Tara Rummer of ImmyBot

[00:00:01] Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Today is an October 8th edition of the MSP Initiative, MSP Talk.

[00:00:10] And yes, we are smack dab in the middle of the gauntlet. It's that time of year where all these events happen and they're the big ones and they're all happening in like, I don't know, two weeks of each other every time or sometimes no weeks at all.

[00:00:24] So we're going to go through some housekeeping and then we're going to get into the good stuff that we usually like to do on these sessions.

[00:00:30] So here is that housekeeping. MSP Initiative dot com. If you're like me and you probably don't know how to spell right, just Google initiative and they'll give you the spelling.

[00:00:40] So there it is. Go to sessions on MSP Initiative dot com and you will see, for example, the recording of this very session that we're doing right now and all the previous ones, which tag back to YouTube and our podcatcher.

[00:00:54] And you can like, share, download, subscribe and do all the good stuff that you know what to do there.

[00:00:57] Thank you for everybody that came out to MSP Community Minds in Denver.

[00:01:01] We definitely had an awesome time doing not one, but two of these this past year.

[00:01:07] And after, you know, pretty good outcome in Denver back on September 25th and 26th and all that content is being sent out to all the people that that joined us.

[00:01:16] We are planning some for next year as well. So stay tuned for that.

[00:01:20] We'll be kind of co-partnering with a couple of other communities in the space to kind of get these off the ground for next year.

[00:01:26] But man, the educational format surely does work. And we thank everybody that, you know, where it's either a panelist or or a workshop holder.

[00:01:34] And if you go to MSP initiative dot com under Community Minds, you can see all the people that like took time out of their day and like gave us some some schooling.

[00:01:44] Right. So MSP owners on panels and workshop holders that did not one, sometimes two, two hour sessions with us all without a credit card swipe required at the end.

[00:01:54] So thank you for everybody that made that possible.

[00:01:58] And we think that there is a path forward here where we can kind of take some smart people from the community, hence Community Minds, and continue moving this forward, you know, in the same format.

[00:02:09] So stay tuned and we'll talk more about that as we get into 2025.

[00:02:13] Now, probably what we're better known for are our community block parties.

[00:02:17] Not one, two, three, but there's four of these for the rest of the year.

[00:02:21] So just give me a minute and follow me here and I'll take you through.

[00:02:25] So if you're headed next week or I guess this weekend to Berlin.

[00:02:29] Yes, we are going to be there with our friends from Pax 8 in Germany on October 14th, which is Monday night, second night of the event.

[00:02:38] We will be taking people to the BrewDog Dog Tap, which is like their main facility in Berlin.

[00:02:46] Was able to fly out ahead of time in June.

[00:02:48] This place is absolutely awesome.

[00:02:50] If you're an October beer, Octoberfest beer type person, although there'll be all the other alcohol that you can imagine and some food too, then this is the place for you.

[00:03:00] All you got to do is register ahead of time, save yourself some time at the front door so you can see the registration links here.

[00:03:06] And Germany is around the corner literally days away.

[00:03:10] Then we come back.

[00:03:11] We go into the hopefully dry but sunny weather at the end of October here in Miami, the DattoCon in Miami.

[00:03:20] And here you do not even have to walk out the front door.

[00:03:23] It is on property at the famous Live Night Club on South Beach at the Fountain Blue.

[00:03:29] So that's on the second night of DattoCon in Miami at 930.

[00:03:34] Literally just walk into the front lobby.

[00:03:35] You can't miss it.

[00:03:36] Boom, you're right in there.

[00:03:37] And we'll be going to a close at Live Night Club on property.

[00:03:42] So that is, you know, again, if you just click on here, you see the registration links are down here.

[00:03:47] That's on October 29th.

[00:03:48] And then we circle back around and we don't go too far, but just a couple weeks later we go to Orlando for IT Nation.

[00:03:57] And on November 6th, on the first night like we've been doing for eight years now, we will be holding our block party this year again at Icon Park, 9 p.m.

[00:04:07] And yes, we are busing you from the IT Nation conference venue.

[00:04:11] And this year our artists, I hope you like it and definitely turn on your Spotify, is Flow Rider in Florida.

[00:04:19] So it works out.

[00:04:20] So definitely join us.

[00:04:21] It's a free concert, karaoke, beer, cocktails, you name it.

[00:04:28] We've got a little bit of everything for everybody.

[00:04:30] So even if you're not a concert person, it's okay.

[00:04:32] We've got plenty of networking and entertainment for you.

[00:04:35] So definitely come by to the Community Block Party Icon Park on November 6th at 9 p.m.

[00:04:42] And then, like we don't like airline miles enough, we are hopping on a plane from IT Nation and headed 24 hours in the other direction to Dat O'Connor in Sydney.

[00:04:52] We're on the second night of Dat O'Connor in Sydney in Darling Harbor.

[00:04:57] On November 12th, we will be hosting our final Community Block Party of the year.

[00:05:01] We literally walk out of the hotel, make a right, and walk like maybe five, you know, not even five minutes.

[00:05:07] And you will find the Community Block Party venue down, you know, literally straight line from the Conference Hotel, which is the higher agency in Darling Harbor.

[00:05:17] So there that all is.

[00:05:19] If you have any community offers you want to pick up off the board on community offers, feel free to do so.

[00:05:23] And our industry calendar takes you all the way to December 31st, where if you didn't want to be home for like four months, we will give you places to go.

[00:05:33] So there's all the housekeeping, MSPinitiative.com.

[00:05:37] And today we bring back special guests from Immibot, our friend Tara Rummer.

[00:05:44] How are you doing, Tara?

[00:05:45] I'm doing great.

[00:05:46] Y'all are nuts doing that many parties in such a short amount of time.

[00:05:50] Jen and I were just talking about it.

[00:05:52] Well, maybe, you know, Jen will tell you how next year even more people have raised their hands that want us to do parties at their events.

[00:05:59] And we almost have to like, you know, take a systematic approach here to figure out like what is possible because there are only so many gens and only so many days in the week.

[00:06:10] So we will we will get to 2025.

[00:06:13] And, you know, in 2025, we got to close out 2024.

[00:06:17] It is a busy, busy schedule over the next.

[00:06:19] I don't know.

[00:06:20] Not even 60 days.

[00:06:22] And thankfully, I'm doing, you know, to your point, you know, doing that a little bit lighter so I can fit into the airline seats a little bit comfier.

[00:06:31] I don't need I'm not I'm not our friend Alex Danners who needs, you know, the first class upgrade and the lay flat.

[00:06:37] And I'm not that guy.

[00:06:38] Like I just fall asleep, you know, in the upright position.

[00:06:41] But bottom line is a little bit less space needed these days for me, Tara, in the chair.

[00:06:47] That's awesome.

[00:06:48] And you're happy with it and you're feeling good.

[00:06:50] And, you know, I was telling a story.

[00:06:52] I'm going to give you this story.

[00:06:53] It's funny.

[00:06:54] So, you know, our friends from network group, you know, Mr.

[00:06:57] Tulip and company over there.

[00:06:58] I remember right out of the pandemic.

[00:07:01] They had pushed their gal up for not 23, but 22.

[00:07:05] OK, so I went to the gal at the end of 22 and then went back again in 23 and then again here in 24.

[00:07:11] You were there this time.

[00:07:14] And I was like, I need a tuxedo.

[00:07:16] Of course, I needed it like the week of.

[00:07:19] So I went to a place up by me and I walked in and I'm like, OK, I need something for like the end of the week.

[00:07:25] It was like Monday.

[00:07:26] I'm flying out on Friday, Thursday, Friday.

[00:07:28] They're like, OK, like we're not going to we don't have the time to get this done here.

[00:07:31] But you're going to need alterations and you have to go to this guy that we recommend because we don't have time to do it here in town.

[00:07:36] I was like, OK, that's cool.

[00:07:37] So then like I had to go to a funeral last week.

[00:07:41] And I had not had any suits since I started this like George Get Healthy journey here that started in January of this year.

[00:07:48] And so I went back to the same place.

[00:07:50] I'm like, all right, I need a suit.

[00:07:51] I need it for tomorrow.

[00:07:52] And they're like, we don't have time for us.

[00:07:54] Just give me whatever you have off the show.

[00:07:56] I'll make it work.

[00:07:57] And for the first time, like and the guy looked at me, he's like, all right, what are your sizes?

[00:08:00] I'm like, this is what I think I am.

[00:08:02] The guy like gave me the eyebrow.

[00:08:03] And I was like, listen, this is what it is.

[00:08:04] It's like I'm 100 pounds lighter than what I was last time I walked in here.

[00:08:07] He's like, OK.

[00:08:08] So he gave me a couple of sizes.

[00:08:10] He's like, I don't know if your size is right.

[00:08:12] So let me give you the next size up.

[00:08:13] I said, OK, that's fine.

[00:08:14] So I went in and I was the smaller size that came out.

[00:08:16] The guy's like, fits perfectly.

[00:08:20] You don't need any alterations.

[00:08:21] I was like, I have apples.

[00:08:23] I was like, so this is how skinny people shop.

