Wim Kerkhoff (Culture Core Group): Founding 2 MSPs and a SaaS company
Our guest this episode is Wim Kerkhoff tells us how he runs Culture Core Group, a collection of three companies: two MSPs (improvingit and Crafty Penguins) and a SaaS Project Management software company for MSPs (Top Left)! Wim has a lot going on, and has done it well by delegating and elevating himself. We chat about everything from his early tinkering with computers to the challenges he's faced scaling his IT services businesses. We talk candidly about mental health challenges - an underdiscussed topic in the 24/7 world of IT.
Title: Wim Kerkhoff (Culture Core Group): Founding 2 MSPs and a SaaS company
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Wim kicked things off by sharing his early fascination with computers, thanks to his dad who introduced him to the tech world with a 286 computer. Fast forward to high school, where he was bored out of his mind and decided to focus on programming instead of the usual subjects. This led him to a tech startup right after graduation, where he discovered that software development wasn’t his jam, but the product side of things lit a fire in him.
As our conversation flowed, we explored Wim's journey from being an employee to a business owner. He shared how he took the leap into entrepreneurship in 2006, motivated by a mix of personal and professional factors. We also dug into how he learned to let go of control in his businesses, fostering a culture where his team could thrive and take ownership of their roles. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t always easy, but the payoff has been huge. It’s all about building that trust and letting your team shine!
Finally, we wrapped up with a discussion about his latest venture, Top Left, a software tool designed to help MSPs visualize their workflow and improve ticket management. Wim’s insights on agility in project management were eye-opening, especially for those of us who’ve been stuck in the waterfall mindset. In this episode, we not only learned about the nuts and bolts of running an MSP but also how to cultivate a thriving team culture and adapt to the ever-evolving tech landscape. If you’re an MSP owner or just curious about the world of tech, you won’t want to miss this episode!
Takeaways:
- Wim Kirkhoff's journey into the tech world started with his dad's early adoption of computers for construction.
- Transitioning from hands-on tinkering to running multiple MSPs was a wild ride filled with lessons.
- Agile methodologies can massively improve project efficiency in MSPs, but it's all about mindset.
- The importance of letting go and trusting your team can be a game changer for business growth.
- Building community and providing education are key strategies for MSPs to thrive in a competitive market.
- Profit sharing plans and transparency about finances can significantly boost team motivation and performance.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Crafty Penguins
- Improving IT
- Top Left
- DataTel
- Agile MSP
Transcript
Foreign welcome to the MSP Owner Podcast where we deep dive into the journeys of successful managed service provider owner backgrounds.
Speaker A:Learning from their challenges wins insights to help you build, scale and even exit your MSP.
Speaker A:Today I'm joined by Wim Kirkhoff, the founder and CEO of two MSPs and a software company focused in the MSP space.
Speaker A:Crafty Penguins, which is a pure Linux msp Improving it, which is a traditional managed service provider and Top Left, which is a software to help visualize tickets and tie into your MSP's PSA.
Speaker A:He also hosts a podcast called Agile MSP.
Speaker A:So let's jump in.
Speaker A:Wim, welcome.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Then it's great to be here.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm excited to jump in.
Speaker A:You have a lot going on today.
Speaker A:But before we jump into all the things that you're doing, can we first start off with.
Speaker A:With your background and how you got into it specifically, like what was that juncture point for you?
Speaker B:Good question.
Speaker B:So this goes back to probably when I was like my dad got into computers pretty early for his construction business and I think it was one of the first in the greater family to get them in the house.
Speaker B:But I remember him having like a 286 computer.
Speaker B: We played some games: Speaker B:So that's like mid-90s, I guess.
Speaker B:And got into a little bit of programming, just tinkering around, just poking under the hood, just really curious about how the heck does this thing work and can I change it?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so you were, you were a natural tinker and just wanted to solve problems in front of you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker A:And so what was the.
Speaker A:How did it go from being something that was personal to, you know, professional career?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So yeah, going through high school, I went through the private Christian school and they had no tech courses there at all, like dead keyboarding and I was bored there.
