The Future of MSPs: Growth, Cybersecurity, and Scaling | Ep. 22

You find yourself as you bring your leadership in here, give your team accountable metrics that they will, they will elevate in their performance and you will find yourself less in the weeds and you'll be managing to a metric and less in the weeds trying to fix those things. So if we were to come and do that, you would lose that owner dependency removal, which is such a great add-on of the service.

All right, welcome to another Funny Features podcast. And with me, I have guest Jared Coleman from JC Access. So Jared, welcome to the Funny Features podcast. And we're going to start with the easiest question, which is just tell us a little bit about yourself. We'll get into your background next, but just tell us a little bit about who you are and a little bit about JC Access, and then we can go into the details.

Yeah, sure. I'm Jared Coleman. I'm out in the Carolinas here in the East Coast. Yeah, father, really, that's my first and true calling. Love my children. I coach their soccer, and it's really a big part of my life is my children. And right now I'm with JC Access, which is a consulting firm for managed services to help bring operational maturity.

All right, awesome. So, so the next one is just as easy, and that's we want to talk about your background. So I think it's kind of interesting for what you do with JC Access, your backgrounds— there's a lot of credibility in that. So why don't we talk about your background, your start in MSPs, and then how you got to JC Access.

Yeah, um, yeah, uh, my tech, my tech career started, um, actually with public safety software, um, which a company called Tiburon. They provided the, the software for 911 dispatch and, uh, police officers, court systems, fire departments. And, uh, as an account manager there, I, I got that exposure to what uptime looks like, meaningful uptime, uptime with real-world impacts, right, to my fellow Americans, if you will. So really enjoyed my work there, got to see the, you know, experience technology. And, you know, as all good things come to an end, Tiburon was acquired. It's now Central Square. And I moved over to the IT MSP that supported those government agencies, the infrastructure supporting that software. And that's why I fell in love with the MSP world, supporting those, those critical infrastructure systems, the reliability, the redundancy that was necessary. It was, it was such a meaningful and purposeful experience. And I soon came to realize that there, the small business market had a very strong need for the managed services offer. So I moved from there to managed services, a few that had really defined processes, different delivery strategies, financial management, and gained quite a bit of exposure working within those MSPs, you know, the P&Ls, the planning, board presentations. So for the next better part of a decade, I worked with inside of MSPs from sales, account management, project management, delivery. And, you know, at the end, I was pretty much running the MSP that I was working at. And I realized that I really wanted to, I wanted to own, I wanted the accountability, I wanted that impact to own an MSP. And Yeah, so I started down that journey and I'm an MSP owner now.

Okay, and so you actually own and operate an MSP today, correct?

Yes, yeah, back in January of '23, I set out on that path and, you know, having been in MSPs before, had been part of acquisitions, I thought it would be an easy process to just jump in and say, yep, I'll buy an MSP and take over. However, I was a little misguided there, and I spent the next 18 months with a lot of due diligence studying MSP M&A. I talked with countless brokers, conversations, what they were looking for in an MSP for a purchase, what they were looking for from their buyers. I evaluated their SIMs. I looked at the financial details to help me define what I was really looking for in an MSP to acquire. I talked with MSP owners who were not necessarily on the market, but were willing to have conversations about what a buyout would look like for them, understanding their niche. So I immersed myself heavily for about 18 months in, in this market while in the search for an MSP to acquire. And I found one.

