Art Powell (Trinsic Technologies): Passion for Service
Today, we're diving into the world of managed service providers with the Art Powell, founder and CEO of Trinsic Technologies based in Austin, TX. With 30 employees and around $3 million in annual revenue, Art has quite the journey to share, including how he built his own private cloud and is now jumping into the exciting realm of AI integration. We’ll chat about the challenges of running an MSP, the importance of customer relationships, and how to stay profitable while navigating a competitive landscape. Art's got some witty insights on why not all revenue is good revenue.
Title: Art Powell (Trinsic Technologies): Passion for Service
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Art Powell, the founder of Trinsic Technologies, shares his entrepreneurial journey from humble insurance agent to entrepreneur. With a team of 30 and annual revenues of about $3 million, Art's story is not just about numbers; it's about transformation and adaptation. From his early days tinkering with computers in the '90s, inspired by the first computer his wife bought him, to now leading a company that has embraced cloud technology since 2015, Art emphasizes the importance of evolving in a rapidly changing tech landscape. The episode explores the four key services Trinsic offers: traditional managed services, specialized consulting, private cloud solutions, and an exciting new venture into AI with their product called Call Sniper. Art reflects on the challenges he's faced, the lessons learned, and the importance of building a company culture that prioritizes customer service alongside technological innovation.
Takeaways:
- Art Powell, the founder of Trinsic Technologies, shares how he transitioned from the insurance industry to IT, highlighting the pivotal moment when he fell in love with computers after his wife bought him a PC.
- Trinsic Technologies operates in four main areas: traditional MSP services, consulting, their own private cloud, and AI integration, showcasing a diverse service model to adapt to the market.
- The company has experienced significant growth, reaching approximately $3 million in annual revenue, and emphasizes the importance of relationship-based client interactions to drive success.
- Art stresses that profitability is key, noting that not all revenue is good revenue, and that knowing your profitable clients is crucial for sustainable growth.
- The upcoming AI product, 'Call Sniper', aims to revolutionize the call center industry by efficiently identifying calls that need attention, reflecting their innovative approach in the tech space.
- Art's philosophy emphasizes the importance of evolving business practices to meet changing market demands, drawing parallels between business growth and personal relationships.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Welcome to the MSP Owner Podcast.
Speaker B:The podcast where we delve into the journeys of successful managed service providers, uncovering their challenges, victories, insights to help you build, scale and exit your msp.
Speaker B:Today I'm talking with Art Powell.
Speaker B:He's the founder and CEO of Trinic Technologies.
Speaker B:At Trinic Technologies he's told me he's got 30 employees and they do approximately $3 million of annual revenue and this is the third companies he's owned.
Speaker B:So I'm really excited to dive into his past and, and how he got here.
Speaker B:So excited to, to dive in.
Speaker B:Welcome, Art.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes, thank you for having me.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker B:So why don't you just give us a quick overview of of Trinic then we'll jump back to your past.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Trinic is again, like you said, it's around 30 employees.
Speaker A:We live in four buckets.
Speaker A:We do consulting, we do the traditional, which is more of our sales tool, but we also do some highly specialized consulting.
Speaker A:And then our second is where the traditional MSP services, everything from, you know, anything that pretty much has MRR tied to it, including desktop as a service, 24, seven help desk support, et cetera, email hosting, whatever.
Speaker A:Then the third one that we deal with is cloud and when I say cloud I mean as in we built our own cloud.
Speaker A:We didn't, we're not using Amazon or Google or anybody else.
Speaker A:So we built our own private cloud and that's actually been very, very successful for us and it's been growing.
Speaker A: We started this in: Speaker A:It's been a sacrifice for company our size, but that has, it's beginning to really pay off dividends.
Speaker A:I know I would be driving a whole lot nicer car if we didn't have to buy all that hardware but.
Speaker A:And then the last bucket that we live in is now AI integration which we've been working on for the last almost 18 months.
Speaker A:We're coming out with our first a AI product in February.
Speaker A:We're very excited about that.
Speaker A:It's for the TAs and the call center community.
Speaker A:It's called Call Sniper.
Speaker A:And so that's the.
Speaker A:We are like I said, 20 year old company.
Speaker A:I'm the founder and the CEO.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:So it sounds like you do traditional managed services then you've got some kind of arms that you feel like makes you special and, and a little stout over time.
Speaker A:Yeah, we started when we started we were mainly in HIPAA type environment.
Speaker A:So we do, we still do a lot of regulated because we're just real familiar with it.
Speaker A:Um, we're in the middle of SOC2 ourselves right now, but.
Speaker A:But yes.
Speaker B:Oh, exciting.
Speaker B:Us too.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Sock two.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's so fun.
Speaker A:Anyway, but now I'm lying.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it's.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We found some other.
Speaker A:I think it's very important for MSPs not just to be an MSP.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I think that's a real key, is to find those other venues you're good at and begin to really mime them out with.
Speaker A:That's exactly what we've done, particularly over about the last eight years.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker B:I'm excited to dive into that.
Speaker B:But how did you end up coming into this industry in the first place?
Speaker B:Is this.
Speaker B:Somebody came in and out of school?
Speaker A:No, this is back in the 80s.
Speaker A:I'm very old.
Speaker A:I'm 57.
Speaker A:So back in the 80s and 90s, computers were just coming out, and I owned an insurance agency.
Speaker A:I was independent insurance agent who had other agents I was working with.
Speaker A:And my wife said she made the worst mistake she made in her life.
Speaker A:She bought me a computer.
Speaker A:I mean, this was the 90s.
Speaker A:I was making four or five grand a month early 90s, before I even got out of bed, which was really good money, man.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was really good money.
Speaker A:And she screwed it up.
Speaker A:She bought a computer, and I took to it like a fish to water.
Speaker A:Just.
Speaker A:I don't know why.
Speaker A:I just, you know, was.
Speaker A:It was a.
Speaker A:I believe it was.
Speaker A:It was a.
Speaker A:One of the first 486s that came out.
Speaker A:I remember when one of the first.
Speaker A:28.
Speaker A:You know, I got one of the first, like, 20, 28k bod modems.
Speaker A:All my friends were coming over to see how fast we could download things, you know, and so I actually programmed a fox database for all my clients so we could keep track of all of the, you know, all of our client base and.
Speaker A:And potentials.
Speaker A:And so people were calling my.
Speaker A:My clients were calling my wife up, saying, hey, what's going on?
Speaker A:Your husband's so good with customer service, I can't get ahold of him because I was playing with the computers all day long.
Speaker A:And so then my wife said she made the second worst mistake in her life.
Speaker A:She said, you need to decide between computers or you need to decide between the insurance company.
Speaker A:So I sold my insurance company and started a computer hardware company.
Speaker A:This was back in the 90s.