[00:08:25] OK, cool.

[00:08:26] So so that was that was a good feeling, Tara.

[00:08:29] I know that's not the normal George buying experience.

[00:08:33] I'll tell you that.

[00:08:34] That's awesome.

[00:08:35] I I don't know that experience.

[00:08:37] I've never bought a suit.

[00:08:39] I can imagine.

[00:08:40] I mean, I shop in the women's section and it's a freaking headache.

[00:08:43] So yeah, I was in and out the door end to end like suit shirt tie ready to go.

[00:08:50] 28 minutes in and out.

[00:08:51] But yeah, OK, that's impossible.

[00:08:55] I clocked it.

[00:08:56] I called somebody.

[00:08:57] I called somebody when I walked in.

[00:08:58] I called them back when I walked out.

[00:08:59] They're like, didn't you need a suit?

[00:09:01] I was like, oh, I got it.

[00:09:02] They're like, how?

[00:09:03] I was like, I went in.

[00:09:04] I told him I need a suit.

[00:09:05] Everything fit.

[00:09:06] They're like, that's not it's not a thing.

[00:09:07] That's like unheard of.

[00:09:09] That's like.

[00:09:09] So I walked out.

[00:09:10] I did my thing.

[00:09:11] Like now I have a suit that fits me for the moment, which is great.

[00:09:15] And good.

[00:09:16] It was a good.

[00:09:16] It was a good.

[00:09:17] That's my, you know, my one time, probably my entire life.

[00:09:21] I walked in and I was like, oh.

[00:09:23] How about that?

[00:09:24] You're ready for the next network group gala, right?

[00:09:27] So that's what you're telling me.

[00:09:29] I may be.

[00:09:30] Maybe.

[00:09:30] Well, let's say.

[00:09:31] Yeah.

[00:09:32] Who knows?

[00:09:33] Maybe I'll even be skinnier by the time we get there.

[00:09:35] We got a whole section of time to get to.

[00:09:37] But I hear that you were over in the UK recently.

[00:09:40] And I think you were over at the Halo Orbit event.

[00:09:45] I was.

[00:09:46] Yeah.

[00:09:46] I was sad to miss community minds, but I already had a plan.

[00:09:51] One picture while you're there, but tell me about Orbit.

[00:09:54] How did it go?

[00:09:55] Orbit was awesome.

[00:09:56] It was, I mean, it was really small.

[00:09:58] They only allowed like 150 people to go.

[00:10:01] And we are moving our MSP to Halo right now.

[00:10:04] And then Immibot has an integration that we're working on even further.

[00:10:07] So it was really awesome to just kind of be there.

[00:10:09] And there's so much like hype and energy around those guys.

[00:10:13] And.

[00:10:13] Yeah.

[00:10:14] I would think so.

[00:10:15] It's that young and hungry thing, I guess.

[00:10:18] Like their team is just.

[00:10:19] Yeah.

[00:10:19] It definitely looked like a cool space.

[00:10:21] Like the venue that they had it at looked very future-ish.

[00:10:25] Well, yeah.

[00:10:26] It's McLaren.

[00:10:27] So you get to see all the cool stuff.

[00:10:30] And it's, they only let you take pictures and specific parts of it because of like.

[00:10:35] Secrets, I guess.

[00:10:35] I don't know.

[00:10:36] It was, it's neat.

[00:10:37] I.

[00:10:38] The event was, was great.

[00:10:40] They announced quite a few things.

[00:10:43] Sadly, I did not get my McLaren.

[00:10:44] I said, is the announcement that Tara gets a McLaren?

[00:10:47] And that was not it.

[00:10:49] They'd have to ship it to you.

[00:10:51] I don't know how, how's that going to work?

[00:10:52] Put on a boat.

[00:10:53] Yeah.

[00:10:53] Like, you know.

[00:10:54] They could figure it out.

[00:10:55] I'm sure.

[00:10:57] In the UK, be like, I'll be back.

[00:10:58] I will be back, actually.

[00:11:01] We just signed up, I think yesterday for a London event.

[00:11:05] So next year, I'm really excited.

[00:11:07] Yeah.

[00:11:08] For MSP show, I think is what it's called.

[00:11:10] Yeah.

[00:11:11] So I'm really excited to head over there.

[00:11:13] I can hear that.

[00:11:14] Yeah.

[00:11:14] Yeah.

[00:11:15] That's good.

[00:11:16] I'm glad to hear you like, you like your international travels, huh?

[00:11:20] I know.

[00:11:21] I do.

[00:11:22] We're actually doing, because we did Enable Empower.

[00:11:25] You guys were in the booth next to us this year.

[00:11:27] And that show was so good.

[00:11:28] We're doing the one in Berlin.

[00:11:30] So it's crazy to see what Immibot was like three years ago, where we had, what, 100 clients.

[00:11:37] And now we're kind of everywhere.

[00:11:39] It's so weird.

[00:11:41] I mean, that's the cool part about business, right?

[00:11:44] It's supposed to grow.

[00:11:45] I hope everybody goes this direction.

[00:11:47] To the right.

[00:11:49] So tell us about, you know, like, first of all, this is not the first time we had you

[00:11:55] on the show, but for anyone that has never met you before, how about a little bit of background

[00:11:59] on you and your journey in MSP IT land?

[00:12:03] And then let's learn a little bit about Immibot.

[00:12:06] And like, what are you, like, what was the reason that Immibot was created?

[00:12:10] And what do you solve for at Immibot?

[00:12:13] And like, let's start with you and we'll go there next.

[00:12:16] Okay.

[00:12:16] That's a lot of questions.

[00:12:17] So keep me on track here.

[00:12:19] So me, I started with Immense Networks owned by Brett and Darren, the two owners of Immibot

[00:12:25] as well.

[00:12:25] Almost 13 years ago, we actually had that talk yesterday.

[00:12:28] Like, you've been with us 11 years.

[00:12:30] I'm like 13 guys, 13.

[00:12:31] So yeah.

[00:12:32] But I started with them.

[00:12:34] They were young entrepreneurs who had a break fix shop.

[00:12:38] And I started literally as their admin assistant, like buying gifts for their girlfriends.

[00:12:43] And then they were like, oh, you can do so much more.

[00:12:47] And I was like, yeah, you're not utilizing me very well.

[00:12:49] So I basically learned the entire business.

[00:12:52] And I know, I say I'm not technical.

[00:12:57] I just don't want to fix computers.

[00:13:00] Yeah.

[00:13:00] Yeah.

[00:13:00] Brett always jokes that I'm at least a tier two tech.

[00:13:03] It's like, you know way more than you give yourself credit for.

[00:13:05] But years ago, they were in peer groups.

[00:13:08] And we noticed internally that we were having issues with workstation deployments.

[00:13:13] And I had kind of worked my way through the company, built up the admin side of it, did all the

[00:13:18] accounting stuff.

[00:13:19] And their peer group was like, Tara's your service manager, by the way.

[00:13:23] And I was like, no, no, I'm really not.

[00:13:25] I don't want that.

[00:13:27] I'm not technical.

[00:13:29] But I had watched quite a few people fail at it.

[00:13:32] And I probably some fear that I was going to be set up to fail as well.

[00:13:37] But I told him, I said, I need a peer group.

[00:13:39] I need a coach.

[00:13:40] I need, and I basically listed like four or five things.

[00:13:42] And I was like, if we're doing this right, we're doing this right.

[00:13:45] And was able to build that side of the company up.

[00:13:48] And we did the up and to the right.

[00:13:50] Gross margin went up.

[00:13:51] Everything kind of got better.

[00:13:54] And while we were doing that, we were like, workstation deployments kind of suck.

[00:13:58] And they're harder than people think they are.

[00:14:01] We would put like low level people on it and be like, oh, they should be easy.

[00:14:05] Right?

[00:14:05] They should be easy.

[00:14:07] That's the idea.

[00:14:08] But they're not.

[00:14:10] And clients judge us on whether or not they're right or wrong.

[00:14:13] Because they don't care if we have 3,500 endpoints for managing.

[00:14:16] They're like, I am the most important for me.

[00:14:20] And that's true.

[00:14:21] Right?

[00:14:21] They are the center of their universe.

[00:14:23] And so we needed to figure out a way really to make it easier and actually try to make some

[00:14:28] money on it.

[00:14:29] Because you can't bill a client like eight hours for configuring a workstation.

[00:14:34] I've heard of some MSPs who actually say new user implementation on an existing managed

[00:14:42] services contract or just new workstation installation deployment, whatever terminology you want

[00:14:48] to put to it.

[00:14:49] They actually charge a separate fee for that outside of the normal managed services contract

[00:14:54] because it takes four, five, six-ish hours sometimes to take a computer out of the box,

[00:15:04] install all the updates, install all the software, migrate all the information, put all the

[00:15:09] customizations and little tweets back in that everybody like always talks about.

[00:15:13] Like, hey, what about this?

[00:15:14] What about that?

[00:15:15] My icons moved.

[00:15:17] Yeah.

[00:15:18] My search thing didn't pop up or whatever.