Speaker B:And I'm programming and playing with the PC speaker and playing, having fun in class because I was like, I could type fast, right.
Speaker B:I didn't need to be there.
Speaker B:But so I looked at other options and went to a different school to finish high school at grade 11 and 12.
Speaker B:This is a joint venture with a local school district.
Speaker B:So you get like your grade 11, 12 and your first year of university in two and a half years.
Speaker B:So to skip the basket weaving in the biology and the chemistry and stuff and just Focus on, make sure you got strong math and the physics and then basically doing programming, like university level programming courses in grade 11.
Speaker B:So I really enjoyed that, getting kickstart into that.
Speaker B:And obviously on the side I'm still tinkering with things, getting into Linux at that point with like Slackware and Debian and Red Hat.
Speaker B:Those very early days, like installing from a stack of like 70 floppies, feeding them in, right?
Speaker B:Oh, I remember installing Windows 3.1 from like, what was it, 30 floppies or something.
Speaker B:You have to feed them in one at a time.
Speaker A:The floppy disk era is where you got your inspiration to come into it.
Speaker B:Spent a lot of time with those.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So did you go down the programming route or like the network technology infrastructure?
Speaker B:I went down the programming route, so.
Speaker B:And that was kind of what that degree had a lot of, had a lot of programming in.
Speaker B:There was a mix.
Speaker B:So I did finish a bachelor's degree eventually.
Speaker B:It took me like seven years.
Speaker B:I was working part time or so basically working full time and studying part time.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And first I'm like, I'm learning enough at work in this like tech startup and let's just pick the nice courses, right.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And then eventually I had so many of those I'm like, well, let's just push through and finish this degree.
Speaker B:But basically my first job was full time software development, worked at a startup.
Speaker B:So I was like, I think I was right after grade 12.
Speaker B:I actually worked from home because it was like a startup working from the founder's basement, making like Linux firewalls and they didn't.
Speaker B:He had like five guys in his basement, he didn't have room for me.
Speaker B:So I dialed in from home on.
Speaker A:Dial up and work from home during dial up.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker B:Yeah, so I'd use like what, like 300 dial up hours a month, Something like that.
Speaker B:It's nuts because between the work and whatever I did in the evening, I was online all the time.
Speaker A:One of my first jobs was actually as a software developer and I discovered shortly after I did it that I did not like doing software development and I was much better at the product side.
Speaker A:It's a unique thing.
Speaker A:So once you like it, you know you like it, right.
Speaker A:So you're doubling down and doing it more.
Speaker B:Yeah, So I enjoyed those days.
Speaker B:Like we did.
Speaker B:Development was all Linux platform, Amadebian os, lots with Perl, which is kind of dead now, not many people using it, but I loved it.
Speaker B:That's still my.
Speaker B:Yeah, the language I know the best because I spent so many years just doing Perl with for system automation.
Speaker B:DevOps writing code web apps.
Speaker B:This is like early web development.
Speaker B:Like we did JavaScript but you had nothing like jquery and Bootstrap and React and all these things.
Speaker B:You're just writing JavaScript.
Speaker B:So with Postgres that was.
Speaker B:Yeah, we love the Postgres database.
Speaker B:So I was doing yeah database backed web apps, APIs, different things 25 years ago as a junior dev so did that for like about three years as a startup.
Speaker B:They, they ended up, yeah, they rebranded and they grew and they raised money and then they, they got to like 50 or 60 people selling their firewall appliance and they, they ran out of money.
Speaker B:They weren't.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's one of the investments that come through and basically one day the doors were shut so I got stuck on like I don't know, maybe three.
Speaker A:Or four weeks of pay and then is that when you transitioned into more the pure IT side of things?
Speaker B:It was such a unique thing I was doing.
Speaker B:It's hard to find, impossible to find something else like that.
Speaker B:So through my network family and stuff I got something else that was development but Windows side so got into VB6 and Microsoft Access SQL Serv development.
Speaker B:So quite different.