Speaker A:And the problem was Dell and Compaq kind of went into their first price war.
Speaker A:And so I went from selling about.
Speaker A:I don't know about 60 gray boxes a month to zero.
Speaker A:They were literally selling them cheaper than the part.
Speaker A:And this was back in the day when it was.
Speaker B:It was a hardware game, right?
Speaker A:Yes, it was a hardware game, right.
Speaker A:But I quickly realized I was like, wait a second, like this is getting commoditized really quick.
Speaker A:There's not going to be like, there's.
Speaker A:It's going to be a big players volume game.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:That compact and Delaware woke me up.
Speaker A:So I shuttered the hardware business, went to work as a contractor for IBM doing system administrator work.
Speaker A:And then I was working for another company as the, I began to take director of IT roles and, and I was working for another, you know, they, they found out like, he's technical, but he actually has a personality.
Speaker A:So quickly, of course, they shove you in management.
Speaker A:And then I started, you know, so I was working these.
Speaker A:And I was working at a company and they laid me off.
Speaker A:And I was really frustrated.
Speaker A:And I told my wife, I said, I want to start a computer service company.
Speaker A:And the reason why I wanted to do that was because I was in these meetings with the executives and they would hire these outside people.
Speaker A:I was the director of it and that guy would proceed at the table to tell them exactly what I'd been telling them for the last 18 months.
Speaker A:They're looking at me like, why didn't you tell us this?
Speaker A:I'm trying to resist the urge to jump over the table and start strangling executives, right?
Speaker A:So I realized like a prophet has no honor in his own country.
Speaker A:And you know what an IT guy has no honor his own company.
Speaker A:So I realized I wanted to be the outside guy.
Speaker A:So I, I was, did that for a while.
Speaker A:I started.
Speaker A:It was intrinsic.
Speaker A:Then it was called Diamond IT Services.
Speaker A:And I was working and I realized the whole relationship between the customer and the IT professional was broken because it was based on trust.
Speaker A:And the only time the IT was there was when there was problems.
Speaker A:And so I would get clients going, well, didn't we fix this like a month ago?
Speaker A:You know, And I realized that they don't know what we do, so they don't trust us.
Speaker A: California where in the early: Speaker A:He's been bought since.
Speaker A:We used to keep track of him, but we came up with a flat fee.
Speaker A:So we came up with a flat fee IT which was pretty revolutionary then.
Speaker A:We're like just a flat rate.
Speaker A:You can consume all you want.
Speaker A:And so that actually did us well.
Speaker A: And then: Speaker A:I got into it.
Speaker A:I, I give credit to my wife.
Speaker A:She was, you know, it was the third business I was doing.
Speaker A:And I told her, you know, she's like, I don't know if I can handle this again.
Speaker A:And I was like, I really think I've got a great idea.
Speaker A:And she said, well, let me pray about it.
Speaker A:She came back to me three or four days later, and she goes, well, you can at least try it, but if this one doesn't work, you're going to go back to corporate.
Speaker A:And I want, did not want to go back to corporate so bad.
Speaker A:I made it succeed.
Speaker B:And you're talking about after Diamond.
Speaker B:Did you have a bunch of, like, why would your wife say that?
Speaker B:That Was it a pretty challenging business situation?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, entrepreneur is hard.
Speaker A:I mean, the entrepreneur, life's hard.
Speaker A:Anybody says otherwise is, you know, never done it.
Speaker A:I mean, it's a lot of hours.
Speaker A:It's, you know, and I was bootstrapping.
Speaker A:I bootstrapped every one of my companies.
Speaker A:You know, I get them up to be where they were successful.
Speaker A:And then she was right.
Speaker A:She would be like, you get bored with it and you move on.
Speaker A:And I realized I'm, she was not going to live the entrepreneurial lifestyle, you know, the serial entrepreneurial lifestyle.
Speaker A:And I realized that, you know, my marriage is the most important thing to me.
Speaker A:You know, people ask me, what is, what am I the most proud of?
Speaker A:I'm like, I've been married to, you know, 34 years, 33 years to the same woman, and she still wants to be around me.
Speaker A:So I realized that's a win.
Speaker A:Yes, yes.
Speaker A:And, you know, when you're old and they still want to be around you, that's a good thing.
Speaker A:And so I decided that my marriage is more important and I needed to find one thing and stick with it.
Speaker A:But I wanted something that, you know, to keep my attention.
Speaker A:And trinsiq has done that very well.
Speaker A:It's allowed me to, as we've expanded into other areas and so forth.
Speaker A:And so I do love the business.
Speaker A:I do love being an msp.
Speaker A:It's a challenge all the time.
Speaker B:So what was, so you transitioned from diamond to what was your, was Trinsic next after Diamond?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's when I incorporated and brought partners in to help me.
Speaker A:You know, I, I, I looked down one day and I realized that, you know, I, I had $55,000 of outstanding invoices out there that weren't paid.
Speaker A:And I was just Like, I'm.
Speaker A:There are parts of this business that I'm way over my head in.
Speaker A:And so I went out.
Speaker B:What parts were that?
Speaker A:What.
Speaker B:What did you feel like you're inadequate at?
Speaker A:I always say, as an entrepreneur, your job is to hire people who do things better, that you don't do well and.
Speaker A:Or can do better than you, and then fire yourself.
Speaker A:And so handling the financials was really my big challenge.
Speaker A:I'm just not that you don't want me handling the financials.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it was asking people for money and, you know, setting up contracts and things like that.
Speaker A:So I went out and got a really good CFO and a CEO at that time.
Speaker A:He had a lot more experience than I did, and they really helped me to stabilize and grow the business.
Speaker A:And so I'm very fortunate to have good partners who are still very active in the company to this day.
Speaker B:How big were you when you hired a CEO?
Speaker B:How big was your company?
Speaker A:Yeah, it was not big.
Speaker A:I mean, he was really more the CEO/ kind of type.
Speaker A:Sales.
Speaker A:I would help him with sales, but we were pretty small.
Speaker A:I think we had about four employees at that time, but we were growing rapidly and we knew that.
Speaker A:I just knew that I needed people who had experience.
Speaker A:They both had run businesses before, sold them, had done very well with them and sold them, and so they had that experience to help me grow it.
Speaker B:Hi, I'm Ben Tigelar, the host of MSP Owner podcast and the CEO of Datatel, an IT managed service provider with 35 employees.
Speaker B:The mission of this podcast is simple.
Speaker B:To have authentic conversations with IT owners about their journey, how it started, the challenges they faced, and where they're going next.
Speaker B:Every episode, I personally walk away with a new actionable item to strengthen my own business.
Speaker B:But a quick word about my company, Datatel.
Speaker B:We are actively acquiring MSPs who align with our service and culture.
