit. And it is a cool city, man. It's a really, it's a, it's a very nice city. So I'm excited to go over there and, and, and, and Beyond's always a good show. After that, we have, we have a few more things. Channel Con, we're doing in San Diego. So if anybody's out there for GTIA, by the way, a lot of really cool stuff happening with GTIA folks. So if you guys have not joined or not sent up for Channel Con, please make sure to go out there.

[00:55:48] That is one of the great events for the community that I think we all, George and I are big, you know, passionate about it. Love helping out and giving back to that community. After that, we got the Ninja One Conference. I'm very excited about this year with our buddy Paul. The inaugural Ninja One. The Ninja One Conference. That's going to be really sick. We got a lot. It's called, I think it's called MSP NXT. Next. Right. So yeah. Check it out. They actually, I think you can register for it now, which is great.

[00:56:18] It's going to be super dope. I have, I, I, I, I might be doing a little special appearance there. We'll see what happens. But there's going to be some fun stuff happening there. And yeah, we have a lot of good shows the rest of the year. We're not doing IT Nation this year. Um, unfortunately just budget, budget wouldn't allow it this year. We're still growing. Some of these bigger events, unfortunately, that are getting almost untenable to do as a smaller, you know, SaaS companies are growing. You are speaking the two, at least to one guy who vibes with that.

[00:56:46] I mean, it is not, you know, like I appreciate, you know, big events cost a lot of money put on. No. Totally. And as a guy who's done very small pieces in conjunction with these larger events, just that very small piece and the labor of love we talked about earlier is a lot of effort. And I see that part. Right. But then I extrapolated in my mind and I'm like, this exponentially more expensive. Once you start back, there's everything. Totally, man. But yeah, there's just a math thing, right?

[00:57:15] Like if you can't afford to, to put a table and two chairs out, then you can't afford it. Like don't buy the car if you can't pay the bill. 100%, man. And it's, and it's being picking, it's trying to pick and choose, you know, which events make sense. You want to do something that we can do. We try to be out as much as possible on the road. So, you know, we're going to be out there a lot more next year as we keep growing, as our budgets keep growing, we keep doing more stuff. So with all of your support out there, guys, come and join Benji Pays and sign up so that we can keep doing more events and be out there.

[00:57:43] But I'm also looking at starting to do a little bit more like the later half of this year, some smaller events, different, little more personal, intimate type stuff that you get to know us. If you guys don't know me outside of this stuff, I do a lot of, I have a lot of hobbies, right? One of them is I'm very passionate about food and I'm very passionate about comedy. I like people having a good time, but I'm going to try to do events and incorporate both of those things in smaller capacities throughout the year in certain cities. So stay tuned. I'll let you guys know when those are coming. Here's a tip.

[00:58:11] And when Raf's not doing this work, he does comedy on the side. Yeah. I do comedy on the side. And I also, I'm a big, I'm a big food nerd. I used to cook. I don't want to say professionally, but like I was a very, I was an, I was a very serious enthusiast. I will say into food. Um, and, uh, that's something also I love doing and I love doing really cool events. So we're thinking about doing some like chop type events. Some like, I have friends of mine that are chefs in different cities that are really good

[00:58:40] chefs and private dinners and things like that. So. Wow. I, I, I'll give you one tip on the way out the door. Whenever I go into a new, new city that I've never been to before, especially like an international one, I'll look on like the trip advisors for like the food tour. Yes. And then like figure out like what's the local stuff, but then you figure out what everything else is because you know, you get a lay of the land through the food tour. Totally, man.

[00:59:05] George tip, but, uh, I'm, I'll, I'll give you guys a tip and I, I'll send this out to everybody that's listening. Look, I am like, I'm food nerd hardcore. I were here. I'm like, I have a list of all my favorite restaurants and little hidden spots in almost every city in America. So if you guys are in any city and want to get any of my personal tips, some of my personal favorites of places that I've gone to, or you have some good recommendations of things that I should check out in your city, man, please send them to me. I would love to check it out.

[00:59:34] Um, or I'd love to help out if I can give you guys a tip on any place that I can. There's a little AI project for you. Raph AI. I'll give you food, food, food, food recommendations. Just give me your zip code. That's actually, I'll tell you something else. I got, I got another little side quest that I've been working on that I'll hopefully let you guys know about, um, sometimes towards the end of this year, that's around food and AI and things like that. So, okay. All right. See, this is the world we're in. We can dream. We're still in the matrix. Still in the matrix. Dude, I honestly feel like it's kind of like that. The AI, I'll tell you one of my favorite things about AI. Like I'm not a coder, right?