Speaker B:But I enjoy that challenge of taking on some existing code.
Speaker B:This is like a manufacturing environment like barcoding those sorts of things.
Speaker B:A very different environment but optimizing this code, making it work, fixing the bugs from the previous company and kind of an ERP integration, shop floor automation.
Speaker B:So very different environment.
Speaker B:Learned a lot, did that for like two years and then that kind of peted out and I met another friend who was in more on the networking system inside.
Speaker B:He had an IT business.
Speaker B:He was doing consulting kind of you would say early managed services and bit of a data data center hosting.
Speaker B:So basically helped him with Linux network engineering, Cisco.
Speaker B:So got into a lot of pretty, I would call it heavy duty network engineering with BGP and routing tables, ISP peering kind of stuff.
Speaker B:So did that for like three years.
Speaker B:Um, I already enjoyed that like wireless ISP network engineering and reverse engineering and different things.
Speaker B:So that was like a hundred miles, about sixty miles from my house I guess.
Speaker B:I did a lot of remote work for that too.
Speaker B:I drive in like maybe once a week and then work from home the rest.
Speaker A:And at what point did you transition from being an employee to becoming an owner of any company?
Speaker B: So that was: Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:There's a few things going on.
Speaker B:One is I was dating a lovely lady in the Netherlands.
Speaker B:They were doing like a remote dating relationship or like, hey, let's get married.
Speaker B: January: Speaker B:So basically in the July before, like we bought a house, started the rentals on that.
Speaker B:Then I'm like, I got like five courses on my degree.
Speaker B:Like I should just really push and finish those before we get married.
Speaker B:So I did that in the fall or basically took it basically took like four months off from work after that.
Speaker B:Like that company is going through a lot of drama, I would call it, because they had done acquisitions, they were bought out, it was toxic and tried to come back for a bit more money.
Speaker B:I'm like, I've been here for three years and you haven't raised me giving me a raise at all.
Speaker B:But they didn't want to bump me 10k.
Speaker B:And it was a long drive.
Speaker B:I'm like, it's a great opportunity to start on my own.
Speaker B:And then my wife was willing to do the bookkeeping because I knew I wasn't, I was, I was going to procrastinate and hate doing the bookkeeping.
Speaker B:I got to get so busy with tech work and I needed support.
Speaker B:So she was willing to help with that administration.
Speaker A:How did you, how did you have the confidence that you could go and find clients?
Speaker A:Because that's different from doing the technical work.
Speaker A:Or did you find out that that.
Speaker B:Was a.
Speaker B:I still remember I did a simple Excel sheet.
Speaker B:I'm like, hey, I'm getting paid for $30 an hour if I can consult at like $75 an hour.
Speaker B:I only meet 20 hours a week.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That kind of gave me some confidence.
Speaker B:Like I don't need that much.
Speaker B:And through my network I got busy.
Speaker B:Within three or four weeks I got busy.
Speaker B:So basically that's 18 years ago that I started on my own as, as a full time dedicated thing.
Speaker B:I actually had another company before that.
Speaker B: I started probably: Speaker B:But I kind of.
Speaker B:I don't call it my first root company.
Speaker B:I started with a partner.
Speaker B:It was meant to be like a Saturday thing and basically it was like filtered Internet.
Speaker B:It's helping families.
Speaker B:They don't want corn or gambling or other certain content in their house to keep it out.
Speaker B:So we started that as a little side thing.
Speaker B:He did a lot of the business in the sales and I managed the server for it.
Speaker B:But yeah, so I continued that.
Speaker B:But it was kind of taking more and more tasmas and it.
Speaker B:Eventually I'm like, this is not sustainable.
Speaker B: we, I pulled a plug that like: Speaker B:Like the growth wasn't there.
Speaker A:So Crafty Penguins it sounds like was the genesis, was that the genesis of you starting out your, your business and it flourished into from a single consulting sort of arrangement or when did Crafty Penguins come along as a brand?
Speaker B:It came later but that work I've been doing for like the Linux work I've been doing for 25 plus years.