Speaker B:So if your company is generating between 1 and $10 million of revenue, I want to talk to you.
Speaker B:But wait, you're probably thinking, why me and why Datatel?
Speaker B:First is, I get you.
Speaker B:I understand the challenges MSP owners face.
Speaker B:Being one myself, feeling overworked, overwhelmed, constantly being on call, struggling to bring in new business.
Speaker B:I have the solutions and people in place to address these pain points.
Speaker B:Second is culture.
Speaker B:We run our business on EOS entrepreneurial operating system, which has been transformative for our employees and clients alike.
Speaker B:I believe that building a great company comes down to finding and retaining great people who are in the right seats.
Speaker B:Everything else is noise.
Speaker B:If any of this Resonates.
Speaker B:It probably means we're a fit and we should be having a conversation.
Speaker B:Until then, let's get back to the show.
Speaker B:What was your pitch to them?
Speaker B:If they've like bought and sold businesses before, why work with you versus doing something on their own?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker A:It was I, the, the pitch, I think, I think they bought into me a bit.
Speaker A:I am a visionary.
Speaker A:I get people to drink the Kool Aid.
Speaker A:That is one of the things that I've done very well is get people to both customers and employees to jump on the transit bandwagon.
Speaker A:I think it was the fact that we were going to do the flat fee but very customer service oriented, which we are still to this day.
Speaker A:I've been told by two separate employees from two separate business occasions who've come up to me and just said, oh, you're the CEO of trinsyc.
Speaker A:Y' all handle our it.
Speaker A:And you know, if I'm being honest, I'm like, I hope this goes well.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And both of them said, yeah, you're the chick fil a of it.
Speaker A:And of course I had to say my pleasure.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But it's that high level of customer service that we, and that is something that we've stuck with throughout our 20 years.
Speaker A:We tell every employee that comes in that you're not in the technology business, you're in the customer service business.
Speaker A:And that's done extremely well.
Speaker A:Now we, we have to still execute on the IT side and we do that well.
Speaker A:But it's that, that it is that differentiator is our high level service, that we have employees who are completely dedicated to the people side, some which are very non technical.
Speaker A:And that has I think made a big difference with Trinc.
Speaker B:So have you run into situations or clients where maybe that mindset has kind of bit you or, or has it always been a.
Speaker B:Something that kind of solves itself on its own?
Speaker B:I'm thinking like a client who wants to do things that aren't in their best interest.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But you, you are the professional that.
Speaker B:Where's the line there?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And, and that is, that's always the, like, that's always a great.
Speaker A:That's always a.
Speaker A:The struggle.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You know, we're here to advice that.
Speaker A:And as one of our partners says, it's never know it's how much money.
Speaker A:But what we do, you know, one of the things we've worked on is over the years is we're very relationship oriented.
Speaker A:So we, we realized we needed to approach the sales Cycle in a relationship oriented form.
Speaker A:And with the trinsic insider experience, which is what we call our consultation, the tie for short.
Speaker A:Because of course we're geeks.
Speaker A:We had to tie it to Star wars, but pun intended.
Speaker A:But the whole thing is, is that we come in consulting first and that enables us and the client to see if we're going to be a good fit.
Speaker A:That also means we're dealing with the executives as opposed to just being dealing with a single point of contact.
Speaker A:This is very important to us and we've started that about, I think it was about three years ago and that has worked out.
Speaker A:That was very instrumental and a lot of our growth up to 20 to 23, that was very instrumental in getting larger clients and keeping them.
Speaker A:Because we do approach, we're going to be relationship oriented right out of the start.
Speaker A:So if you want transactional, we're going to figure that out real quick and we're going to walk away.
Speaker A:That's not who we are.
Speaker A:Because that high level of customer service only really works well when you're trying to do things in a, from a relationship standpoint as opposed to just, you know, break and fix.
Speaker B:Can you give me an example of, of like, hey, how does this process look different?
Speaker B:Does it just look like an assessment and you've kind of.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's a.
Speaker B:Give me an example of a specific client and walk me through, hey, you're having a first conversation to.
Speaker B:They're getting onboarded.
Speaker B:What does that look like?
Speaker A:Yeah, so when a client says they're interested in handling our services, you know, or taking on our services, you know, the first question usually out of their mouth is how much money is this going to cost?
Speaker A:And we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, wait, that's like second date material.
Speaker A:And we don't even know for dating yet.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And we, you know, we say it much nicer than that.
Speaker A:But so what we do is we say, look, you're going to pay for an assessment.
Speaker A:And it's not just an assessment.
Speaker A:This is both strategic and it's, it's tactical.
Speaker A:We're going to talk to this to the CEO, we're going to talk to the executives.
Speaker A:Where are you headed strategically as a company?
Speaker A:How much do you want to grow?
Speaker A:Where do you want to be in five years?
Speaker A:And then the other thing we do is then we also look at, we interview key employees and managers.
Speaker A:How's the technology working for you?
Speaker A:How's it not working for you?
Speaker A:And then we also review the technology stack.
Speaker A:So this is a complete Overview.
Speaker A:This isn't just a, oh, you have some security problems.
Speaker A:And then we actually give them an A through an F.
Speaker A:We just say, hey, and we say, look, don't forget, if you get an F, this is just telling you this is something you really need to look at.
Speaker A:And then they get this.
Speaker A:It's typically about 35 to 50 pages report because it includes all the evidence that we have, everything very comprehensive.
Speaker A:We kind of hint at which directions we would go.
Speaker A:Sometimes we do make outright, you know, sometimes we do make outright recommendations.
Speaker A:This is like, you have to get rid of this and go this way.
Speaker A:That's rare.
Speaker A:Most of the time we're just like, there's probably, you know, these are a couple of paths we would probably take if you take us on.
Speaker A:That would depend too, on how much more as we continue to peel the onion back and then we handle the report.
Speaker A:Now if they don't go with us or we turn them down, which both cases have happened, then they have, you know, the next MSP, they go to, they, we've done 80% of the work for them.
Speaker A:They don't have to re.
Speaker A:They don't have to like redo this whole rediscovery process.
Speaker A:They can literally hand them the report and say, here it is.
Speaker A:So I would say about over a little, over 90% of them do go with us.
Speaker A:So most of them we do capture.
Speaker A:But there's times when both, either, both sides or one side can see it's not going to be a good fit.
Speaker A:And then we give them the report, we move on.
Speaker A:There's, you know, no love lost there and it's not expensive and they've got something of value.
Speaker B:And how do you end up pricing out that, that assessment, that initial consulting.
Speaker A:Piece, we typically are going to price it right around what we think is going to be their first month's mrr.
Speaker A:And we do that for various reasons.
