Brian HoppeBoard-Level Advisor to MSP CEOs, Brian Hoppe Coaching · Board-Level Advisor to MSP CEOs at Brian Hoppe Coaching

What Changes When an MSP Reaches $10 Million

23 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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1:06

In this segment, the speaker—who is a CEO of a rapidly growing managed service provider—explains the organizational shifts that occur when a company reaches the $10 million revenue mark and beyond. He argues that at this scale, every level of executive leadership must be staffed with individuals who have prior experience scaling businesses, because the CEO’s role transitions from hands‑on management to setting vision and acting as a “cheerleader.” To ensure consistent messaging, the CEO emphasizes the need for a clear leadership hierarchy so that frontline workers receive uniform answers that flow down from the top. He notes that at $12 million in revenue, with roughly 80 employees across three to four offices within a short driving distance, it is still possible to maintain personal contact, but as the company spreads geographically and adopts a hybrid workforce, additional leadership layers become essential. Experienced leaders, he concludes, are critical for accelerating growth and managing the complexities of a distributed organization.

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$10 million in revenue, you have to have pretty much every, every level at the executive leadership level, I think, needs the experience who's been there and done that in order to be successful. I say that in my own ability as CEO, who I'm— I am in the largest company I have ever worked for. Right. So, you know, I graduated college and started at ICS the Monday after. So being my main job at that point at $10 million of revenue was to catch the vision and really be the glorified cheerleader to keep everybody, you know. But I couldn't be the guy that was actually talking and touching. Like, so the message I was sending out needed to come down through the leaders so that When the frontline workers had questions, they could go back up to their leader and they're getting the same answer of what I was pitching up here. That's different, right? So you have another layer in there. So at $10 million in revenue, you can have your hands on a lot of things, right? So we were at $12 million in revenue. Like I said, I think we had 80, roughly 80 employees. I could still touch a lot of them and get, you know, we're in 3 offices, 4 offices, but all within an hour and a half drive. When you start going and spreading out geography and you now have more of a hybrid workforce, that messaging and the leadership layers, right? So I think people that— having people that have been there and done it is essential and you'll grow faster.