Speaker B:Like I started tinkering with that in like 97 I guess and some of our employees even earlier, Richard and Chris and other people even earlier.
Speaker B:So since I started like 18 years ago I've been doing, we've been doing Linux consulting.
Speaker B:So I would say it started then but I did it all under this, the Kirchhoff Technologies brand and I used my name on it.
Speaker B:I mean my family uses the name in business for many years.
Speaker B:Like my dad been in construction, Kirkoff construction for like 50 years now, I think 55 years.
Speaker B:So I'm like well I can't think of a better name.
Speaker B:I like doing different things.
Speaker B:I didn't want to put myself on a home be just networking or Kirchhoff Software development.
Speaker B:I don't want to put myself into a box.
Speaker B:That's why I kept it really broad.
Speaker B:Kirchhoff Technologies but we did Linux.
Speaker B:I did the ISP support.
Speaker B:I had clients where they had like 10 gigabit BGP routing and the big Cisco gear like this Ciscos that are like 10U interact like programming those babies like let's do that and then the next day I'll do dial up support.
Speaker B:Well I was all over the place.
Speaker B:That's why so in so we're recording this beginning of February and basically in two weeks we're launching the rebrand, we'll be improving it basically focusing the Windows MSP on that segment and then sorry, that was Crafty Penguins.
Speaker B:We came up with that name well 10 years ago I'm like hey, let's came up with a name and then I did like a Kickstarter, like even a couple hundred bucks online to get a logo and a website.
Speaker B:So did that and then been using it more and more.
Speaker B:And then basically like three years ago we made it a legal entity and switched it to its own book.
Speaker B:So it's its own QuickBooks, its own team, we moved over the payroll, everything.
Speaker B:So it's its own real company now.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was a progression over the, over the 18 years, I guess.
Speaker B:But I learned as we got into like Traction eos, you'll see that.
Speaker B:Oh, it's off camera here, but I got the, the book cover on my back here.
Speaker A:Traction, Traction by Gina.
Speaker B:Do you follow that or Reddit?
Speaker A:We, we implement.
Speaker A:I'm a, I'm a pretty big advocate of, of any sort of business framework or operating system.
Speaker A:But yeah, we, we utilize eos and it's, it's been awesome.
Speaker A:We, we, we have a formal implementer and, and do the whole, do the whole shebang.
Speaker A:What about you?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, we, I'm a big, big fan of it to use it in the businesses.
Speaker B:So kind of like six years ago I was like reimplementing it.
Speaker B:Sometimes you fall off of it and you're not doing it.
Speaker B:So reimplementing it.
Speaker B:And I realized like we're doing three very different things.
Speaker B:Like Delimitix is a very different market skill set, team marketing strategy, everything than Windows.
Speaker B:And then we had the software dev side as well with the top left development and it's just, it was watered down and vague and we just couldn't get the proverbial traction.
Speaker B:And when we started splitting it, each had their own vto, the Vision Traction Organizer.
Speaker B:Then we got more clarity, more momentum, dedicate the resources.
Speaker B:Don't be working into companies.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So basically overdid.
Speaker A:So, so really it comes down to it sounds like focus and clarity around where you're going.
Speaker A:And EOS helped create.
Speaker B:Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker A: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 A:The mission of this podcast is simple.
Speaker A:To have authentic conversations with IT owners about their journey, how it started, the challenges they faced, and where they're going next.
Speaker A:Every episode, I personally walk away with a new actionable item to strengthen my own business.
Speaker A:But a quick word about my company, Datatel.
Speaker A:We are actively acquiring MSPs who align with our service and culture.
Speaker A:So if your company is generating between 1 and $10 million of revenue, I want to talk to you.
Speaker A:But wait, you're probably thinking, why me and why Datatel?
Speaker A:First is, I get you.
Speaker A:I understand the challenges MSP owners face.
Speaker A:Being one myself, feeling overworked, overwhelmed, constantly being on call, struggling to bring in new business.