[00:15:23] And like, by the way, like, fast forward to 2024 and we're October 8th.

[00:15:30] Like a lot of people are like, well, kind of use autopilot, like the Microsoft Intune thing

[00:15:37] a little bit.

[00:15:37] Yeah.

[00:15:38] And I'm like, okay.

[00:15:40] Like, well, autopilot and like the autopilot installs like your RMM agent and then the RMM

[00:15:46] agent, like kind of picks up in the middle and tries to do its thing.

[00:15:50] And like, I was like, there's a lot of moving parts there.

[00:15:53] Right.

[00:15:53] Like, and by the way, if anything that you hoped it was working, didn't work, then you got

[00:15:59] to go back and you got to remediate.

[00:16:01] Right.

[00:16:01] So like, by the way, like, you know, there, I, you know, Tara, there's a lot of MSPs.

[00:16:07] I'm sure you've run it.

[00:16:07] I know I've run into them that they just do not have the like devopsy script writer,

[00:16:14] guy, girl, whatever.

[00:16:16] And like, they're just using what's off the shelf.

[00:16:20] Right.

[00:16:20] Like if you're off the shelf, it says you can do one, two, three.

[00:16:23] That's all they know how to do because they're not going to go and build something custom.

[00:16:27] Yep.

[00:16:27] And those people, those resources are expensive, right?

[00:16:30] We know it.

[00:16:31] We have tons of them and we've always had a dev department.

[00:16:33] So that's where we kind of differed from most MSPs, but our dev department, this was actually

[00:16:38] a really hard transition for us.

[00:16:40] They were our highest billers because their, their skills were kind of so specialized.

[00:16:45] They were building custom applications.

[00:16:48] But the issue with that was we had to maintain those applications then.

[00:16:51] And that was a whole other problem in and of itself.

[00:16:54] Right.

[00:16:55] Cause you lose the person that wrote most of it.

[00:16:57] And then it's like, we're relearning the wheel here.

[00:17:00] So this is, yeah.

[00:17:03] Yeah.

[00:17:03] I mean, to that end, right.

[00:17:04] Like, I guess a little bit of job security for those people.

[00:17:10] I mean, but at the end of the day, I think the problem is that, you know, like if you

[00:17:13] look at a traditional MSP, right.

[00:17:15] And like, I don't care.

[00:17:17] You want to call them level one, two, three, you want to call them, you know, desktop support

[00:17:21] versus projects guy, girl, you want to go, you know, specialization in cloud versus

[00:17:28] not, you know, on-premise technology.

[00:17:30] I don't care how you categorize your people.

[00:17:32] Bottom line is if I hire somebody today, you know, assuming I can find good people,

[00:17:38] regardless of where they are, you know, like, you know, the MSP industry is pretty mature,

[00:17:43] right?

[00:17:44] Like a level one person is hireable here.

[00:17:46] It could be a hireable here.

[00:17:47] It could be a hireable here.

[00:17:48] But if you wrote something custom, you know, that's a lot harder prescription to find somebody

[00:17:53] who's like, well, do you know how to code in these languages?

[00:17:56] And how good are you at uncompiling and recompiling stuff that's already built?

[00:18:01] And like, it's just, you know, you're talking, you're talking a much harder barrier.

[00:18:06] It gets really messy really quickly, honestly.

[00:18:09] And that's what we figured out.

[00:18:11] But once we got our gross margin where it needed to be, we built Emmy for ourselves.

[00:18:14] Like we used Emmy three, two or three years internally before we even tested it on peer groups

[00:18:21] or anyone that would really let us test on them.

[00:18:25] But it just, it came out of an internal need and I'm actually sitting in the MSP.

[00:18:29] So like we still have our MSP.

[00:18:31] We still run it.

[00:18:33] I luckily have been able to take a back seat to it because we have really good team that's

[00:18:37] able to kind of do it, but I'm here as a resource if they need me.

[00:18:41] And I think something interesting about our MSP that's a little different than others is

[00:18:47] we don't have a ton of turnover.

[00:18:48] I'm going to knock on some wood here because our average is like eight to 10 years for a

[00:18:54] staff member.

[00:18:55] People don't really leave.

[00:18:57] And we've had people leave and come back because they're like, we miss you guys.

[00:19:01] Like we liked what we were doing.

[00:19:03] We try to hire really good people and kind of give them the autonomy to do what they need

[00:19:07] to do.

[00:19:09] So I think that's, that's kind of an under, like an underlying way that we're able to keep

[00:19:15] people and, and bring them back too.

[00:19:17] We had somebody literally leave us for like nine years and just came back.

[00:19:21] He's like, I think it's time.

[00:19:22] And I was like, I think it's time too, bud.

[00:19:24] Like we're ready.

[00:19:26] Nine years.

[00:19:26] A long time.

[00:19:28] Yeah.

[00:19:28] By the way, that, that is not common.

[00:19:31] I, you know, that is, you know, there is definitely turnover probably, you know, like

[00:19:35] as long as I've been in the sandbox of IT MSP land, like talent, you know, recruiting

[00:19:43] and retention is like still in the, like the top three, like consistently like owner kind

[00:19:49] of raise your hand.

[00:19:50] What are you having a problem with your business?

[00:19:52] Those that's in the top three still for 20 years plus ongoing.

[00:19:56] Um, and you know, there's all these places, right?

[00:19:59] The discords, the reddits, the, you know, the slacks, the teams, right?

[00:20:04] The Facebook groups and all these places.

[00:20:06] Right.

[00:20:06] But at the end of the day, like, I think burnout is probably at the core of this problem.

[00:20:12] Right.

[00:20:12] It's like, Hey, the one to many thing is challenging on its face.

[00:20:18] And then you have a bad day, like a crowd strike, you know, from June and like that.

[00:20:23] And then the whole thing is upside down.

[00:20:25] And like, you know, that's a bad week for everybody.

[00:20:27] Right.

[00:20:27] Or a month matter.

[00:20:29] So, um, I think, you know, and I, I talk about this topic quasi regularly, but I'm going

[00:20:35] to bring it up here with you now.

[00:20:36] Like, you know, for a long time, a lot of the companies, big companies in, in, in the,

[00:20:43] you know, the sandbox here, uh, have been preaching, uh, a lot of things that I'm not sure ever

[00:20:48] really truly came to pass.

[00:20:50] Like, let me give you an example, uh, single pane of glass.

[00:20:53] I probably have heard that statement a thousand times.

[00:20:56] I have never seen it in 24 years.

[00:20:58] I've heard, I've heard it's coming, but like, I've never actually seen a finished single

[00:21:03] pane of anything.

[00:21:04] And then like the word automation got kicked around for, I don't know, a decade.

[00:21:10] Uh, and I think maybe kind of getting like sucked into this new AI craze that we're all

[00:21:16] seeing all this marketing about, like to what end, like automation, you know, from, uh, and

[00:21:22] new people have popped up yourselves or one of them and, and like RPA as an idea behind

[00:21:28] separately.

[00:21:29] And, and, but like the RMM itself was supposed to make everybody's lives easier.

[00:21:35] And I think, you know, kind of my, my thought, my final thought on this whole theme is I think

[00:21:41] they gave us a tool that was empty.

[00:21:44] Like they gave you a shell and they're like, Hey, go build.

[00:21:49] Then it's like, I have my IT services business.

[00:21:52] I don't have time to make this box that has nothing in it do something.

[00:21:56] Like I thought, yeah, that's what I was paying you for.

[00:21:59] And that's actually something Darren says when he talks about Emmy and why we built it, because

[00:22:04] he's like, basically with your traditional RMM, they gave you a box of Legos and said,

[00:22:08] go build something.

[00:22:09] So with us, we have over 1200 pieces of software.

[00:22:12] We keep updated for people.

[00:22:14] So they don't have to go build the Lego set.

[00:22:16] Like we want to hand you the full blown Cinderella castle or Harry Potter, whatever Hogwarts, like

[00:22:22] done.

[00:22:23] And if they're, if Legos are your thing, but more power to you, but like, I just don't have

[00:22:28] the time to go and build them in the middle of my, Hey, my thing's broken.

[00:22:34] Come and fix it.

[00:22:34] You know, like 80 of those a day.

[00:22:36] Right.

[00:22:37] So I don't know, like, and even today, right?

[00:22:40] Like the same players that were there 10 years ago are there today in one shape or fashion.

[00:22:45] The logo may have changed, but the software is still there.

[00:22:48] And, um, the value proposition is, Hey, we've built out some of the stuff that you were supposed

[00:22:56] to put into box for you, but like not very deep.

[00:23:00] Right.

[00:23:00] It's like, Hey, here's like a box of a little bit more complete Legos, but you still need

[00:23:06] to go and put the final pieces together to decide what you want.

[00:23:09] And it's like, again, I'm hiring for a completely separate person to finish that assembly.

[00:23:15] And by the way, I feel, uh, and, and I, I've, I've seen many companies now almost like

[00:23:22] a sub industry come up where it's like, Hey, you don't have time to manage your system

[00:23:26] pay us to do it for you.