Okay, so you've got this decade plus years of working for an MSP, managing, then owning an MSP. And now let's talk about JC Access and what led you to— because I'd imagine after gaining all this experience, it sort of makes sense that, okay, now you can help other people. And so why don't we learn about JC Access and what you're doing with that?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So before getting into JC Access, I had— when I acquired that MSP, I realized that there's a lot of work to be done. I needed to have data visibility to see what decisions need to be made. I was, I was flying a little bit blind. So I updated systems, modernized the stack within, within the MSP, you know, and that modernization unfolded to the data and clarity that I really needed. I turned that, those data systems into a JC Access is now today, includes visibility with the— for the team for key metrics, promotes autonomy and authority within the team. It gives visibility overall, but like any— like any good MSP does, this starts with an assessment, an assessment of where the MSP is now. Do they have the great correct data points? Do they need to make some changes into how they're collecting data? And then once that data is rolled in, you can, you can visibly see the story arc and the projection of where you need to take your company forward. And that's, that's where I help. I bring a system that's worked for me that elevated me out of an owner-dependent MSP into where I can manage the company from metrics. I can look at weekly charts, I can look at monthly charts, and I know exactly where things are performing in not performing and make the adjustments accordingly without being in the day-to-day and feeling that heartbeat. So that's where— how JC Access helps MSPs now.

Okay, now if there's people that are, let's say they own or they're managing MSPs today, they can be anywhere in the US, let's say they're interested in understanding, you know, where they're at and where they can improve. Is like, what would they do? Would they contact JC Access and they're like, hey, I'd love you to give me an assessment and to determine how, like, how does that process unfold?

Yeah, so I mean, we start with a, a conversation, right? Um, and, and make sure there's some things in there. Um, willingness to adopt and willingness to change is part of it. Uh, looking for just confirmation, am I doing things right? Uh, we're— JC Access is here to, you know, drive, help you drive that, that change, uh, to so you can scale and mature, uh, responsibly, um, and not scale through effort. You can scale through structure. So there's some, there's some conversations, initiatives about how, how you're collecting your data and the things I mentioned. And, um, is the data available? Do you have a team that's ready to execute changes, is ready to move forward, is ready to be accountable? So there's a little bit of fit, right? Are we, are we good for each other to work together that we want to drive a modernization of your MSP? And once that fit's determined, we move into an assessment where we go through several different categories. I call them pillars. But I mean, the standard ones: financial, delivery, health. But we also have growth discipline, which is hard. For a lot of MSPs, but are we putting the time there? Do we have the right people in place in the right seats? Security posture. Are all our customers covered by security? Are we delivering what we're supposed to? So there's 7 pillars there that we measure, and a report is given with guidance on how to take the next steps. And that's where the engagement ends. The engagement is set to if you want an assessment, you want to know how to take your company forward, you will have the plan and the roadmap to do that. But we also offer continued engagement services to ensure that that continues to evolve week after week and month after month.

How do the MSPs today determine what services they're going to offer to customers? Is it mainly driven by just simply the customers coming to them and saying, I want to buy this product, I want to buy this service, and therefore have you manage it for me? Or do MSPs also add services to their portfolio and then proactively try and sell that to their customers?

Yeah, I think, I think there is a mix there in your— it's a great question. Customers will sometimes always ask, hey, can you manage this for me, right? And that's typically how a lot of services are built. But there's also a strong MSP market with services and frameworks and such that they can resell. A lot of their main vendors will add on another feature, add on something else where they can continue to provide add-on packages for service deliveries. So it's a little bit of blend in both, and then, but that the vendor side needs to be tested with their customers. Are their customers willing to take on that added cost for those added features or not? But yeah, I think there's two folds in ways that new services are added.

Okay. Yeah, I'm just kind of curious, and the reason I ask is just Fani is also interested in, adding MSPs as part of our channel growth. And we do have some MSPs that are partners of ours that came to us proactively. And so, you know, maybe we'll have to talk about this after this interview to learn a little bit more about the process these days to get on their portfolio.

Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a lot of trust-driven and relationship-driven there in that channel market. Most certainly.

And now what kind of, what's the business model of JC Access in terms of, is it, let's say you find a match out there and you can definitely help somebody, help them upgrade their security stack or whatever it is you determine they need. Is it like a 3-month type engagement? Is it like a more like consulting on an hourly basis?