Speaker A:I have the solutions and people in place to address these pain points.
Speaker A:Second is culture.
Speaker A:We run our business on EOS entrepreneurial operating system, which has been transformative for our employees and clients alike.
Speaker A:I believe that building a great company comes down to finding and retaining great people who are in the right seats.
Speaker A:Everything else is noise.
Speaker A:If any of this resonates, it probably means we're a fit and we should be having a conversation.
Speaker A:Until then, let's get back to the show.
Speaker A:So you have these.
Speaker A:Talk about the.
Speaker A:You have three different companies going on at once.
Speaker A:It sounds like you had a bunch of shared resources.
Speaker A:Things weren't.
Speaker A:You weren't really getting the traction that you wanted.
Speaker A:What were the things that made it apparent that it wasn't working?
Speaker B:I looked like I had a developer.
Speaker B:It was like half his time on top left writing code and half the time like doing Linux server work for clients.
Speaker B:And you need your billable hours because that's kind of funny to development.
Speaker B:But we couldn't really get anywhere on the development and that.
Speaker B:That was one example.
Speaker B:And then just not to focus on the marketing and the leadership.
Speaker B:Like my time was fragmented too much everywhere.
Speaker B:Like yeah, the vision statements were, were vague.
Speaker B:Just the budgeting wasn't clear.
Speaker B:Nobody was set up to win that way.
Speaker B:And it's not obvious when you're in it, right, you're just fighting to do your best.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:It's quite a while ago.
Speaker A:Are you.
Speaker A:Are you the visionary in each of those or do you have a separate visionary and integrator, which is each of those companies?
Speaker B:That's changed because firstly I'm very highly visionary.
Speaker B:Like if I run the assessment, I'm like 90 visionary integrators.
Speaker B:More like maybe 50 or something like that.
Speaker B:So then the model was okay, each.
Speaker B:I have an integrator CEO at each company.
Speaker B:But really these guys have elevated that they're running division now.
Speaker B:So they do the quarterly and annual planning.
Speaker B:And I'm not in those meetings.
Speaker B:I come in and they kind of show me what they've come up with.
Speaker B:But they basically taken what I did over the last, whatever, 10, 15 years.
Speaker B:I did separate vision statements for each one and they've embraced it and extended that much more than I can.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I'm not in the space.
Speaker B:Like I'm not talking to clients about the 365 or was there Linux servers or what have you.
Speaker B:Like I can't be the visionary anymore.
Speaker A:How did you get those.
Speaker A:Those folks aligned to get Step up over time because I assume it was a.
Speaker A:You're heavily involved at the starting and then over time it progressed.
Speaker A:How did that, how does that work for someone who ultimately wants to, you know, they got multiple companies, they're spread thing.
Speaker A:How do you make that transition from Being spread then to ownership is in the spot and you feel comfortable as an owner letting go.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a process.
Speaker B:There's push and there's pull.
Speaker B:Sometimes you got to push people, but you also have to invest in them.
Speaker B:They've got to grow and sometimes they've got to be pulling it as well.
Speaker B:But if I see that they're raising their hand and asking questions with certain things then I'm basically like hey, do you want to take this on?
Speaker B:And like well, they kind of got to say yes.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So I had that in.
Speaker B:Crafty Penguins is with a fellow we hired like just before COVID He was actually remote and as an engineer and base saw things not happening and raised his hand so gave him more things.
Speaker B:He ended up doing technical account management, managing the team and made questions about how we're selling and the pricing.
Speaker B:So he got into sales and the packaging and stuff we make streamline that and now he's running it.
Speaker B:He's really like the acting CEO and he's a business partner but that was like a three year process.
Speaker B:Joined pretty quick.
Speaker B:And then the other company, I've got the fellow who's like the president on it now.
Speaker B:He started as a Junior Tech 11 years ago.
Speaker B:I mean he's just got into process.
Speaker B:He loved that and improving, making things more efficient.
Speaker A:So I'm curious about how do you structure the long term incentives for them?
Speaker A:Are you, are you giving, are you awarding equity?