Speaker A:But the whole goal, if you can't write me a check for your first month of MRR for, you know, three to a month, weeks to a month and a half of consulting, then I know that, you know, you're probably not going to be the, the pro.
Speaker A:We're probably going to price you out anyway.
Speaker B:And then do you charge an onboarding fee on top of that once they get onboarded?
Speaker A:It really depends on a case by case basis.
Speaker A:It really depends on how much work we're going to have to do.
Speaker A:If it's not a lot of work, then we'll just apply the tie to it.
Speaker A:If it's going to be a lot of work.
Speaker A:Then, then we'll, you know, if there's, if it, yeah, then we would, we would have a surcharge.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I feel like, I feel like that assessment piece and like really getting to know the client is just so critical and it just, you know, obviously there's a bunch of signals there.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like someone can pay, they're indicating that it's important to them and to their business.
Speaker B:Like they're showing their priorities.
Speaker B:And then also you're showcasing your value and how you work and what your expectations are and what a working relationships are going to look like because you, yeah.
Speaker B:Nightmare is signing up a three year client and the client sucks for us.
Speaker B:And you know, it cuts both ways, you know, client and business.
Speaker A:Yeah, it has to be a dating process.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We don't, we, we, you know, life is short and one of the things to get out of if you want to get to 3 million and you know, you know if you go from one, going to one to three is tough.
Speaker A:Going to three to five is even worse.
Speaker A:That's what we're in the middle of.
Speaker A:But going to one to three is tough for a service industry because one of the things you have to learn is that not all revenue is good.
Speaker A:Reven.
Speaker A:We've lost a lot of old clients because they just don't fit the model anymore.
Speaker A:Now we still have a lot of our old clients, including I'm very happy to say one of the first ones I signed on the first year.
Speaker A:They are still with us.
Speaker A:I think that's an accomplishment.
Speaker A:But you're going to lose some of your older clients because they no longer fit the model.
Speaker A:And so many companies are scared to do that.
Speaker A:But you'll never grow if you don't.
Speaker A:You need to find the niche that you're, you're comfortable with.
Speaker A:And then you and the model and then you need to like that you and the client need to fit that model.
Speaker A:So like we've turned away a 200 employee company which is like this is not going to work.
Speaker A:They were shocked.
Speaker A:They, I'm like, they really thought we would take the revenue no matter what.
Speaker A:We're like we can't get you to meet for anything.
Speaker A:We know how this is going to happen.
Speaker A:We didn't say that.
Speaker A:We said it very nicely.
Speaker A:But it's like, look, what's going to happen is you're, we're going to come in here, nothing's going to get done and then you're going to roll us under the bus for it.
Speaker A:But it's, you know, basically, it's your, Your ineffectiveness and the inability to get anything done is the problem, not ours.
Speaker A:So y.
Speaker A:This is a very.
Speaker A:This is a great way for both.
Speaker A:And we've had other ones say, look, we just don't think this is going to be a good fit.
Speaker A:And we respect it.
Speaker A:We're like, that's great.
Speaker A:This is the whole purpose of this, of this consultation.
Speaker A:And yet you still get some great information.
Speaker A:And they were still very happy with the report.
Speaker A:They just didn't think we.
Speaker A:They, you know, they didn't think we'd be a good fit for them.
Speaker A:And we're like, this is exactly what this was for.
Speaker A:Nobody wastes their time this way.
Speaker B:That's great.
Speaker B:Do you feel like those constraints are making.
Speaker B:Think of all the clients that you've.
Speaker B:That you've kind of walked over or precluded out over the past, and you could be a $10 million revenue company.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:And if you're, you know, do you ever wonder about that?
Speaker B:Like, part of me.
Speaker B:Part of me wonders that as well.
Speaker B:Like, having these high constraints means you have a big, you know, you have.
Speaker B:You have a great existing base, but what are you giving up and what opportunities are you giving up by saying no so often?
Speaker A:Yeah, well, it's not quite as often as that.
Speaker A:I mean, it's like one out of ten.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Okay, so that's 90% still come on board.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:You're right, though.
Speaker A:I mean, there's a lot of revenue we've left behind on the table.
Speaker A:There's no doubt.
Speaker A:I do think that it.
Speaker A:It is better to have the acquisition cost for an MSP to get a client.
Speaker A:It's so expensive.
Speaker A:And then on top of that, you have to get them in shape and you have to get them into your system.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You're not making.
Speaker B:You're not making money.
Speaker B:Not until your second or third year.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:Unless you figured out how to operationally get people onboarded in a way that I haven't seen.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's still a lot.
Speaker A:I mean, we automate a lot of stuff, but it's still a process.
Speaker A:And the thing is, is that to get.
Speaker A:So it's, it's very.
Speaker A:So you may get a lot of that revenue, but that revenue is going to be painful revenue.
Speaker A:And here's the other thing.
Speaker A:I always tell my.
Speaker A:Tell the.
Speaker A:My executives and my employees, the managers, like, look, guys, you know, if you're an MSP and on the MSP side, and this is why we like the cloud and AI, because this is other revenue streams that are not dependent.
Speaker A:We do approach those relationship in a relationship form also.
Speaker A:But it's.
Speaker A:We call it relationship light.
Speaker A:They're not quite, they're more focused, they're not quite.
Speaker A:Now a lot of those will eventually turn into hey, do you want us, you know, can you do our.
Speaker A:IT Also we have got a big one right now that's sparking that we're like, you're still going through the process, like you're going to go through the consultation.
Speaker A:But the whole thing is, is that when you the, when you're an MSP and let's say you have a $10,000 a month client, what people forget, like if they're costing you $15,000 a month, okay, to service that $5,000 a month you, you're losing is not being covered by another $5,000amount of client.
Speaker A:That 5, that's $5,000 of profit you're losing.
Speaker A:So it, that's going to take probably four or five $5,000 clients to cover that $5,000 you're losing.
Speaker A:And this is why it's for.
Speaker A:Even at, you know, a size of company, we are, we have a pretty good bead on profitability on clients.
Speaker A:We can go back, look number of hours spent on ticket, you know, even administrative costs, all this stuff.
Speaker A:So we know which clients are profitable and which ones aren't.
Speaker A:When we did, you know, we're trying to do it where it's more live feed, but anytime we get suspicions, we have the data to go back and pull it up.
Speaker A:And this is so important, I tell people all the time, you, you can't be losing money when you've got 20% margins, 25% if you're doing well in the service industry, you cannot be losing money on a client because the moment that starts happening, you're bleeding out so much profit from so many other clients.
Speaker A:So to avoid the.
Speaker A:I think, I think the consultation avoids a lot of that.
Speaker A:It gets us good clients are going to be profitable right out of the gate, which is as soon as possible, which is very important.
Speaker B:I think that's so important.
Speaker A:Profitability is king again all of a sudden.