[00:23:27] And it's like, uh, did we break the whole thought of this?

[00:23:32] Like, why did I buy this to begin with?

[00:23:33] If I can't use it?

[00:23:35] Yeah, no, that's fair.

[00:23:36] I mean, that's why there's so many implementation people, right?

[00:23:39] Because we just don't have time.

[00:23:41] And it's the same thing when I went through like C-level coaching, they're not going to

[00:23:45] do the work for you.

[00:23:46] They're going to give you all the homework and they go, you have to work on this for at

[00:23:49] least a day, a week to make sure you're building it.

[00:23:52] So you have to either be intentional with your time and say, this is now a focus or

[00:23:57] you likely have to find another solution.

[00:24:00] And, and sometimes that solution just provides more efficiency, especially if it's at a reasonable

[00:24:05] price point.

[00:24:06] Right.

[00:24:07] So I think perception is, you know, like reasonable price point.

[00:24:11] Yeah.

[00:24:11] Everybody may have a different opinion on what that is for sure.

[00:24:14] That ends.

[00:24:15] Um, I have, let me, let me invert this now, right?

[00:24:19] Let me go the other way.

[00:24:20] 180 degrees.

[00:24:20] I have seen two, three, four person MSPs manage large volumes of customers with not a lot of

[00:24:32] manpower because they came from this, I can build things background and code things.

[00:24:41] And like, it's impressive to see a three person MSP do three, four or $5 million where the equivalent

[00:24:48] to that somewhere else could be 10, 11 person MSP.

[00:24:51] Like that's, I think the problem is that it's like, let me give you the, let me tell you if

[00:24:58] you agree with this.

[00:24:59] Let me see.

[00:25:00] If you go today and say, I'm going to build my MSP in 2024 and I'm going to build it on Azure.

[00:25:06] I'm going to build on AWS.

[00:25:07] Like you're effectively having to learn a programming language to build out what you want in those

[00:25:13] clouds for platforms.

[00:25:14] Right?

[00:25:15] Like completely different conversation than 2010, 20, four, five, whatever year in the past.

[00:25:21] But like effectively you're a developer first, support person second.

[00:25:24] That's not the majority of MSPs out there.

[00:25:28] No, it's not.

[00:25:29] And when we were building ME, I actually had that conversation with one of our high devs.

[00:25:34] I said, who do you think you're building this for?

[00:25:36] And he said, developers.

[00:25:37] I said, absolutely not.

[00:25:38] I'm like in my peer group, there's 13 companies and two have devs on staff.

[00:25:43] One is us.

[00:25:44] I'm like, so no, but that's the thing.

[00:25:47] Like automation.

[00:25:49] I mean, I, ME is not AI.

[00:25:51] I actually got in a debate with somebody recently at an event about that.

[00:25:54] They're like, they are.

[00:25:55] I was like, I work for ME.

[00:25:56] I'm going to tell you we're not.

[00:25:58] I'm aware of what we are.

[00:26:00] Automation and AI are not the same thing.

[00:26:01] I appreciate you saying that because I feel like everybody's just taking that and slap.

[00:26:05] Like, it's like what cyber security was.

[00:26:07] It was like, oh, cyber this, cyber that.

[00:26:09] It's like yesterday you weren't saying that.

[00:26:11] Today you are.

[00:26:12] What changed?

[00:26:13] Yeah.

[00:26:15] We don't do machine learning.

[00:26:16] Like we've discussed it and we can pull some really interesting information based on

[00:26:22] patterns or whatever, but we are not AI.

[00:26:25] We don't, we don't say we are.

[00:26:27] We are automation.

[00:26:29] So an automation first.

[00:26:31] And when you're talking about these small MSPs for us, that, that was the reality because

[00:26:38] we were so heavy into automating literally as much as humanly possible that I didn't realize

[00:26:43] for the size we had gotten to revenue and like client wise, that only having 12 staff members

[00:26:49] wasn't normal.

[00:26:51] Like we always ran really lean.

[00:26:53] And so I would talk to these other companies and I'd go, oh, so you're probably at link revenue.

[00:26:58] And they're like, no, not even close.

[00:26:59] Like we're here.

[00:27:00] And I'm like, oh, okay.

[00:27:01] So you're overstaffed is what that's telling me.

[00:27:03] So you're likely inefficient.

[00:27:06] So it's interesting.

[00:27:09] Historically, that's how, like they would say, yeah, they would work backwards from revenue.

[00:27:13] I actually, I was at community minds.

[00:27:16] Juan from now at super ops, Fernandez.

[00:27:18] Yeah.

[00:27:19] He actually went through and said, best in class MSP.

[00:27:23] I have to go back and look at it because I wrote it down.

[00:27:26] He's like per employee, the amount of revenue generated should be something like three X the

[00:27:31] cost.

[00:27:31] So like if it's a hundred thousand dollar person that should be generating $300,000 in cost

[00:27:36] on, you know, like average, right?

[00:27:38] Like up tier, right?

[00:27:40] So if you have 10 people at, you know, then you should be doing $3 million in revenue

[00:27:45] or more.

[00:27:46] I'm going to simple, simple math, right?

[00:27:47] Yep.

[00:27:48] So like, but you know, like if I could do $3 million in revenue on three people, I'm

[00:27:53] out, I'm overperforming, right?

[00:27:54] Compared to, you know, like from a labor perspective.

[00:27:57] Now, if I have $3 million in revenue and I have 15 people now I'm overstaffed, right?

[00:28:02] So like, this is the litmus test.

[00:28:04] Yeah, it is completely.

[00:28:05] And I think that's called a W2 multiplier because I used to look at those when I was running

[00:28:10] the MSP and metrics are how you make decisions, right?

[00:28:14] In any business really.

[00:28:16] And a little of it is feel, but it's a lot of metrics.

[00:28:19] And at one point we were at a 5X multiplier for our staff.

[00:28:24] And I was like, and it had jumped.

[00:28:25] We had been at three.

[00:28:26] No, not, not, not this.

[00:28:28] I was like, oh my God, we're probably killing our staff.

[00:28:30] And we immediately had to hire three people.

[00:28:33] Oh, you're saying you were saying you're understaffed is what you were saying.

[00:28:38] Yeah, we were understaffed.

[00:28:39] So like, and nobody was complaining.

[00:28:41] Everyone's still happy because we really harp on work-life balance, but we're like,

[00:28:46] okay, let's get some more people on board so that we don't burn these people out.

[00:28:51] Because right now they're happy, but in three months they might not be.

[00:28:53] Well, did you?

[00:28:54] So I'm curious when, before you hired those people, did you ask your staff if they felt

[00:28:58] like they were too busy?

[00:29:00] So we have that conversation actually a lot.

[00:29:02] We do like blind surveys and all that stuff.

[00:29:05] And everybody, I don't know if it's because it came from me, but people aren't really willing

[00:29:12] to tell you sometimes the truth.

[00:29:14] And so I tend to leave the room if they're having conversations like that, or I let somebody

[00:29:20] else now run it because they would just be like, yeah, everything's great.

[00:29:22] And I'm like, okay, is this going to be a different story in a month?

[00:29:27] Where are we at?

[00:29:29] That's fair.

[00:29:30] I mean, like, I guess you, you know, honest information helps us make honest business decisions

[00:29:36] on the other side.

[00:29:37] Right.

[00:29:37] But like at the end of the day, you know, like I don't think anybody's ever going to say

[00:29:41] give me less to work with.

[00:29:43] I mean, you know, like everybody would take more if they can get it.

[00:29:48] I would hope, or I would, I've personally seen in my journey, but yeah, at the end of

[00:29:53] the day, that's interesting.

[00:29:54] So you went, you know, you got the math, you came back, you're like, we're on their

[00:29:58] staff.

[00:29:59] Let's go and find people.

[00:30:02] And we, and we brought in low level people that we could build up because we've been burned

[00:30:06] in the past, you know, um, hiring for a tier three who, or whatever you want to call them

[00:30:11] who wasn't actually.

[00:30:14] And, and we found differing opinions because people would be like, oh yeah, I'm a tier

[00:30:17] two at this company.

[00:30:18] And they'd come and they'd work for us.

[00:30:20] And it'd be like, but you're not, you're a tier one, really masquerading as a tier two,

[00:30:25] at least in our opinion.

[00:30:26] So all the companies are slightly different in the requirements.

[00:30:30] And I think that shows the company's maturity as well.

[00:30:34] Um, that's fair.

[00:30:36] And yeah, cause we were very different than the company we were 13 years ago, completely

[00:30:41] like night and day.

[00:30:42] I would hope so.

[00:30:44] I mean, there's a maturity that comes along with time now, like you finally get the recipe

[00:30:48] right and figure out how to make it work.

[00:30:50] Um, back to the, you know, Paul Dippel, you know, operational maturity scale thing, right?

[00:30:57] One, two, three, four, five.

[00:30:59] Um, so like what's, so back to Emmy bot and like, what is the, um, skill set, you know,

[00:31:10] requirements that you think that an MSP would need in order to take what you guys do, right?