Speaker A:Are you creating a bonus structure?
Speaker A:How does that, how does that work and how do you, how have you aligned?
Speaker B:That historically depends on the company.
Speaker B:So some there's equity, some that take.
Speaker B:Profit sharing is I put in a, I think a pretty good profit sharing plan about four or five years ago.
Speaker B:Did a lot of research.
Speaker B:There's a lot of books like Ownership Thinking, the Great Game of Business and just literacy.
Speaker B:So being transparent with the books and what drives profit and margin.
Speaker B:So that that's been helpful but I don't like to bonus on billable hours.
Speaker B:A lot of things that are drive the wrong behaviors.
Speaker B:So we look at yeah that profitability and then apart on is the mrr, the managed MRR increasing.
Speaker A:I feel like that's a really, that's a really challenging part of the.
Speaker A:The business is letting go of that, that leadership and ownership.
Speaker A:Seems like you haven't had much of a problem with it.
Speaker A:You were like it was a natural path.
Speaker A:I think for some people they're like control, control, control.
Speaker B:What's a bit of necessity because in hindsight it looks easier but a Lot of times, yeah, I did hold on to too much and.
Speaker B:But then I'm the bottleneck and I realized it's a false sense of control and power when you're not letting go.
Speaker B:It's holding us back.
Speaker B:So, yeah, sometimes it's been.
Speaker B:I worked with a lot of coaches and mentors and peer groups, and that's been really helpful to.
Speaker B:To be challenged on that.
Speaker B:Those blind spots to look at my mental health and where I'm overwhelmed.
Speaker B:And like, you've hired all these people.
Speaker B:Like, why are you not leveraging them?
Speaker B:Giving.
Speaker B:Giving them requests, giving them challenges, to lean into, making demands because the owner should not be the mom, like, ever.
Speaker B:Like, that's just crazy.
Speaker A:Did you ever struggle with the.
Speaker A:You know, with having too much on your plate, with being overwhelmed?
Speaker A:Did you run into that and then figure out you have to do something different or.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's been there all along.
Speaker B:And I still.
Speaker B:It's still up and down.
Speaker B:It's still the thing, right?
Speaker B:Because you let go of things.
Speaker B:Can let a lot of things go in the msp.
Speaker B:But then let's say on top left, it's like, I'm still maybe more like Velcro than I need to be to sell.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Still working on that.
Speaker B:But I had a real overwhelm moment, like, four years ago.
Speaker B:Like, I remember the first year co got to the end of the summer, and I'm like, I couldn't be in a meeting.
Speaker B:Like, there's no way I could have had a conversation like this.
Speaker B:I'd literally fall apart in tears.
Speaker B:Even a basic meeting about a sales deal with my sales rep, I, like, fall apart in tears.
Speaker B:Just overwhelm, just bad mental health.
Speaker B:Don't know exactly what it was, but I had to make major changes in my workload, my schedule, my health, the weight I had lost.
Speaker B:I got all back because previously I'd lost like £40.
Speaker B:And then I was like, back to where I was.
Speaker B:So I'm like, I gotta clean up, get the garbage out of the diet.
Speaker B:Look at my workflow.
Speaker B:All these things to build capacity, deal with stress.
Speaker B:So I'm in like a night and day difference mode now.
Speaker A:What were, like, the one or two biggest things that you changed in order to go from how are you feeling?
Speaker A:Which sounds a bit like despair, to.
Speaker A:To.
Speaker A:To getting better.
Speaker B:Everyone looks for, like, the one thing, but it's really stacking a lot of the right activity.
Speaker B:I probably changed my.
Speaker B:At the time, I think I was like, you're in such a deep hole that if your body can't handle the stresses.
Speaker B:You shouldn't be doing an intense workout.
Speaker B:You shouldn't be running, you shouldn't be biking.
Speaker B:Like, just walk in fresh air.
Speaker B:Okay, so that's change some things like that just to get out of that.
Speaker B:That hole.
Speaker B:Like cutting out sugar, cutting out dairy.
