In the inaugural episode of the $10 Million MSP Podcast, host Brian Hoppe introduces the show’s mission: to provide high‑level, practical conversations for Managed Service Provider (MSP) owners and leaders who are aiming to reach or have surpassed $10 million in annual revenue. Hoppe outlines his own background as a former MSP owner, builder of two successful MSPs, and strategic coach who now works with 25+ owners and facilitates peer groups for $15‑$100 million firms. He explains why existing industry content is overly focused on tools and tech, and why a new space is needed for discussions about culture, operational maturity, profitability, leadership development, and exit planning. The podcast will feature bi‑weekly interviews with top‑performing MSP leaders, extracting personal stories, inflection points, and actionable strategies such as joining peer groups, implementing business operating systems (e.g., EOS), and engaging executive coaching. Hoppe highlights industry statistics (only ~14 % of technology providers ever hit $10 million) and defines “best‑in‑class” MSPs as the top 25 % that achieve roughly 2.3× the average profit and around 20 % EBITDA, emphasizing that these skills are learnable. He stresses the importance of early exit planning and encourages listeners to apply at least one insight from each episode. Episodes release every other week.
Chapters
Welcome to the $10 Million MSP Podcast. This podcast is where I dive into the real stories of MSP leaders who have gone beyond $10 million in revenue, how they built their teams, created scalable systems, and turned their businesses into valuable wealth-building assets. I'm Brian Hoppe, strategic coach to MSPs. I work with MSPs generally in the $5 to $50 million in revenue range. In each episode, I sit down with leaders who have built MSPs beyond $10 million in revenue to unpack the inflection points that truly matter, from the personal stories behind their journeys to the fundamentals like culture, operational maturity, and driving profitability. This isn't another MSP podcast about tools and tech. On the $10 Million MSP Podcast, you'll get behind-the-scenes conversations with leaders who've built thriving MSPs, their biggest wins, their toughest lessons, and the practical takeaways that you can take back and use right now. If you're an MSP owner who knows that growth starts from within, that mindset, leadership, and strategy align to create both wealth and meaning, Then this show is for you. New episodes are released every other week. So let's jump in. My name is Brian Hoppe, and I'm a strategic coach to MSPs. I generally work with MSPs in the $5 to $50 million range, really helping them dive into what they need to do in order to ultimately achieve their goals as a shareholder in their MSP. So we look at things like value creation planning and how to build the right team for where they want to go. And ultimately, how do they become Really best in class and profitable, increasing their operational maturity. Not only that, but we work on the person because the person of the leader actually needs to grow as well in order for the business to grow. I'm a former MSP owner. I've been in the industry for over 20 years at this point. I've been a part of building two successful MSPs in my career, and I got into coaching because I realized at some point that I didn't know exactly what I was doing early on in my MSP journey. And really, we did three things that actually. Propelled us to the next level. So the first thing was we joined an MSP-specific peer group. Can't overemphasize how much impact that had on us as a business. The second thing that we did was we implemented a business operating system, something like EOS, for instance, really a big game changer for us. And the third thing that we did was we got an executive coach for our leadership team. And that experience for me was so transforming, not only for the business, but also in life. And that's when I decided that I was going to be an MSP coach. And somewhere around the range of like 10 years later, after I built my MSP and sold it to private equity, I decided to launch out and become a coach myself. So now I work with about 25 MSP owners one-on-one in any given month. And also I do peer group facilitation for companies that are in the range of about $15 million to about $100 million. And really, that's all just working on how do we build a sustainable, growing, value-creating business? And how do we do that in the most efficient way? Why the $10 Million MSP Podcast? Well, I think that what we have in our industry is kind of a lack of content for larger MSPs out there. And there's a lot of things that you can watch or listen to that are maybe sales-focused or tech-focused or tools-focused and those kind of things. Really what I wanted to create was a space where you can come if you're over $10 million already, or if you're looking to become a $10 million MSP, where you can hear from people who have actually already done it. And we're gonna be talking about things that are higher level, that are more value creation related, strategic related, people related. Because as you know, once you get to that point, your job changes as a CEO of the company, you become much more about people and numbers and culture and the things that actually drive real growth at the higher levels. There's so few MSPs in our industry that are over $10 million in revenue. And my goal is to find the best leaders of those, bring them to you on this podcast, so that you can learn what it takes to get there. Most of the MSPs in our industry are under $2 million in revenue. And so getting to that $10 million mark is a really significant milestone. The other big piece that we want to look at is the owners themselves, or the leaders themselves, and how are they growing individually, because you can't grow your business past the point of your maturity. And so we want you to mature as an individual and as a leader and as a person. And so we're going to have conversations around that as well. This podcast is needed, in my opinion, because we have to have a place where we can have the real conversations about what it takes to actually grow and scale an MSP to some of the larger levels in our industry. So when we look at the data around the size of solution providers, not just MSPs, we see that only about 14% of technology providers ever make it to that $10 million mark. And if you want to be in that rare air, it's a great idea to learn from people who have gone before. So what you can expect is to hear interviews from MSP leaders, and we're going to dive into the details of Their personal stories, how they got where they are, what to do to get there, the shortcuts that you can take, the things that you can avoid to get there quicker. We're not just going to be kind of going behind the scenes, but we'll get to, okay, how do we actually scale? What are the practices you need to have in place? What are the systems that you need to have in place in order to scale? And again, it's not just tools and tech. This is the practical things that MSP owners say that it takes to get To that $10 million mark. Right now, there's not a lot of content like this in the marketplace. And so my goal is to provide you the best content, whether you're at $10 million already or looking to get there. You're going to hear from some of the best leaders in the industry, some of the people who have grown the biggest and most successful MSPs in the space. So if you're the type of founder who is looking to scale, wants growth, understands that what got you here isn't going to get you there, then this is the show for you. So we're going to be recording and releasing episodes every other week. And really what we're going to be getting into is how to significantly grow and scale your MSP. So the best MSPs in the industry, as we, we defined as best in class, the top 25% of MSPs earn on average 2.3 times the profit of the average MSP. And we want to get you into that space. The difference between the best in class MSPs and everybody else Doesn't have to do with size or where they serve, how big their geographic area is, or any other factor that you might think. The main thing that differentiates the best in class from everyone else is the skill of the management team and the ability for them to create a business plan and manage to it. The good news is that if you're not best in class, which is defined as around 20% in EBITDA, those skills can be learned. And so one of the things we're going to bring you is The people who have achieved that and the skills that they have that have enabled them to get there. As an MSP owner, one of the things I learned was the importance of planning for exit. I owned my MSP for around five years in total, and one of the things that allowed me to buy and scale and exit so quickly was that I planned for my exit from the beginning, even when I wasn't ready. And so. One of the things that me and my friends say is you don't choose the time, the time chooses you. You're going to exit at some time or another, and it's better to be prepared now than wait until you think you want to sell. And so that's one of the big lessons that I learned early on and one of the things that enabled my success because I was always ready. And not only are you ready to exit, but you're also running a more peaceful and more successful business in the process. Thanks for listening to the $10 Million MSP Podcast. I'd like to encourage you to take just one insight that you heard today and put it into practice because small shifts create big momentum. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to rate and subscribe on your favorite platform so you never miss a conversation. Thanks again for tuning in, and I'll see you in the next episode.