Speaker A:We've always treated it that way.
Speaker A:We've always been profitable.
Speaker A:We always have at least three, four months or more of payroll in the bank.
Speaker A:And it keeps us from making bad decisions.
Speaker B:Built a great business over time.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But also, I'm also asking myself, why Isn't Art doing $25 million of revenue instead of $3 million revenue?
Speaker A:No, it's A great question.
Speaker A:Like, I, I, I, I.
Speaker A:Has the business grown as fast as I would have liked it?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:You know, some of the things that.
Speaker A:Some of it is for me, I've just.
Speaker A:I'm beginning to be a better CEO.
Speaker A:Better and better.
Speaker A: k over the CEO reign in about: Speaker A: ,: Speaker A: From: Speaker A:It was, we grew.
Speaker A:It was crazy.
Speaker A:We were doing nothing.
Speaker A:And then all of a sudden we were at 3 million by the end of 22.
Speaker A:In fact, the last year, we grew like 39%.
Speaker A:It was a lot of growth.
Speaker A:And so 22 and 20, you know, 23 and 24 were a challenge.
Speaker A:We had.
Speaker A:We needed.
Speaker A:We were still cleaning up from some of the older model clients who are still under the older model that getting them to convert or go away.
Speaker A:And then on top of that, you know, the economy flat.
Speaker A:It stalled out.
Speaker A:You know, some people say it was an actual recession, some people say it wasn't.
Speaker A:There's no doubt it stalled out.
Speaker A:Like it just flatlined for the SMB market anyway.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:Which is where we're at.
Speaker A:Some of our larger clients have been hit recently too.
Speaker A:They either got bought or went out of business.
Speaker A:That seems to be stabilizing.
Speaker A:So that's good.
Speaker A:But you know what?
Speaker A:At the end of the day, I go to bed every night and I sleep like a baby.
Speaker A:You know, clear conscience.
Speaker A:That's what's more important.
Speaker A:That's what's way more important than me.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's not all about the top line.
Speaker B:It's about the quality behind it.
Speaker A:And we have.
Speaker A:Our employees love working for transit.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:We've done surveys.
Speaker A:In fact, the last HR survey we did, we need.
Speaker A:We're overdue to do another one.
Speaker A:But it was about two years ago and the HR person there was shocked because in culture, we got five out of five, five indicators.
Speaker A:We got five stars out of every indicator.
Speaker A:And she said she'd been doing that for over 15 years, HR and surveys, and she had never seen that on any size company.
Speaker A:So we were very.
Speaker A:So we have a great culture.
Speaker A:We have a great company to work for.
Speaker A:Yeah, we do want to grow it.
Speaker A:We have some ambitious revenue goals with the.
Speaker A:What are the AI.
Speaker A:You know, we really want to be within the next two years, be over 5 million by 26, and then we really want to launch from there.
Speaker A:My goal is by the time I'm 65, so I'm 57, so we're talking you know, eight years from now that we're somewhere around 50 to 75 million dollars a year company.
Speaker A:So we have a lot of growth to do to get there.
Speaker A:But at the same time, you know, if we fail and we hit 30 million, I'll live with it.
Speaker B:So I think you'll survive, right?
Speaker A:You'll still sleep well.
Speaker A:I'll still sleep well.
Speaker B:So you mentioned you got into walk me through your, your theology and faith path.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I'm really interested how that.
Speaker B:Yeah, tell me about that.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was an atheist and just make it short.
Speaker A:My testimony, very short, because I could sit here for an hour, talk about.
Speaker A:But I was agnostic atheist.
Speaker A:And then one day God showed up and said, I'm God, you're not.
Speaker A:My wife says he's still working on that.
Speaker A:But he, He.
Speaker A:When something you don't believe in shows up and reveals itself to you, you know, it wasn't like a visual thing.
Speaker A:It was just a presence that I knew was outside of me and I couldn't explain it.
Speaker A:That will you an existential crisis.
Speaker A:Let me tell you.
Speaker A:That was some horrifying moments there when something I swore didn't exist or didn't care if it existed showed up and suddenly kind of rocked my world.
Speaker A:This led me to do a lot of study of different religions.
Speaker A:Eastern mythicism.
Speaker A:I've actually read the Quran and a friend of mine said, hey, Art, have you ever read the Bible?
Speaker A:I was like, no.
Speaker A:Christians are spiritually backwatered.
Speaker A:They're idiots.
Speaker A:And he used something I still use to this day on all of my students I teach.
Speaker A:Theology is the only experts in the Bible are people who've never actually read the Bible.
Speaker A:So I went and read the Bible.
Speaker A:And to make a long story short, I, for various reasons, I knew that Jesus was the son of the living God.
Speaker A:And then I spent about five to seven years reconciling my heart with my mind because my heart said Jesus was God in the flesh and that he rose from the dead.
Speaker A:And my mind said, what are you doing?
Speaker A:This is stupid.
Speaker A:Why are you believing this?
Speaker A:And so I went all apologetic mode and then I just kept digging right into theology.
Speaker A:That's why I tell people.
Speaker A:I, I went, I dug into apologetics, and then I kept digging right into theology.
Speaker A:And so I now teach.
Speaker A:I've been teaching for about 16 years.
Speaker A:And it's just, I love it because so much of my identity is as being CEO, so much of my identity as being a dad and a husband to my wife, which I love that I Love all those roles, but this is just something that so outside of what I do and people like at the church don't know me as a CEO.
Speaker A:They know me as the by art, the Bible guy.
Speaker A:And I love that.
Speaker A:It's just, it's a different, it's something completely different.
Speaker A:And you know, and when there are rough days and rough weeks is being a CEO, which you're gonna, it's gonna happen all the time.
Speaker A:You know, it's just, it's so nice to go in on Sunday and I'm just doing something and not thinking about transit or technology or anything.
Speaker A:It's, it's wonderful.
Speaker B:What's your personal view on, on kind of faith and religion and its intersection with your business?
Speaker B:Like, how have you played it?
Speaker A:Yeah, and that's a great question.
Speaker A:You know, I don't feel like it's my, you know, my, it's not my obligation or responsibility to hire only Christians or convert everybody.
Speaker A:And we don't have, you know, we have a lot of non Christians in our company.
Speaker A:Just that's the way it's going to be in this industry.
Speaker A:My goal is to represent Jesus, to be Jesus, to, to love the way he would love to, to be, you know, to be credible the way he was credible, to be authentic.
Speaker A:And so I think I've done a good job with that.
Speaker A:It's in our manual that we set this cult, I've set this culture up based on the morality of Jesus and, and what I thought he would do and how he would be with people.
Speaker A:You know, we're very inclusive.
Speaker A:We don't, you know, we, we're very, we're already, even as a small company, we have a lot of diversity in both politics and race and, and I want that kind of culture.