Yeah, so the, the, the first, the assessment portion is, you know, 3 to 6 weeks, depending on size, depending on size and availability of data and access and things like that. So about 3 to 6 weeks, the assessment report is delivered. The ongoing is typically about 6 months. And to truly make it worthwhile, we're there, it's much more on a consulting basis. There needs to be an accountability and leadership development. Development with your team. In a way, what I didn't realize as I was establishing this is it's owner dependency gets removed. You find yourself as you bring your leadership in here, give your team accountable metrics that they will elevate in their performance, and you will find yourself less in the weeds and you'll be managing to a metric and less in the weeds trying to fix those things. So If we were to come and do that, you would kind of lose that owner dependency removal, which is such a great add-on of the service.

Yeah, definitely. I know exactly what you're talking about for that. And certainly I try and do that for my own personal work life here at Afani as well. And so it looks like you consult across a number of different aspects of an MSP, like financial, delivery, health, customer durability, growth. People. So it's pretty, it's pretty vast. It's basically anything an MSP gets involved in, sounds like.

Yeah, there was, um, you know, uh, as I worked through several MSPs, I, uh, there's a lot of different systems out there that'll help an MSP. There's some that just help in general, uh, you know, business management. Um, and I really built this for myself when I was in that MS— while I was at LEC Technology and I needed these pillars to represent what I was trying to manage, right? And if we're not monitoring and managing these things, then it's just left to the wayside. We're not gonna manage that area. We're not gonna grow in that area. We're not gonna know how to make the right decisions in each of these areas. And keeping those up front all the time, it just, it helps you give that true full visibility picture of the MSP.

Okay. And then if there's a particular profile, let's say we have a number of people that are watching this video that again own or manage an MSP, work for an MSP. Is there a particular profile that you're looking for in terms of size, minimum size, maximum size that I wouldn't want to have, you know, just everybody, you know, contacting you? So is there like a profile that people should at least match somewhat?

Yeah, I think so. And I think between the $1.5 million and about $5 million in revenue MSPs, the owner is still in the day-to-day. They're trying to find that way out of being the bottleneck for all decisions, escalations. They want to grow, or maybe they are growing, but they're just having to throw more bodies at it. Rather than improve efficiencies. And, you know, I think there's also the between the $1 and $5 million who are looking to sell, like, hey, I'm looking to get out, I'm looking to exit in maybe 2 to 3 years, you know, hey, let's get this structured, let's get these metrics in here so that way my MSP is fully transparent with all this data. It's managed for several years, this data is in there and it looks healthy and you can tell the health of the company through these metrics very easily.

Okay. Is there anything that I may have missed that you would want, if somebody's watching this, you'd want them to know, whether it's about you, about JC Access, about the MSP industry in general?

You know, my experience in the MSPs and across MSPs, working within them, being an owner myself, you know, it gives me that experience and that insight of I've been here, I've been where owners are, I've seen how they hold things together with pure grit and effort sometimes. And you all work so hard, the MSP owner space, they are tremendously hard workers. And there is a path out to work not as hard and add some more structure and gain a little bit of your life back, frankly. You know, this, this operating system and this framework will help you elevate out, will enable your team and allow you to scale your structure.

All right, awesome. Well, I think we've covered all the things that I wanted to cover. And, and so, I mean, unless there's something maybe that you just would want to bring up, but I think you just kind of covered it there. So It's, if you're part of an MSP, then reach out to Jared if you think that you might be able to get some help from him, from his expertise. And I think the MSP space seems to be a growing space. And it just seems like every couple weeks I'm talking to somebody new who is like, oh, we're gonna start an MSP for VIP cybersecurity. Now we're only gonna do like wealthy families or wealthy individuals. Another one is we're going to do digital MSP for digital cybersecurity only for the SMB space. And so it seems to be a very fast-growing space.

Most definitely a very growing space, and niching down is one of the bigger success factors, being an expertise in a vertical, whether it's some form of compliance, HIPAA, government. Niching down is one of the more successful paths for an MSP, and starting one with that expertise will, will definitely escalate your growth.

Awesome. Well, Jared, I appreciate you sharing your expertise, and, and always appreciate when people donate time to, to be part of the Founding Features podcast. And thanks a lot for joining.

Yeah, thank you, Mark. Take care. Bye.