RejectionCon: An Interview with NinjaOne's own Jonathan Crowe

Hey my friends, Wes Spencer here with my very good friend Jonathan Crowe from Ninja. Jonathan, how are ya?

I am great, Wes. Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me.

Are you kidding? Pleasure is mine. So we're gonna be talking today just about, we're gonna learn a little bit more about Ninja and what you guys are doing, what you're all about, but also we're talking about RejectionCon and some of the fun things and shenanigans that are going on there. So first of all, I think every MSP on planet Earth knows Ninja, but let's just pretend there's one out there that doesn't. Who the heck is Ninja? Absolutely.

So NinjaOne is a platform serving MSPs and IT teams offering the software that you need to run your business, right? So we're offering RMM, ticketing, documentation, backup, and, and putting an emphasis on developing, listening to our customers, hearing what the needs are, innovating as rapidly as we can, and really streamlining workflow performance, making your job easier.

I love that. And one of the things I think is best about NinjaOne is just how much of a community player you guys are. Like, I just love seeing how much you invest in MSPs. You give back to the community. You don't just talk the talk, you all walk the walk. So, Jonathan, I'd love for you— I mean, you're kind of at the centerpiece for NinjaOne on that. Can you just talk a little bit about your role at NinjaOne and what all you do there?

Absolutely. Thanks for giving me the chance. I am so grateful for the community itself. I mean, yeah, you mentioned that Ninja does a lot. We definitely do, and we definitely care a lot, but I have to throw the appreciation right back to the community because I'm Director of Community. It was a new role for me. I joined Ninja to be on the marketing team and lead content. And what I quickly found was this is a community that is very close-knit, guarded, and a little wary of vendors. But once, you know, we showed that, hey, we actually are here to help, we're curious, we want to, we want to do what we can, man, it's just been the best job of my career by far. I love this community. I love how communal it is. I love how supportive it is for everyone. I'm super lucky. My job basically consists of finding reasons to get our customers, but not just our customers, um, the broader community together to learn, to help each other, to have fun. I mean, ridiculous, right? This is my job. I get paid for this.

It's crazy, isn't it? And you're so good at it. I mean, I even have like the little figurine from the, you know, the little D&D thing that we did a while back. Like, you do so many awesome things, like just you personally and Ninja as a whole, that I think the community's come to understand that you're about us. And, you know, I think what I love about Ninja is you have this idea of like We're going to do the right thing. We're going to teach and educate. We're going to help people grow in their MSP. And by the way, we're here when you need us. And it's amazing how that works. You don't have to lead with this grimy, you know, like sort of like, come and get with us and otherwise we won't teach you anything. You guys like, no, here's everything. I got it all for you, but come here when you're ready. And it works, doesn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're lucky too. I mean, a lot of the MSP community does know us and they know what an ARM is. They know our service. We don't need to do a whole lot of education selling that way. So it really does come I think it comes more back to how can we focus on topics that matter, even if it's not directly related to what NinjaOne does. I mean, you and I have had conversations and sessions during our virtual events and webinars where we talk about cyber insurance, where we talk about other hiring and leadership, all these topics that are super important. And even though it's not directly tied to what Ninja's software does, we can focus on that because it's important. And if we can help our partners, that's going to ultimately come back around and help us too.

Awesome. So 2024 is coming around the, the bend sooner than— it's unbelievable to think about that. What's going on in 2024 for Ninja? I'd love to hear any big things that you can share. I would love to know.

Yeah, I mean, lots of big stuff. What's cool about Ninja is obviously things are moving fast. It's fast-paced for everyone, right? We've got some big things coming that I can't speak to completely publicly yet, but okay, you can get insight into this by pretty easily by joining our Discord, by asking around, there's definitely ways to find out kind of what's cooking and, and get clear insight and access into our product managers, uh, folks on the team. There's a lot of discussions. We try to be as open and transparent as possible. But in terms of the big things that I'm really excited about on the community and the marketing side, we're going to be hitting the road a lot more often and inviting people to our home base in Austin, to our Tampa locations. So, and teaming up with you guys too. So you'll see us around the road, um, in person a lot more, which I'm super excited about. And More, of course, my wheelhouse is the virtual events, right? And we have a lot that's planned around that. We also have a big thing that we're hoping to launch soon into Q1 that's really based around one challenge that I see people having a lot. And I actually see that there's a session we're going to be talking about, RejectionCon, in just a second. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself, but a topic I see a lot of people discussing and kind of struggling with, and that is how to become a manager, to really transition from hands-on technical role into being a manager and then a leader in the space because that's what we want to do. We want to help, and this goes right in line with what you guys are doing too, right? The world is changing. Some of those leadership qualities that people need to have are changing, and a lot of them are the same as they've always been, but they need to be conveyed in a different way. So anyway, that's, uh, one thing that we're really excited about building something around and excited about working with you around similar things too.

We're pumped, absolutely pumped. Um, so right around the corner, as you mentioned, RejectionCon is coming up. If anyone doesn't know about it, rejectioncon.com. .com. It's going to be December 12th, 13th, and 14th. It's a virtual conference. It's just a few hours each day. So from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM on each of those 3 days, it's going to be awesome. So NinjaOne is a premier sponsor, which is just makes my day. Thank you guys so much. Talk to me about when we first reached out and you saw information about RejectionCon. What captured you about that, Jonathan?