Speaker A:And we're very, you know, the one thing that we're, we're, the one thing that we're very adamant about is we're going to have a very open culture and people are going to agree to disagree and we can have different viewpoints and that's okay.
Speaker B:It's very cool.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:I'm curious how.
Speaker B:I mean, man, it seems like you have a few different, like, focus areas where you have, you know, you've got your business, you've got your, you know, religion, your faith, you know, and then you've got these other specialized parts of your business that you're kind of working on as well.
Speaker B:Feels like you're, you're always pushed towards the, the, the newness and you like the variety and.
Speaker A:Well, I'm adhd and they didn't have Ritalin when I was growing up.
Speaker A:So they, my parents figured out when I was 13, if they gave me coffee, I'd shut up.
Speaker A:So I've been drinking it.
Speaker A:So I was 13 years old.
Speaker A:But yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:I love.
Speaker A:I think it's important for MSPs to evolve.
Speaker A:I think it's important for any business to evolve.
Speaker A:Like, you can't.
Speaker A:It's like marriage.
Speaker A:You know why I've been married for 34 years?
Speaker A:Because I don't love my wife the way that I loved her when I first met her.
Speaker A:I can't.
Speaker A:She's a different person.
Speaker A:One of the biggest challenges of marriage is that people think they get fixated on who that person was when they first met him.
Speaker A:And then that person changes and they freak out.
Speaker A:Well, that's just life.
Speaker A:And your business is the same way.
Speaker A:It's going to grow and evolve and in.
Speaker A:Because everything around you is evolving and changing.
Speaker A:And if you don't change your culture around that, if you don't change.
Speaker A:You know, when I grew up in the, you know, in the corporate world in the, in the 80s and, or late 80s and 90s, I saw managers throw chairs in rooms.
Speaker A:They were so mad, like, that's.
Speaker A:That you can't do that.
Speaker A:That's not acceptable behavior now.
Speaker A:One, I wouldn't do that because as a Christian, but the culture's changed and you have to admit it.
Speaker A:You know, we, we do employ Gen Z's and millennials, no problem.
Speaker A:And they like working for our company.
Speaker A:And the reason why is we understand where they, you know, they work hard, we expect them to work hard.
Speaker A:But at the same time we understand like, they want a mission, they want a, they want a culture and they want a mission and we provide it.
Speaker A:And so I think it's important for companies to evolve also in their product offering.
Speaker A:You know, you've got to look and see where things are headed.
Speaker A:And what do small businesses need to continue to compete against large companies?
Speaker A:And that's what we do.
Speaker A:Because I have a passion for small businesses.
Speaker A:I think they're the most, the most American thing we have.
Speaker A:It's not even our politics is the small business market.
Speaker A:I think still, what, over 50% of people work in companies less than 50 employees.
Speaker A:I mean, this is what makes America great, in my opinion, is that the fact that a high school graduate like me can start a company and multimillion dollar company from scratch, it is very difficult to do that, if almost impossible in any other western culture, country and so the fact that we can still do that here in the United States, I think.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:And I will do anything, meet their needs, get them the right technology, anything that's going to help them continue to compete against the small, the very large corporations, because I think they are the counterweight.
Speaker B:You're based in Austin, right?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Okay, so am I.
Speaker A:Can you.
Speaker B:Can you believe this?
Speaker B:Can you believe this weather?
Speaker A:Yeah, I know.
Speaker A:Yeah, I.
Speaker A:I know it's like 50 degrees.
Speaker B:We're like, oh, my God, I need to get on my parka.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, you know, it's like in Texas, if you don't like the weather, wait 20 minutes, it'll change on you.
Speaker A:But, yeah, I walked out Sunday morning to go to church, and I hit the weather.
Speaker A:I was like, holy.
Speaker A:Because just the other.
Speaker A:You know, the day before it was 80 degrees, and then you walk outside and it's 42.
Speaker A:But, yeah, I'm not.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:I am pretty confident.
Speaker A:I was not born to be raised in this.
Speaker A:Raised up North.
Speaker A:I was born to be raised in the South.
Speaker A:I can't deal with the goal.
Speaker A:Yeah, no.
Speaker B:So I recent.
Speaker B:I recently did a recording with.
Speaker B:I recently did a podcast with another MSP owner here in town, and I was talking to him about, like, what does the Austin market look like in terms of, like, do you think about competition at all, or is that just, like.
Speaker B:It doesn't even.
Speaker A:Think about competition, but I'm not worried.
Speaker A:What are you seeing?
Speaker A:Yeah, Austin is saturated.
Speaker A:It's always been saturated.
Speaker A:I think the number of MSPs is close to the number of MSPs in Houston.
Speaker A:To give you an example, if I remember, it's not that far off.
Speaker A:So one of the things we've done is we've expanded geographically.
Speaker A:Like, we have.
Speaker A:The number of clients that we have outside the state of Texas is growing faster than what we're doing inside the state of Texas.
Speaker B:Oh, interesting.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So we've set ourselves up so we are not geographically constrained in any way, and that has helped us from a competitive market.
Speaker A:Austin is just so tough.
Speaker A:We intend all.
Speaker A:Most of conventions we attend are either out of state or they're in Houston.
Speaker B:Why is it so tough?
Speaker A:Because you have a lot of guys coming, a lot of it.
Speaker A:People coming out of, you know, University of Texas, they'll sleep on their.
Speaker A:They want.
Speaker A:They don't want to leave Austin.
Speaker A:They will sleep on their friend's couch and, you know, do it.
Speaker A:Work at, you know, you know, and.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And they're.
Speaker A:Everybody's an expert.
Speaker A:You also have A lot of software development companies over here and they, they have the same way.
Speaker A:They think because they understand inheritance.
Speaker A:You know, I love developers.
Speaker A:I'm not, you know, they're great.
Speaker A:We have them ourselves, we use them.
Speaker A:But they think that because they understand inheritance that like, oh, I know how to run a network now, you know.
Speaker A:So, yeah, this is, you know, there's just a lot of very smart, intelligent people here in the.
Speaker A:And who are very technology oriented.
Speaker A:And you don't have that problem in Houston and you don't have that problem in Dallas, but here you do in Austin.
Speaker A:So you're not just competing with other MSPs, you're actually competing with employees inside a lot of these companies.
Speaker A:And so whereas you go outside, outside of the Austin sphere, you just don't run into that.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker B:And does.
Speaker B:Is it reflected in the, in the pricing?
Speaker B:Like there's people out there doing cheap, cheap, cheaper work and, and you're never going to be able to compete on price.
Speaker B:What do you see?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, we go to Houston, they think we're like, we actually had to raise our prices in Houston because they were like, you're just like, they couldn't believe we were that inexpensive, you know, compared to Austin.