[00:31:16] This automation of workstation deployment and, and all the things, there's a lot of like

[00:31:21] threads that come along with that, right?

[00:31:23] Software installation, software updating, all this other stuff, like how much background

[00:31:28] or what kind of background do they need in order to functionally use your solution?

[00:31:33] Well, I think it depends on what you want to do with it, right?

[00:31:36] Because there are things Emmy does that nobody realizes Emmy does.

[00:31:40] Like people don't know that we acquired a product, a source code for remotely, which is kind

[00:31:46] of like a screen connect replica.

[00:31:47] And then we hired the guy that wrote it and he built it into Emmy bot.

[00:31:50] So it is in Emmy bot and it's a toggle on and off button.

[00:31:53] Um, but the reality was, yeah.

[00:31:56] So, you know, we say we're an RM of an RMM because we don't do monitoring people.

[00:32:01] There are plenty of people who do monitoring who are really good at it.

[00:32:03] And it's just not a game we want to get into.

[00:32:05] We do management.

[00:32:07] Um, desired state configuration.

[00:32:10] We keep everyone in line.

[00:32:12] Hmm.

[00:32:13] That's interesting angle.

[00:32:14] We're not monitoring.

[00:32:15] We're managing.

[00:32:16] Okay.

[00:32:16] I like that.

[00:32:17] That's a good nightline.

[00:32:18] But the thing is, is we are, you can use other things with us to get the, cause we have so

[00:32:25] much information in Emmy.

[00:32:26] So like, if you use us in like a roost together, we have people who are literally getting rid

[00:32:30] of their RMM because the information is there.

[00:32:33] They just have to get it into their PSA.

[00:32:38] Um, so I think if you're just doing deployments and new computer setups, you can have a tier

[00:32:45] one doing that because the requirement was I had to be able to push my own software.

[00:32:49] If I can't push my own software, literally me, there's a problem.

[00:32:53] So I've pushed my own software before.

[00:32:56] Okay.

[00:32:57] How much Lego building is required to get it to the point where the level one can just press

[00:33:04] a book.

[00:33:05] It's once again, I'm going to say it depends because we, we have 1200 pieces of software in

[00:33:11] there.

[00:33:11] So some of them are going to require, um, maybe like a key.

[00:33:15] So you're going to have to do that because we can't pull that license key for you.

[00:33:18] We do have integrations with like 365 where literally you put the tenant in and we can go

[00:33:24] see in 365 what software they use and we will auto push it.

[00:33:28] So you don't even have to think about it.

[00:33:30] So you don't have to know if they have a business premium license.

[00:33:32] Like we read that ourselves without your tech coming into it.

[00:33:36] So, but you can get really like, I mean, Emmy can do as much as you really want it to.

[00:33:42] And we actually have like a script editor in there.

[00:33:45] So you drop in a package and it'll try to suggest a script for you.

[00:33:48] If we don't already have it in global, but I mean, it's, it, it's so crazy how robust

[00:33:55] this thing is, honestly, George.

[00:33:57] And I'm still learning new things every day with it where I'm like, wait, it does that.

[00:34:02] We can figure software.

[00:34:04] I'm like, how many do you, it looks like magic to me sometimes.

[00:34:07] I don't understand API calls.

[00:34:08] I don't understand any of that crap.

[00:34:10] So it's just not on me.

[00:34:12] I mean, listen, I am, I'm probably not much further than you on.

[00:34:16] Hey, like I understand the theory and like the, what's happening at a high level.

[00:34:22] I couldn't tell you, you know, the coding and the scripting and the, this and the, that,

[00:34:28] and the, like, that's not my jam.

[00:34:30] Actually, you know, if you're, you know, you know, when George was in college, I may have,

[00:34:35] I may have compensated some people to help me get through that.

[00:34:38] Those programming classes because that was not my jam.

[00:34:42] Gotta be honest.

[00:34:43] You cheated?

[00:34:44] I got extra tutoring is what I call it.

[00:34:48] Extra tutoring.

[00:34:50] Cause like, I'm going to tell you right now, I was not the C++ coding guy.

[00:34:56] Like you did not want me building you any application to do anything.

[00:35:00] Like I'll install an app on your cell phone from the app store.

[00:35:03] That you'll be happy with.

[00:35:03] Other than that, not my jam.

[00:35:06] No, I mean, we have people that do that.

[00:35:09] That's, that's why we have devs.

[00:35:10] I don't need to.

[00:35:11] I hear you.

[00:35:12] So, all right.

[00:35:13] So what's the smallest, you know, like, so if I'm like, I don't know, MSPs vary, right?

[00:35:19] There's a lot of them out there.

[00:35:20] They're, you know, they're all over the place.

[00:35:22] So I'm only managing two, three, four, let's call it 500 workstations across my customer.

[00:35:28] A little smaller MSP, maybe one or two people.

[00:35:30] So like, is that big enough to, to benefit from this?

[00:35:35] Or is that like, what size do I need to get to?

[00:35:38] So we talk a lot about ICP, you know, ideal client profile, a customer, whatever you're

[00:35:43] going to call it.

[00:35:44] And Darren will tell you, everyone is an ideal client for me, but it, I'm like, okay, well,

[00:35:50] but I read.

[00:35:51] There's a lot of MSPs worldwide, they said.

[00:35:52] So I don't know if that's a real class.

[00:35:55] That's a lot there.

[00:35:57] So, but I did meet somebody because I always thought those smaller MSPs, one, two person

[00:36:02] shops weren't using Emmy.

[00:36:04] But I actually met one recently at an event.

[00:36:07] I think it was at Channel Con.

[00:36:08] And he came up to me.

[00:36:09] He's like, you're Tara with Emmy Box.

[00:36:10] I had my sequin hat on.

[00:36:12] And he was a one person shop and he just hired a second person.

[00:36:16] And he's like, but literally I have had Emmy for two or three years because I couldn't

[00:36:21] run my business without you.

[00:36:23] That was the first person I'd met that was only a one person MSP.

[00:36:26] And they're like, you basically replaced a low level tech for me.

[00:36:30] And like the price for a salary of like a tier one tech versus what I pay for you guys.

[00:36:35] It's a no brainer.

[00:36:37] Yeah.

[00:36:37] Yeah.

[00:36:38] Wow.

[00:36:39] Okay.

[00:36:39] And like, like, how does this work?

[00:36:42] Is it an agent thing?

[00:36:44] Is it a customer thing?

[00:36:45] Is it an engineer thing?

[00:36:46] Like, how do you package this?

[00:36:48] So there's two different versions.

[00:36:50] There's starter, which is just new computer setups.

[00:36:52] And you can set up as many as you want in a month.

[00:36:55] It's 400 bucks.

[00:36:56] I don't care.

[00:36:57] We say if you set two computers up a month, it pays for itself.

[00:36:59] Really?

[00:37:01] At 400 bucks a month.

[00:37:03] Yeah.

[00:37:03] I just, I mean, if it takes a, you know, I don't know, maybe you have metrics on this.

[00:37:08] Feel free to share them.

[00:37:09] But like, if I use your product and it gets my workstation deployment down from five hours

[00:37:14] to an hour, then yes, I think the math works.

[00:37:17] So we actually, I don't have them written out here, but we did pull metrics for ourselves.

[00:37:21] We took ours from three, four hours versus kind of the average, depending on if it was

[00:37:25] like an engineering computer versus just like a base computer and all that to about 30 to

[00:37:30] 45 minutes.

[00:37:31] So my techs can actually like do other things that are more important and fight the fires

[00:37:36] that we know come up for MSPs.

[00:37:38] That, if that math is real, like end to end, like computers ready to go, sign in, start working

[00:37:43] a hundred percent.

[00:37:45] Like the value is there at $400 a month.

[00:37:47] Well, and you have to think about it.

[00:37:49] Our MSP, we do bill out of band for new workstation setups.

[00:37:52] We built $250 flat.

[00:37:54] There it is.

[00:37:54] And so if, if we didn't get it in and if we didn't have it finished in less than an hour,

[00:37:59] that was a problem for us.

[00:38:00] Yeah.

[00:38:01] Really?

[00:38:02] Yeah.

[00:38:03] I, number one, I'm glad that you do that.

[00:38:05] Cause like you should, I would, if you're listening to this and then your MSP, it's like

[00:38:11] you're following the all you can eat thing.

[00:38:14] Some people call it ACE plan.

[00:38:15] Some people call it, you know, practical silver, whatever terminology you want to use.

[00:38:19] But like I would charge every time a new machine has to be deployed.

[00:38:24] Like I'm not saying charge a thousand bucks unless you can get it, but there should be

[00:38:28] a fee so that people aren't flipping through computers all day long.

[00:38:33] Well, yeah, because you think about managed services, it's for maintaining what's there,

[00:38:37] not adding new.

[00:38:39] And that's how we kind of justified it to clients.

[00:38:42] No, that's fair.

[00:38:43] Yeah.

[00:38:43] It's a new thing.

[00:38:44] I got to put time into it.

[00:38:45] I'm building something for sure.

[00:38:46] Yeah.

[00:38:46] Okay.