Speaker B:Cutting out.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Just cleaning up the diet, cutting out the junk that had crept in.
Speaker B:Watching to sleep, decreasing text stimulation.
Speaker B:So like going on a walk but then listening to a podcast, not as good as just to walk.
Speaker B:Fresh air, leave your phone at home.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Those things.
Speaker B:So I'm still doing those things today is just a lot of habits and then just getting good at recognizing those warning signs of like, how am I really doing?
Speaker B:And am I feeling anxiety or how in control of my work?
Speaker B:Am I Or is the work in control of me?
Speaker B:And I'm just a lot of getting ready.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Recognizing those warning signs around am I actually at a peak level of mental health, Am I in that kind of in the middle gray zone or am I getting to the danger zone?
Speaker A:You referenced talking to like having an outlet and knowing when you're like, are there people that you go to when you're going through these big struggles?
Speaker A:Is it family, friends, peer groups?
Speaker A:Like, where is your outlet?
Speaker A:Typically when you're like, man, this is really hard and I'm going through something the.
Speaker B:Mike, what's been.
Speaker B:I've been working with a psychologist for the last five years.
Speaker B:He's like a business coach.
Speaker B:He's been doing this for like 40 years.
Speaker B:Masters in psychology.
Speaker B:So I have a call with him every single week.
Speaker B:Used to be, what, 90 minutes.
Speaker B:I kind of tightened it up to 60 minutes.
Speaker B:Now the basics like talk about the week and my mindset.
Speaker B:And he's very intuitive on these things.
Speaker B:So within a seconds or the first minute of the call, we dig into one of these things.
Speaker B:This is how you start a conversation is huge.
Speaker B:Like, you ask somebody how they're doing and we're.
Speaker B:Yeah, not bad.
Speaker B:Well, there's something to dig in there, right?
Speaker B:Like, you should feel amazing and then get into that and like, ah, just I think I've done what I'd hoped to do today and then dig into that or custom conversation you had with an employee or colleague or a client and dig into that.
Speaker B:Look at limiting beliefs, mindsets, structures.
Speaker B:Are we set up to win?
Speaker B:Do you have the right attitude perspective on these things?
Speaker B:So that's been really helpful.
Speaker B:I think it come a long ways.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Just with that.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's awesome to hear because I.
Speaker A:I have done the Same thing in the past.
Speaker A:And I, I meet monthly with a, I would call him a business psychologist.
Speaker A:He's a friend, but he's a trained psychologist and he's an investor and entrepreneur and so I talk to him about this sort of stuff and like limiting beliefs that we have around ourselves and the things that you know, we run into in our daily life that are sometimes difficult to, to tell other people about as like owners.
Speaker A:And so that's been a huge unlock for me as well and honestly just brings a lot of comfort and man, I'm not, not alone.
Speaker A:So Crafty Penguins is a LI Linux MSP.
Speaker A:How, how much revenue do you guys do annually?
Speaker A:3 million.
Speaker A:And then the improving IT MSP.
Speaker A:Are you about the same size?
Speaker A:Roughly 3 million?
Speaker B:Neck and neck.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:And then your software, I'm, I'm interested to hear about the, the, the, the software that you're building.
Speaker A:It sounds like, is it like pre revenue or are you generating revenue?
Speaker B:Generating revenue.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We've been in.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We have 150 MSPs active on the product.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Tell, tell me, give me your, your, your 60 second watt.
Speaker A:What does it do for, for MSPs?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we're helping MSP fix their project in their service.
Speaker B:So amazing results.
Speaker B:So one of our clients, they improved their project efficiency by 57% applying these methods.
Speaker B:And there's the tool which we sell, but there's also the method, the methodology behind it of Agile, Lean and Kanban that come out of software development.
Speaker B:These are things I learned like 25 years ago with Scrum and Agile over the years and applying that in the MSP space, such a huge game changer of getting more done with the people we have impacts profit valuations every rank.
Speaker A:So run me through like my, my MSP Datatel, we run Waterfall, we, we tried doing the Agile methodology and it did not work that well for us.