[01:00:04] I'm not a dev guy. I've always been on the business side of things, but being able to now have like an idea come to reality and fruition with, with not with very minimal technical know-how and just kind of being able to almost like a wizard, like Harry Potter, just whip up some, you know, vibe, coat up some stuff, um, is extremely fun and extremely powerful. So look guys, I, right now is the time if you're creative and you have an opportunity

[01:00:30] that you've had this idea that's been lingering, like jump on it, take advantage, try it, try it out. You know what I mean? You never know. The only limit between you and Tony Stark is Tony Stark had unlimited credits. That's true. That's very true. That wasn't the original. I borrowed that. So I'm just letting you know, um, guys, this is awesome. Me and Raf could do this forever. I feel like I'm just, you know, chilling. Um, which by the way, is what we're talking about with the community side of all this stuff for real.

[01:00:57] But anyway, comedy, breweries, beer, popcorn buckets. I mean, um, UFOs. We talked about everything on this podcast. We're all over the place. Check out Benji. And I know we didn't spell that out. Cause if you listen to the audio version of that, it's a B E N J I, right? Benji. Right. Yep. Dot com and Benji plays maybe.com. You can play that game. Um, check it out.

[01:01:23] You know, listen, if you're using like bill.com or QuickBooks payments, or like one of those commercial, like not industry specific services, you're probably paying a lot of money, you know, every time they do that, just even on that alone, it might be worth doing the math and checking this out. You know, cause you gotta get more and pay less. And I know that's a commercial for, but you know what, to that point, George, I'll tell

[01:01:50] you guys this, if you guys are on for sure, QuickBooks payments, if you're, if you're building more than $15,000 a month in invoices and you're processing through QuickBooks payments, I can tell you right now, we'll probably save you on average a couple hundred bucks a month on average. It could be more depending on how much you're actually processing through there. So I always tell people, look, we sell as math, right? If the math is a math thing, then it's not going to work. Like if you're, if you're using any of those tools and you're just curious to know about us, get a demo with us. It's like 15 minutes and you'll like, and you'll know if this is fit or not. 100%.

[01:02:21] Google or LinkedIn or look for Raf's comedy page and soon rafsfoodrecommendations.com. If you just, just, if again, if you listen to the audio version of that, Raf's name is R-A-F-A-E-L. Again, I'm a big Ninja Turtles fan. And last name Sangelli, S-A-N-G-U-I-L-Y. So hit them up online. I'm sure it'll come right up. I don't know a lot of people with that name.

[01:02:47] So you might, you know, you might go to the comedy show in town because you might be playing, but on stage. On that note, if you're in Dallas or in the DFW area tonight or this weekend, I have shows all weekend in Dallas and Fort Worth. So today I have a show in Dallas, Friday and Saturday, Friday, Dallas, and then Saturday and Fort Worth. So anybody in the, depending on when this comes out, Memorial weekend, if you guys are in town, hit me up. I'll give you free tickets to whatever show that I'm at. If you want to come out. See this, this is a well-rounded podcast.

[01:03:17] I know we talk tech, but man, I love going all over the place. And if you're interested in it, maybe I'll start cataloging all these popcorn buckets and I'll tell you. Yes. You need, you need this on your, on your Instagram or something. I want to see all your popcorn buckets for sure, man. Yeah. Like, you know, I do, I do post all the shows that I'm watching. I know probably too many. And like for all mankind's on there and their rotation and people are like, Oh my God, like I actually set what I'm going to watch next based on the, and I'm just like, Hey, listen, I'm a big TV movie guy.

[01:03:46] So, you know, as you can tell, I'm, I'm all in. All right, guys, this is an awesome episode. This is why it's good to get out and meet people on the road because like, this is, it's kind of how my conversations go. I know me and Raf talk all the time like this, like off camera. Um, definitely check this out. This episode was recorded. Go back and rewind. So many good tips here, especially if you like need food recommendations and what to watch next. Um, MSB initiative.com under episodes, you'll see it there.

[01:04:14] Benji pays and Benji plays.com. Go check it out. Looking forward to hopefully seeing you guys on the road, especially if you're headed to Prague or Nashville for those two upcoming conferences. Raf. I got it. I'm going to, I'm going to circle back with you. I'm going to make sure you watch this time. You got to get that Blackburn movie in. All right, pal. I'm getting it in, man. Love you, brother. Thank you. You got it guys. All right. See ya. Bye. Okay, guys.