[00:38:47] So you got the start, you got the, I'm deploying workstations all day long, flat fee, monthly

[00:38:53] thing, go wild.

[00:38:54] You know, you want to do one, you want to do a hundred, you want to do a thousand, be

[00:38:58] my guest.

[00:38:58] Be my guest.

[00:39:00] The only thing is you can't push software after seven days.

[00:39:03] So you have to have that new workstation deployment, deployment done within seven days.

[00:39:07] But if you set it up on the front end, that's, that's not a problem.

[00:39:11] Let's just say, let's round up to an hour, right?

[00:39:14] If it takes an hour for the whole thing to go, unless you opened the computer and started

[00:39:19] it and then went on vacation and came back.

[00:39:20] Like.

[00:39:22] Or forgot about the ticket or that does happen.

[00:39:26] I mean, MSPs are a lot of moving parts, a lot of things happening.

[00:39:30] But the other version that we have is standard.

[00:39:33] So you get everything with starter and then you can get the maintenance or like the ad

[00:39:39] hoc deployments and all that fun stuff.

[00:39:41] And we actually can do Azure AD migrations and just, yeah, for no extra cost.

[00:39:48] Like it's not an additional product.

[00:39:49] Like they built it in, which is huge.

[00:39:53] So I guess in the second package, the standard package, that's where the remote access tool

[00:40:01] and comes in or is that available in the other?

[00:40:04] Remote access is in the original one.

[00:40:06] Oh, so.

[00:40:08] So I deploy a workstation with your platform.

[00:40:10] It's out in the wild.

[00:40:11] I want to remote into it five months later.

[00:40:14] That works in version A.

[00:40:16] Mm hmm.

[00:40:17] Okay.

[00:40:18] So you just can't push software to it.

[00:40:20] That's the big thing.

[00:40:21] So the second tier, the standard is you really it's for maintenance.

[00:40:26] So our MSP, all of our clients get weekly maintenance.

[00:40:30] So they we pick a day with them every week.

[00:40:33] Their maintenance runs and where we're a little different than most companies.

[00:40:37] And I really need some sort of chart to show this is.

[00:40:41] It is agent based, quote unquote.

[00:40:44] However, all of your computers can sit in Emmy bot and have the agent.

[00:40:49] We bill on utilized agents.

[00:40:52] So you can have a thousand computers in there.

[00:40:54] If you're only running maintenance on a hundred, I'm billing you for a hundred.

[00:40:59] But I can remote access all thousand?

[00:41:02] Mm hmm.

[00:41:03] Hmm.

[00:41:05] So how does the pricing work for stand like like starter is just a flat thing.

[00:41:10] It's 400.

[00:41:11] Yeah, 400.

[00:41:12] Standard is that.

[00:41:14] Yeah.

[00:41:15] Standard is that for starter.

[00:41:16] Yeah.

[00:41:17] Standard is 400.

[00:41:18] And then it's per seat pricing.

[00:41:19] It starts at like two dollars a seat.

[00:41:21] So I tell people I'm like the lowest you can get is 50 endpoints.

[00:41:24] Just pay for that and run it and test it.

[00:41:27] And we do month to month.

[00:41:28] So you don't have to keep it.

[00:41:29] Like if you run maintenance this month, you don't like it.

[00:41:31] Remove it next month and we won't bill you.

[00:41:34] I like that.

[00:41:35] I wish everybody was still that way.

[00:41:37] But the industry turned about five years ago where like everything turned into a three

[00:41:41] year contract.

[00:41:42] It did.

[00:41:43] And I get it.

[00:41:44] And we've had people approach us and be like, if I because I mean, prices are likely

[00:41:48] going to go up at some point.

[00:41:49] And they're like, can I lock in for three years?

[00:41:51] And we'll do a special agreement for them if that's what they're asking for.

[00:41:54] But like that is not our standard because at the end of the day, we want to work with

[00:41:57] people that want to work with us.

[00:41:59] That's fair.

[00:42:00] I like that.

[00:42:01] And I don't yeah, I don't want to lock someone in and have them hate us at the end of the

[00:42:05] day and then get all the negative Reddit posts and stuff.

[00:42:07] It's you know, we've all been locked into a contract that we don't want.

[00:42:12] So do I need a server somewhere to run this or like how much are you doing versus how much

[00:42:19] am I doing?

[00:42:21] So we host everything in Azure, everything and they're all individual tenants.

[00:42:26] So nothing is cross tenant.

[00:42:28] So you have your own.

[00:42:30] We that's why we have to do that $400 flat fee on the standard because Microsoft's got

[00:42:34] to get their money.

[00:42:36] Honestly, that kind of computes a little bit because like by the time you add like a SQL

[00:42:42] server and a web server and whatever else goes into Azure, like it adds up.

[00:42:46] Yeah.

[00:42:47] And it's just I mean, we do the reserved instances.

[00:42:49] We've tried to get the pricing down as much as humanly possible just because we know.

[00:42:54] I mean, Azure can be a beast.

[00:42:56] I don't know if you've ever messed with it, but it can it can explode on you very quickly.

[00:43:01] I mean, yeah, I play with Nerdy a little bit.

[00:43:05] They have a cool tool to try and make that a little bit more Fisher price.

[00:43:09] But to that end, like as I mentioned before, right?

[00:43:13] Like that's its own language, Azure, right?

[00:43:16] Like it's almost like infrastructure as codes.

[00:43:19] People call it whatever.

[00:43:20] Like the calculators that they all give you are never 100% perfect.

[00:43:26] And like all of a sudden it's like one month is this.

[00:43:29] The next month is this.

[00:43:29] It's like very hard to, you know, like on the actual come down to like within like the exact

[00:43:35] penny that you're going to pay, right?

[00:43:37] Unfortunately, unless you do like a fixed flat, you know, no resource consumption thing,

[00:43:43] which is kind of the inverse of how they sell it anyway.

[00:43:46] Right.

[00:43:46] Like I really want you to use electric and then just, you know, pay as the meter turns.

[00:43:53] I, you know, like most end users, if you would, right.

[00:43:56] Like tell me what my cell phone bill is going to be.

[00:43:58] Is it going to be 50 bucks a month?

[00:43:59] That's it.

[00:44:00] Data, text, voice, taxes, fees.

[00:44:03] Like what?

[00:44:03] What is it?

[00:44:04] Give me the number.

[00:44:05] Give me the number.

[00:44:06] Yeah.

[00:44:06] Yeah.

[00:44:06] I remember the days I'm sure you remember.

[00:44:09] It was like, Hey, I got to wait till after 7 PM because it was, you know, like it doesn't

[00:44:12] use my minutes and my text message a lot, man.

[00:44:14] If I call at nights and weekends, remember that?

[00:44:16] No, George, didn't we talk about this?

[00:44:18] You're like 15 years older than me.

[00:44:20] Oh, stop.

[00:44:21] No, we're the same age, but yes, I remember that.

[00:44:25] Or don't press the internet button.

[00:44:27] Cause my mom's going to murder me because you get charged for whenever you turn the internet

[00:44:30] on your phone.

[00:44:32] Like it was the thing.

[00:44:33] And like, people would like literally, or it was free on network.

[00:44:37] Right.

[00:44:37] If you were the same cell phone carrier and I was, then they're like, I could talk to

[00:44:41] you as much as I want.

[00:44:42] But if so-and-so is on the other one, sorry.

[00:44:44] Can't talk to you right now.

[00:44:46] But then like, you know, the whole thing flipped.

[00:44:48] Actually, I probably said it a couple episodes in a row, but the BlackBerry movie is just priceless.

[00:44:55] If you like, even if you want a BlackBerry user, everybody remembers BlackBerry, right?

[00:44:59] Yeah.

[00:44:59] Go and watch the BlackBerry movie.

[00:45:01] I watched it on a trip back from Australia and man, it was, it blew my mind that whole

[00:45:07] thing.

[00:45:07] Like how, like if you go back and like watch how the thing started and how it ended.

[00:45:12] Like that, it ended with the iPhone.

[00:45:15] I like, I'm just, yeah.

[00:45:17] It ended when the iPhone came out.

[00:45:19] So basically, so go and watch that movie.

[00:45:22] And like, that will take you back to like the whole, you're paying for data.

[00:45:26] You're paying for minutes.

[00:45:27] You're paying for text messages, the plans, bundles, all this, whatever.

[00:45:30] Right.

[00:45:31] Like it all makes a lot more sense when you watch that movie.

[00:45:35] That's so crazy.

[00:45:36] Yeah.

[00:45:37] I, I kind of miss my old like cell phone.

[00:45:39] And I think about it every so often, as weird as that is the little silver, like Motorola

[00:45:43] that you could probably chuck against a wall and it would never break with the blue screen.

[00:45:47] I know.

[00:45:48] I remember that Motorola.

[00:45:52] Yeah.

[00:45:52] It's interesting.

[00:45:53] The cell phone business is really the computer business with just an antenna on it, but I

[00:45:57] digress.

[00:45:58] So AmyBot.

[00:45:59] Okay.