Speaker A:Like, you know, it's just, you do it now.
Speaker A:One of the things that's changing in Austin is the cost of living got so high.
Speaker A:People don't like moving here anymore and people, more people are beginning to move out.
Speaker A:So that may change in Austin, but right now it's still just very saturated with, with tech help.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker B:Very interesting.
Speaker B:I want to dive into the couple of things that you mentioned about your business because I love the idea of, of, of companies niching down.
Speaker B:It sounds like you're at, you're at a point where you found a couple of your niches and you're doubling down on them.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:And it looks like it's your private cloud and then your AI integration were the two things that you mentioned.
Speaker B:Is that, is that, is that right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So the consulting is a niche for us.
Speaker A:Like, we're actually in talks with a couple of vendors who are having trouble with.
Speaker A:Once they get a client to buy their product, they get them to actually implement it.
Speaker A:And so one of the things they want us to do is come in and kind of help like do a tie on that customer, a very, you know, very focused tie on that customer.
Speaker A:And then so they come into the sale very well aware of what the challenge is going to be to implement it and then possibly have us help them implement it.
Speaker A:Because that's one of the things we're really good is getting projects done.
Speaker A:The cloud is really picking up for us.
Speaker A: rge software company, Fortune: Speaker A:We can't say who they are yet, but they're going to allow us to actually publish the performance metrics which impressed them.
Speaker A:They were using Amazon and we beat or exceeded.
Speaker A:They put all their QA dev servers on us and we beat and exceeded all the performance metrics of Amazon.
Speaker A:So they were very impressed with that.
Speaker A:So the cloud.
Speaker A:The cloud.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:I built the cloud.
Speaker A: We built the cloud in: Speaker A:I say I, I use the royal.
Speaker A:The royal I there.
Speaker A:Brad, my cto, who I think I've given more gray hairs than the six children he has.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A: got him to build the cloud in: Speaker A:We were like, nobody.
Speaker A:And I saw where everything was headed and I didn't want to be beholden to the big three because I knew the big three were going to rule that roost.
Speaker A:And so we built the cloud just so we wouldn't be beholden to them.
Speaker A:But it turns out, like, we actually are more inexpensive and we can provide faster and better performance and they actually get service with us, unlike the Bit three, where they're like, here's your space.
Speaker A:Good luck, have at it.
Speaker A:So that.
Speaker A:Which is not acceptable for if you're a small business.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And so the cloud has done very, very well.
Speaker A:So we did that and then I saw where the AI was headed.
Speaker A:We've actually been playing with AI before chat GTP35, we just didn't see that it had any market value.
Speaker A:When Chat GP35 came out and I saw it as like, okay, it's on like Shaka Khan.
Speaker A:They got there a lot faster than.
Speaker A:Yeah, that was an old 80s 90s reference.
Speaker A:And probably most your audience will not even understand what that was.
Speaker B:It went over my head.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And then this is what happens when you get old.
Speaker A:You start saying things that young people like, well, what did he say?
Speaker A:Anyway?
Speaker A:So the whole thing is, I knew AI was going to hit the market at that point, and then it was like, how is it going to affect things?
Speaker A:You know, how is the AI going to it?
Speaker A:So we knew we had.
Speaker A: I knew just like the cloud of: Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:We're really using the AI product that we're developing to really showcase our philosophy with AI, which is A lot different than we're not sending ours up to Chat ctb.
Speaker A:We are using open source AI to do very specific things on dedicated servers and with dedicated isolated sessions against the gpu.
Speaker A:And that meets all FINRA and hipaa.
Speaker A:You know, because Chat GTP won't give you a BA in HIPAA or it's been forbidden by FINRA and the sec.
Speaker A:So we think we have a very unique product here and most companies are worried about like, where's my data going up into this AI?
Speaker A:And so we're saying, well, what if we could give you a dedicated AI that is just for you and therefore no one else is using it.
Speaker A:And this is showing some popularity.
Speaker A:We're getting a good response.
Speaker B:So is it really just hosting for AI platforms?
Speaker B:Is that like the model?
Speaker A:Well, we do development too.
Speaker A: his reminds me so much of the: Speaker A:Like you couldn't just take a computer in the late 80s, early 90s and just drop it in a company go, well, we're integrated.
Speaker A:Well, no, you had to find a way to get the data into it because everything was manual.
Speaker A:And then once you have the data in it, then you had to find a way to get it out because you, you, you know that that was the only way you could integrate with the existing data.
Speaker A:That's why we have these cursed things called printers, which thank God are going away.
Speaker A: But, but so this is like the: Speaker A:You can't now you can just have your people use chat GTP and I use it every day.
Speaker A:I love chat GTP.
Speaker A:I love Cloud 3, I use them both.
Speaker A:I use Leonardo for the imaging, I love that stuff.
Speaker A:Okay, but that's not backend integration to your, your, your tech stack.
Speaker A:If you want to do back end integration to your tech stack, you're going to need to be able to identify certain areas where the AI is going to do well and then you have to integrate it.
Speaker A:You have to get the data in and find a way to get the data out.
Speaker A:And that's what we're concentrating on.
Speaker A:And we're doing that with open source.
Speaker B:And so, so the, the product is called AI Sniper or what, what was.
Speaker A:The, well call the, the product that we're, the product, the actual AI product will come out is called Call Sniper Call center and it gives away for the problem.
Speaker A:We identified a problem with the telephone answering services and the call centers, like they're supposed to be monitoring about like anywhere from 2 to, you know, 5% of their calls that come in.
Speaker A: est call center is doing like: Speaker A:Like you can you imagine trying to like monitor or listen to like what, 3% of those calls?
Speaker A:I mean, even if you could find people who do it all day long, they'd be jumping off a bridge after a month.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And so what we did did was we said this is actually a great place for AI.
Speaker A:And so this AI correctly identifies the, the calls that they need to look at.
Speaker A:It has a system and they can help us determine how they want their calls weighted.
Speaker A:But that way the calls that are probably problematic will pop up in a list and they can go look right at.
Speaker A:So it dictates and diarrheizes it.
Speaker A:It looks at the call and sees if there's problems.
Speaker A:And then the, that way the Q and A can be concentrating on looking at bad calls, not trying to find them.
Speaker B:Are you going to integrate with certain UCAS or CCAAS solutions or are you planning to offer your own standalone solution?
Speaker A:Both.
Speaker A:We're going to be very flexible with it.
Speaker A:We've always been flexible with anything we do.
Speaker A:We don't think it's our position to tell the customer what they should do.
Speaker A:So we're going to offer both.
Speaker A:We're going to have a plot.
Speaker A:We have an independent platform they can use, which is ours.