Well, yeah, well, I mean, the little secret there is, I mean, we were in Slack rooms where I was seeing kind of the ideation of these things coming about, and I'm so I'm so happy that you're making this a reality. Hats off to you. I mean, putting on any kind of event like this is a huge undertaking, especially when you're doing it in a way that's not, you know, tied to selling directly a service. You're doing this for the community. So amazing that you're doing this. I love this concept so much. To be clear about kind of what it is and what really, uh, rang true to me was, you know, there's so many— there's, there's really like a few opportunities, which we really sit back and look at it, for knowledge sharing in a way that's able to put your thoughts down into a presentation. It takes so much time and effort to really go through all that, put together the synopsis for a talk, submit it. And there's so many good talks that are out there that don't get picked up. Right. And it doesn't mean that they're great ideas or that they're bad ideas. Right. Or that they're less worthy than the ones that get selected. Sometimes there's just not enough time to do those things. And so I love this idea. Of really getting people like, don't let that discourage you. In fact, let's make space and time for more people from different areas, people who can't, you know, may not be doing the traveling. They may not have all the other opportunities that some of the big speakers have. I love that this is a thing. I love encouraging people to get in the practice of really sharing what they have to say because, I mean, you know this, you talk to folks all the time. Everyone's got a story to share. Everyone's got lessons to share. The more that we can do that and enable that, the better.

Yes, yes, absolutely agreed.

I think giving a voice to the voiceless is a powerful thing.

And I think the folks like you and I and others that, you know, are doing a lot of this, we— it's, it's predicated on us to say, let's open the doors for others and let's make sure we welcome others in and we give others a platform and we say, hey, you have a voice too. We celebrate that diversity of voice, that diversity of character, that diversity of background. We I need to do more of that because I just, I know it's the right thing to do. We all become better when we have more voices all speaking in, right? So speaking of voices coming in, any talks that you've seen that have been submitted? I know you kind of mentioned the employee kind of one a little bit. Anything else that like captures your eye of something that you're like, I'm genuinely interested and can't wait for this one?

I mean, yes, quite a few. So I definitely, I'm super proud. I see one of our Ninja partners, Bobby Guerrera from Axiom.

Bobby, awesome.

Awesome. Bobby is amazing, super great. He's been kind enough to share some things beyond our virtual events and really be transparent with the learnings. And I love this talk that he's sharing. So he's got MSP, a 4-letter word when it comes to CMMC. Bobby's actually launching a podcast. They've been going through their— I saw that. Yeah, yeah, through the CMMC journey. And he's really— I mean, I think that the world needs more of this kind of stuff where, you know, the best practice stuff, that's all great, but having someone actually invite everyone to come along with them as they're really doing this in the real world and sharing that journey. I mean, that takes a lot of guts. It's very admirable to be able to go through that and share that with everybody. I think it's really cool. So that one definitely stands out to me.

Yeah, me too. And Bobby, just kudos to you, by the way, for doing this podcast. We need more MSPs that step up and say, I'm not just going to talk about something, I'm going to talk about how to do something, which is, which is super Super cool. Well, Jonathan, I just wanna say thank you genuinely, both as a friend, thank you to Ninja for standing up for the community at large, for continuing to prove to do that. Thank you for your sponsorship of RejectionCon. Thank you for just helping us promote and get the word out there. Just to let people know once again, this conference is awesome. 100% of all proceeds, I don't think we even talked about this, are not going to us. Your conference pass revenue, every penny goes to a really cool 501 charity. It's one that I personally know It's one that I have known for quite some time. I know the founder. He's a good friend of mine, and it's called the Rural Technology Fund. And what's so cool about it is they're involved in all 50 states and they're investing in STEM— science, technology, engineering, math— in underprivileged communities, both in rural communities and inner city communities. We talk all the time, Jonathan, of like, oh, I wish we could find more talent. I wish we could like hire and get more people interested in technology. And then we don't do anything about it. Well, Rural Tech Fund is doing that. So when you register for this conference, all of that goes to Rural Tech Fund. Tell me what that means to you and to Ninja.

I mean, I grew up in a small town in Tennessee. I live in a small town in Maine now. I mean, the idea that there's so much opportunity in this world, in this space, I feel super lucky where we're at, right? We're in an incredibly privileged sector and area, and that shouldn't be held to just people living in major cities. There's no reason we shouldn't be spreading this opportunity around, but the fact of the matter is opportunities are not equal as it is right now. And so that's what a charity like the Rural Tech Fund— I mean, that's incredible that they're doing something to address that. Couldn't be— you couldn't have picked a better one. That's great.

Yeah, thanks. So we're excited too. And again, Chris Sanders, I've known him— we actually went to school together at Murray State, a rural area in Kentucky. So very much like you, I have the same mantra of, you know, let's do something about it. Let's make the world a better place. So to me, like, all these things are colliding together. And so that's why we want to see you there. RejectionCon.com. Make sure you guys go check that out. Register in. I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm going to. It's also a pay what you can model. John Strand from Black Hills taught me that. So if you're someone that's listening, like, I don't have a budget for this, I got laid off, or, you know, I'm a student, it's fine. Come in for $0. But you MSPs, I know you have the money. It's just $50 a pass is all we're asking. So come and join us. Make sure you sponsor. Let's make it. Let's make sure we make the world a better place. Jonathan, in closing, anything else you want to chat about?

It's such a great cause. Definitely contribute what you can. We will be doing the same. Definitely recommend any Ninja partners come check this out. Also, it's a chance to see some of these speakers. You can have bragging rights of saying like, oh yeah, that keynote speaker, I saw them when they were on giving RejectionCon, giving their very first talk. I have no doubt that some of these folks are going to be bigger places going forward. So very excited for it, highly recommend it. Wes, I'm so glad you're doing this. You're the man. Thank you so much for letting us sponsor and having a chance to give support.

Thanks, Jonathan, appreciate that so very much. All right, my friends, thank you so much. RejectionCon.com, make sure you go register. Appreciate you, Jonathan.