[00:45:59] You don't have to host anything.

[00:46:00] You don't have to put a server up.

[00:46:02] You do have to deploy an agent, two different roads, remote access and unlimited computer

[00:46:08] deployments.

[00:46:10] And the other one is like, Hey, not just a computer deployments, but also on.

[00:46:16] Managing them.

[00:46:17] Right.

[00:46:17] Like you want to update something.

[00:46:19] You want to push out a new software.

[00:46:20] You want to up, you know, change a configuration and somehow, right.

[00:46:24] Like that's after it's out in the field, seven days.

[00:46:26] Right.

[00:46:27] Yeah.

[00:46:27] Or there's say a vulnerability and Emmy does some stuff because we, we pull in like the

[00:46:33] newest packages and the newest versions of things.

[00:46:35] And we have them integrated that way.

[00:46:36] You can push it immediately and we can bill you that month for how many computers you pushed

[00:46:41] it to.

[00:46:41] And then you don't have to run it again next month if you don't need to.

[00:46:44] So it's almost consumption based billing.

[00:46:46] Yeah.

[00:46:47] Like there's a base fee, the 400 and then whatever you use.

[00:46:52] Yep.

[00:46:52] Utilization consumption.

[00:46:54] I like it.

[00:46:55] That's cool.

[00:46:55] And so like how many people, like you said there, you know, like one point there was

[00:46:59] a hundred partners.

[00:47:00] How many partners do you think today you have on AmiBot?

[00:47:03] We have, I think about 800.

[00:47:06] 800 unique IT services companies.

[00:47:08] I can actually pull it up.

[00:47:09] You want me to tell you?

[00:47:11] Sure.

[00:47:11] I can pull it up on my phone.

[00:47:12] I got, I've got a fricking computer sitting here.

[00:47:15] It's beautiful.

[00:47:16] We were just talking.

[00:47:18] Let's, let's see.

[00:47:19] Talk amongst yourselves.

[00:47:22] Let's see.

[00:47:23] I can tell you.

[00:47:25] I wonder who's going to win tonight.

[00:47:27] The Mets or the Phillies?

[00:47:28] I hope the Phillies.

[00:47:29] Cause you know, there's Mets.

[00:47:29] I'm sure you hope the Phillies.

[00:47:33] Total active subscriptions right now, 757.

[00:47:36] And we have 30 that are currently in trial.

[00:47:39] Okay.

[00:47:41] That's cool.

[00:47:41] So all of those are unique.

[00:47:44] Like, do you have anybody other than IT?

[00:47:46] Like, do you have internal IT department subscribing?

[00:47:48] Or is it just MSPs?

[00:47:50] So we don't focus on, or we don't, we, we focus on MSPs, right?

[00:47:55] We don't, we don't advertise to any, well, we don't really advertise in general.

[00:47:59] That's a whole, another story for another day.

[00:48:02] Small team.

[00:48:02] But we don't advertise to other people.

[00:48:04] But we've had random, like, like sports teams find us, like professional sports teams,

[00:48:09] their IT departments.

[00:48:10] And we see the emails come through and we're like, what?

[00:48:12] Where did, how did they find us?

[00:48:13] All we can assume is Reddit.

[00:48:15] We have no idea.

[00:48:17] Go it up for eagles.com?

[00:48:18] No, no.

[00:48:19] No, not, not them.

[00:48:20] Sorry.

[00:48:21] I tried.

[00:48:22] I tried.

[00:48:23] But there are internal IT departments.

[00:48:25] There's school systems in different states that use it.

[00:48:28] I mean.

[00:48:28] Okay.

[00:48:29] People who stumble onto us, apparently.

[00:48:31] No idea.

[00:48:32] That is very interesting.

[00:48:35] How much support do you provide, you know, to get this thing from,

[00:48:40] I signed up to, it's working.

[00:48:43] And then, like, if I need help, how do you give help?

[00:48:46] So, it really depends on the company.

[00:48:48] Because some people are, they take it and they run with it.

[00:48:52] We want to do an onboarding call of at least an hour with you.

[00:48:55] Walk through basic deployments.

[00:48:57] Explain it to you.

[00:48:59] Because sometimes how MSPs think may not be how it's related in there.

[00:49:04] I mean, they are endpoints.

[00:49:05] But I think we call them, I think we just call them workstations.

[00:49:08] And ME, actually.

[00:49:09] So, there's just some things like definitions and whatnot.

[00:49:13] But people can email into us.

[00:49:15] We have a really active Slack channel on MSP Geek that has almost 1,000 users in it, I think.

[00:49:21] And those are some power users of ME who are very quick at answering, too.

[00:49:25] Because we do have a small team.

[00:49:26] So, sometimes we say, hey, pop in there and just see.

[00:49:28] Because someone probably has an answer.

[00:49:29] And we hang out in there.

[00:49:31] Our devs hang out in there.

[00:49:32] I'm in there.

[00:49:33] And then we have a support team that is awesome.

[00:49:38] And we just rebuilt that, actually.

[00:49:40] Recently, me and Drew Hackworth spent quite a bit of time.

[00:49:43] Are still kind of working on it.

[00:49:44] But that was the, after we hired our devs, that was who we went to next.

[00:49:49] We're like, okay, support.

[00:49:50] We need to make sure this is staffed correctly.

[00:49:51] And we got some people who used ME for years.

[00:49:54] And they were like, we're kind of ready for the next thing.

[00:49:58] So, they came over.

[00:49:59] And it's been great.

[00:50:01] But, yeah, you just throw in a ticket.

[00:50:02] We basically modeled our system after an MSP.

[00:50:07] Because it's not that much different.

[00:50:09] You're still working tickets.

[00:50:10] You're still doing support requests.

[00:50:12] You have a chat.

[00:50:13] Like, it's...

[00:50:15] We didn't want to reinvent the wheel, really.

[00:50:18] Okay.

[00:50:18] But you're using Halo for your ticket existence.

[00:50:23] No, not for Emmibot.

[00:50:24] We're using it for the MSP.

[00:50:25] I see.

[00:50:26] I am not part of that migration.

[00:50:27] I did not want to do a PSA migration.

[00:50:30] I was like, they have to come to me and say they want it.

[00:50:35] Got it.

[00:50:36] 20 years of data, George.

[00:50:39] You know, Tara, I had this exact conversation many times.

[00:50:44] It's like, what do we do?

[00:50:45] And I was like, I don't know.

[00:50:46] Do you keep one user active just so you can go back and access the old stuff?

[00:50:51] Like, bringing over all of that is not realistic.

[00:50:54] You got to, like, put a line in the sand and say, we only want data this step, like, five years or whatever.

[00:51:00] Like, can't bring all the years up.

[00:51:03] No.

[00:51:04] And a lot of stuff that might be in there is stagnant.

[00:51:06] Like, because we used, I mean, we used our previous PSA more than probably most companies do.

[00:51:14] We had built out tons of workflows.

[00:51:15] We had built out tons of configurations and, like, they were pushing for MIMI.

[00:51:19] And it's just, there's just tons of information in there.

[00:51:23] And it just, that was a, I wanted nothing to do with that.

[00:51:27] And I pushed Halo off literally for years and was like, you guys, I can't.

[00:51:31] My team will murder me.

[00:51:34] Oh, boy.

[00:51:34] Well, you know what?

[00:51:35] Now we're here.

[00:51:37] Now you're doing it.

[00:51:38] Now we're here.

[00:51:38] They came to me and said, hey, Tara, we think we need a new PSA.

[00:51:41] And I said, great.

[00:51:42] I know some guys.

[00:51:45] I know some guys.

[00:51:46] I got a guy.

[00:51:47] I got a guy.

[00:51:47] It's all good.

[00:51:48] They happen to be in the UK.

[00:51:49] But I got them.

[00:51:50] I got them.

[00:51:51] But I got them.

[00:51:52] Hey, they got people in Florida.

[00:51:53] If they send them a McLaren, that's mine.

[00:51:56] No, I get dibs.

[00:51:57] Nobody's touching that.

[00:51:59] That's all me.

[00:52:00] Okay.

[00:52:00] And it better be purple.

[00:52:03] Have you watched the new Penguin series on HBO Max?

[00:52:07] No.

[00:52:09] Oh.

[00:52:09] Well, if you like purple cars, you should go watch.

[00:52:12] I like purple everything.

[00:52:14] Well, then I think you should put that on your watch list the next time you're on a plane and need something to watch.

[00:52:20] There's so many things on that list right now.

[00:52:22] Everyone's like, you should watch this.

[00:52:23] You should watch that.

[00:52:23] And I'm like, when do people have time to do this?

[00:52:26] There's only two episodes so far.

[00:52:28] And it's when you're on planes.

[00:52:29] It's when you're going to London and the UK.

[00:52:32] You got eight hours in each direction at least.

[00:52:34] So that's when you should do it.

[00:52:36] That's when you're supposed to sleep, George.

[00:52:38] That's what I keep being told.

[00:52:39] And I'm terrible at sleeping on planes.

[00:52:41] Sleep?

[00:52:42] Nah.