Speaker A:That's the actual product, or we're keeping it open on the back end so that if they want to bring in, let's say they already have one themselves or they're using another call center product and they want to integrate it, then we'll be glad to do so.
Speaker B:What technology are you using on the back end?
Speaker B:Because I assume you're not open source.
Speaker A:And that's, that's all I want to say.
Speaker A:We're not going to, yeah, we're not going to kind of tip our hand out there.
Speaker A:There's a lot of good open source.
Speaker A:Open source is going to win this battle.
Speaker A:This reminds me so much of the Apache wars and the IS wars.
Speaker A:You know, people were like, when the Apache came out, people are like, no one's going to use open source to host their web server, you know, because this is.
Speaker A:When the web first came out, it was very important what was going to host it.
Speaker A:And I knew, I was like, no, you're going to.
Speaker B:Is.
Speaker A:Is going to get its butt kicked because we're talking about 5,000 develop or 10,000 developers versus millions.
Speaker A:And there's constraint here.
Speaker A:Also, you know, the, the reason why open source AI is advancing so quickly is they don't have the same resources so they have to learn to do things with smaller resources.
Speaker A:And the perfect example is back in the day when they used to play video games on analog modems.
Speaker A:People don't realize this like Doom came out, it ran off of modems, analog modems.
Speaker A:So how did they make that game work?
Speaker A:They actually had to learn how to synchronize all the incoming packets so that the game wouldn't get jaggedy on on people who had slower packets.
Speaker A:It was that level of constraint that actually made the multiplayer video market take off because they still use that same technology even though we got fatter pipes.
Speaker A:And it's the same thing.
Speaker A:The people who are doing open source AI have constrained resources so it's making them engineer things in a way that is much more efficient than these chat gtp because man, if you need a nuclear power plant to run your dedicated AI, that might not be the most efficient model.
Speaker A:And I think open source is going to, in my humble opinion, I think open source is going to win this battle.
Speaker A:There are millions of developers right now across the world on open source.
Speaker A:Deep SEQ showed, China showed.
Speaker A:Hey, a little cut and paste from chat GTP and a little open source ingenuity and we can create something better.
Speaker A:So I think this is a battle that eventually I'm not saying chat GTP is going away, it'll serve its purpose, but I think on the back end, integration just like Apache with web servers, the open source is going to win this one.
Speaker B:Yeah, the Deep SEQ stuff was really interesting because of how quickly they were able to iterate on their model and you know, likely using some, some already existing systems in order to get there faster.
Speaker A:Yeah, constraint is a beautiful thing.
Speaker A:Constraint makes engineers model efficiency.
Speaker A:And the problem with what I currently see with like chat GTP and stuff is there's no, they're not, they're not trying to constrain to efficiency, they're just trying to just go big.
Speaker A:And I don't think that model is going to win long term.
Speaker B:Very cool.
Speaker B:And, and with, with Call Sniper do you have, is this going to be net new clients?
Speaker B:Like it's going to be brand new or is there cross selling opportunity?
Speaker B:It seems like a brand new market mostly.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's both.
Speaker A:It's both.
Speaker A:I mean we're obviously going to sell it to, we're in the TAS industry so we're going to sell it to existing clients but it's already opening the door for call centers.
Speaker A:We're going to be down at the Call Center Connect Expo in Vegas in April and we got a booth out there.
Speaker A:Yeah, we're excited about that.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker B:That's exciting.
Speaker B:There's a lot of stuff going on in the, in the Voice, the ucas, the CCAS industry, and it's, it's really, it is kind of overwhelming how many players are in the space.
Speaker B:There's like lots of competition, there's lots of existing platforms.
Speaker B:I'm very curious how, how yours will play out because there's kind of the you're going to be independent player route or you're going to be an integrator route and those end up being kind of sometimes mutually exclusive from what I've seen.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think we can actually, just because the way we're so operationally minded as a company that we, we're so used to having to be flexible and do the same thing in different ways that we're taking that approach with our software development in the same way.
Speaker A:We're like, we're going to have the fully, you know, open APIs where you can come in and grab all the information you want and pull it to wherever you want.
Speaker A:And then we're going to have clients who want.
Speaker A:No, I want you to run the whole front end and we're going to do both.
Speaker A:Like, we just, we're going to provide that functionality.
Speaker A:The difference is going to be, even if they want, if you got a company, let's say a large task center, they've got, I mean, a call center, they've got, they've got a call center application they want us to integrate with.
Speaker A:We're like, sure, but we will do all the process in a way that's HIPAA and FINRA compliant and that's what's going to, should be attractive to them.
Speaker A:This is where our marketing side is going to make it attractive is you can now meet your compliance obligations and still get the information you need from the AI.
Speaker A:And this should be very attractive.
Speaker B:I do see you have a traction EOS book in the, in your background.
Speaker B:Have you, have you drank the EOS Kool Aid?
Speaker A:You know, I don't drink any Kool Aid.
Speaker A:I think they're like anything else that you can get, you know, you can get some really good, really good.
Speaker A:There were some really good nuggets that we took from that and combined it with the way, kind of the way we do things and it's been very effective.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker B:I've been meeting a lot of other MSP owners who are, who are into, into Eos.
Speaker B:And I don't know if that's because I'm into Eos.
Speaker B:And then, you know, everyone's like, oh.
Speaker A:I want to come.
Speaker B:I want to.
Speaker B:Like the group sort of thing.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's got great concepts.
Speaker A:I mean, it's like, there's no doubt.
Speaker A:I just think you, you know, there's some people who just.
Speaker A:Who get very religious for it and just like, just, you got to do it this way and that's the only way.
Speaker A:And I'm like, no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I think you need to adapt it to your culture and how you do things.
Speaker A:But it's got some great principles.
Speaker A:There's no doubt.
Speaker B:You're right.
Speaker B:Rules are meant to be broken.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Rules are meant to be bent.
Speaker A:That's the whole thing.
Speaker A:And rules.
Speaker A:Rules were.
Speaker A:The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I think that's the same way I look at things like, you know, that, you know, these.
Speaker A:All these different types of ways to run companies.
Speaker A:It's like they were made.
Speaker A:They were made for the company.
Speaker A:The company wasn't made for Eos.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And so as long as you keep that mentality that.
Speaker A:That's a healthier mentality and then you can implement it in a way your company can make it effective.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:Well, thanks for joining me today, Art.
Speaker B:I think, I think we're going to wrap up, so appreciate your time and thanks for digging into your business and sounds like you've got a lot going on at Trinic and you know, these new products and solutions that you're coming up for to.
Speaker B:To.
Speaker B:To.
Speaker B:To do some cool things with AI.
Speaker B:So excited to see where you take it.
Speaker A:Yeah, they keep me on my toes.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:Talk to you soon, man.
Speaker A:Thanks.
Speaker A:Foreign.