[00:52:42] Who needs that?

[00:52:45] Me.

[00:52:45] I like it.

[00:52:46] Bye.

[00:52:47] When you're on trips, just bring the monster.

[00:52:51] No.

[00:52:52] No.

[00:52:52] That's...

[00:52:53] No.

[00:52:54] I cut out most caffeine, like, God, almost two years ago now.

[00:52:58] And so the only...

[00:53:00] Yeah.

[00:53:00] The only time...

[00:53:01] Yeah.

[00:53:02] January of 2023, I suppose.

[00:53:06] Yeah.

[00:53:07] Over a year and a half ago.

[00:53:08] I drink Sprites and ginger ales and things with decaf coffee.

[00:53:14] I just like the taste of coffee.

[00:53:15] But when I'm on trips, you better believe the first thing I do is go get a real coffee.

[00:53:20] Because...

[00:53:21] There you go.

[00:53:22] Coffee work, too.

[00:53:23] You don't like the monster and all the other stuff.

[00:53:25] No monster.

[00:53:26] No Red Bull.

[00:53:27] Jen loves Celsius.

[00:53:29] Or the Red Bulls or whatever.

[00:53:31] Fine.

[00:53:31] Coffee's good.

[00:53:32] And listen, you've already heard all the jokes about American coffee versus everywhere else,

[00:53:38] I'm sure.

[00:53:39] Mm-hmm.

[00:53:40] Mm-hmm.

[00:53:40] And I'll take my American coffee.

[00:53:43] Yes.

[00:53:44] But Starbucks is just about everywhere, doesn't it?

[00:53:47] Mm-hmm.

[00:53:47] It does.

[00:53:48] It does.

[00:53:49] But...

[00:53:50] Yeah.

[00:53:50] I do...

[00:53:51] I brought back plenty of Starbucks mug from plenty of Starbucks from all over the place.

[00:53:56] And I'm not a...

[00:53:57] There it is.

[00:53:58] And I'm not even a coffee person.

[00:53:59] I'm bringing them back for other people.

[00:54:01] Trust me.

[00:54:02] I just love these cups, honestly.

[00:54:04] I have a giant collection of them.

[00:54:07] Well, I like the super ceramic ones.

[00:54:10] They're usually black and white.

[00:54:11] Like the London ones.

[00:54:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:54:13] You know, the Big Ben and all that.

[00:54:16] It's definitely very decorative.

[00:54:18] I don't know.

[00:54:19] There's different ones for different places.

[00:54:21] This one's at Disney.

[00:54:23] Okay.

[00:54:23] This is Hollywood Studios at Disney.

[00:54:25] There you go.

[00:54:25] I brought one back from Berlin when I went to scope out the scene earlier this year in June.

[00:54:31] So...

[00:54:31] Mm-hmm.

[00:54:32] Starbucks everywhere.

[00:54:33] Wow.

[00:54:33] Where did people go and find more information about IMI?

[00:54:38] I guess like the trial or just to check it out, more information, pricing, all that good stuff.

[00:54:43] The website.

[00:54:44] It's immy.bot.

[00:54:45] I-M-M-Y dot B-O-T.

[00:54:47] Pretty simple.

[00:54:48] We were on a wait list for that dot bot that came out.

[00:54:52] That's clever.

[00:54:53] I like that.

[00:54:54] Talk about people who don't do marketing, apparently, but dot bot.

[00:54:57] Okay.

[00:54:57] I like that.

[00:54:58] That's cool.

[00:54:58] And I assume we're going to see you...

[00:55:00] Like, we're in the gauntlet.

[00:55:01] There's like 18 events a day.

[00:55:03] So I'm sure we're going to see you between now and the end of the year where?

[00:55:06] I'll be at DattoCon.

[00:55:07] We don't have a booth, but we are sponsoring y'all's party.

[00:55:10] So I will be wandering around in my sequin hat.

[00:55:13] And I'm currently making a new one.

[00:55:15] So hopefully I'll have it done by then.

[00:55:17] Maybe two.

[00:55:17] If you don't know who Tara is, once you see the hats, you'll know.

[00:55:20] It's her.

[00:55:21] Yep.

[00:55:22] Yep.

[00:55:22] It's me.

[00:55:23] I have four hats over on that wall.

[00:55:26] Show them one hat.

[00:55:27] Show them one hat.

[00:55:27] Oh my gosh.

[00:55:28] Okay.

[00:55:29] Hold on.

[00:55:29] Hold me.

[00:55:30] Let me slide over here.

[00:55:31] This is like Tara's like, you know, arts and crafts section of the day.

[00:55:37] You know, it's fun for me.

[00:55:39] I love doing it.

[00:55:40] But this is one of them.

[00:55:41] This is the original hat that I made.

[00:55:43] It's actually got my name on the back.

[00:55:45] There it is.

[00:55:46] Yeah.

[00:55:47] So I wear these around conferences, but I'm currently working on two new ones.

[00:55:51] These hats are like shoes for her.

[00:55:53] She has to have multiple versions.

[00:55:55] They're very nice.

[00:55:57] I'll be honest.

[00:55:58] They're very well done.

[00:56:00] Thank you.

[00:56:01] They are very decorative.

[00:56:03] I got to get you.

[00:56:04] What's an average hat take you to make?

[00:56:07] It depends.

[00:56:08] The one that I handed that's over on that wall.

[00:56:10] It's a, it's a circuit board and I hand put on all the gems.

[00:56:13] That one took like 10 hours.

[00:56:14] This one took like.

[00:56:17] Two and a half, maybe three.

[00:56:19] Emmy bot for the hats.

[00:56:21] What?

[00:56:22] Did you get Emmy bot to make the hats for you?

[00:56:24] 3D printers or something?

[00:56:27] No, sadly I have used my, well, that's part of the thing, right?

[00:56:31] I use my 3D printer to make some of the stuff, like the little, the letters, because I was

[00:56:36] using it to make really dumb things.

[00:56:38] And I was like, what can I make that's useful?

[00:56:42] That makes sense.

[00:56:43] I'm tracking you now.

[00:56:44] That's fun.

[00:56:45] All right.

[00:56:45] So if we had Datocon, probably at IT Nation.

[00:56:50] Definitely at IT Nation Connect.

[00:56:52] We, we love that conference.

[00:56:54] And then let's see, towards the end of the year, I am going to be doing the Evolve Service

[00:56:58] Manager Peer Groups.

[00:57:00] So we're, we love peer groups.

[00:57:02] So I will be there and yeah.

[00:57:04] And then CodeMash in January.

[00:57:07] So going to go hang out with some developers.

[00:57:10] Not my, you know, I'll send them, I'll send them all the caffeine they want, but that's

[00:57:14] not my jam.

[00:57:15] You don't want me coding.

[00:57:17] It's all good.

[00:57:17] I mean, it's, we're going to take some devs with us.

[00:57:19] I mean, you know, this is just a little different.

[00:57:22] So not who we're trying to sell to, but hey.

[00:57:26] All good.

[00:57:26] All good.

[00:57:27] Yeah.

[00:57:27] Well, Tara, what can I say?

[00:57:29] It is always a pleasure.

[00:57:31] Thank you for jumping on today.

[00:57:33] Absolutely.

[00:57:33] I'm sure I will be spending a little bit of time with you either in Miami at DattoCon or

[00:57:38] Orlando at IT Nation.

[00:57:41] I feel like they're far away, but in reality, they're not far away.

[00:57:47] They're literally not.

[00:57:48] And you said they're weeks apart from each other.

[00:57:50] They're one week apart from each other, George.

[00:57:52] Reminder.

[00:57:53] Like eight days.

[00:57:54] It wasn't like a week in a day.

[00:57:56] No.

[00:57:58] Those days go by real fast, my friend.

[00:58:01] Yeah.

[00:58:02] That's true.

[00:58:02] It's true.

[00:58:03] All right, guys.

[00:58:04] Go check out immy.bot.

[00:58:09] Or you can look up Tara online.

[00:58:12] Her last name, R-U-M-M-E-R.

[00:58:15] Like runner, but with M's, rummer.

[00:58:19] And she's definitely there with her hat, I promise.

[00:58:21] All over the internet.

[00:58:22] You look for it.

[00:58:24] Guys, this session was recorded.

[00:58:26] Go back, rewind, fast forward, download.

[00:58:28] You'll find an MSPinitiative.com under sessions, YouTube, podcatcher, all that good stuff.

[00:58:33] Hopefully, we'll see you at one of these events.

[00:58:35] And I gave you at least four where we're throwing a crazy party for you.

[00:58:39] But hopefully, take advantage of that.

[00:58:41] It's for the community.

[00:58:42] It's absolutely free.

[00:58:43] All you got to do is register ahead of time so you don't have to stand in line.

[00:58:46] Hopefully, we'll see you out there.

[00:58:48] Tara, can't wait to have a beverage or two somewhere out there with you.

[00:58:52] And for everyone else, catch up on the flip side.

[00:58:53] Thanks, guys.

[00:58:54] And catch you on the next one.

[00:58:55] Good day.

[00:58:55] Thank you.