Speaker A:So I'm sure it was a mindset or methodology issue.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But waterfall has worked for us.
Speaker A:How do you talk to me about what the, what the value is of switching to an agile methodology within the MSP space?
Speaker B:Okay, so how many projects do you manage on an ongoing basis?
Speaker A:20 to 35.
Speaker B:How many of your projects if you say you plan the project out in advance with your waterfall, your gap timelines and stuff, how many of them deliver on time and on budget?
Speaker A:70%.
Speaker B:It's better.
Speaker B:Better than average.
Speaker B:Most of us are late and then I guess how often do you have to explain like project delays to clients?
Speaker A:I guess I feel like it's Part of being in a client account business, like there's always going to be changes as it relates to what we're doing especially.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean great, great point but I think we do that frequently.
Speaker A:But we also say at the upfront, hey, this is an estimated time frame, this is what we're going to do.
Speaker A:We're going to keep you up to date and when there are changes we're going to let you know asap.
Speaker A:And then we adjust that expectation.
Speaker B:How much time do your managers or coordinators to spend coordinating the work scheduling.
Speaker A:Communicating full time project manager plus a junior pm.
Speaker A:And they probably spend, you know, that's vast majority of their job is communication internally, externally, getting resources in the right spots.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then how many engineers in the project team?
Speaker A:5.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'd say that's a lot of overhead for a team of that size.
Speaker B:Both the Agile methods it is you're scheduling less, you're not abusing scheduling as a way prioritization.
Speaker B:So focusing what are the highest value things and get that team hyper focused on getting those out the door to the client.
Speaker B:So that would be kind of the value proposition is could you double the amount of projects you do with the same PM and coordinator.
Speaker A:I'm sure there's a methodology education that you have to do with this.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because like how do you, how do you do that, how do you make sure that goes well?
Speaker A:Because it feels like it's important to your product adoption too.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we've developed probably like four major things so we're, we're helping, we do initiatives out of the gate.
Speaker B:We onboard everybody like you can get up and going with this pretty quick.
Speaker B:Like get into let's say like that first gear.
Speaker B:Like we're going to help you set up your Kanban boards and get the basic flow going.
Speaker B:Like an hour onboarding call.
Speaker B:We do the rapid implementation where we bring in with basic professional services over like 30 days to really look at your like what PSA are you on?
Speaker B:Commit wise Autotask, Connectwise.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So look at your connectwise, your board, your statuses and then how do we design the boards for this and how you're doing your projects and then get your daily huddle going.
Speaker B:That's where a lot of these habits get established is in the daily huddle.
Speaker B:It's not in getting people to watch hours of videos but in that 10, 15 minute huddle you're driving the behaviors of what's the most important thing, what's blocked and how do we unblock these, these project tickets so we actually come in and coach your team on running the daily huddles.
Speaker B:So that's like a 30 day project if, if you get the time in your calendar to show up to the meetings.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So that's a big one.
Speaker B:We have Agile certification courses so we bring in like an enterprise lean agile trainer guys, really top level on that and doing like the two day training seminar kind of format stuff like Scrum master training, that sort of thing.
Speaker B:And how do you get the best of waterfall, the best of Agile and back.
Speaker B:These are things are not enemies.
Speaker B:You can dovetail them.
Speaker A:One of the common complaints I hear from other owners at least is those who try to implement Agile is basically it feels like they lack visibility and insights into how things can get done and how quickly and that the end result is always a moving target for them.
Speaker A:Is that like the wrong way?
Speaker A:Is, are they doing something wrong or are they right in some way?
Speaker B:I think there's a false sense of control when you see these nice timelines.
Speaker B:If you actually freeze that and say hey, here's my three month timeline, this project is even finished in end of April or whatever and you freeze it right, put it in the drawer, come back end of April.
Speaker B:How much of that actually happened?
Speaker B:I think a lot of it has changed as well.
Speaker B:So Agile, we're focused on the velocity and the throughput, like how many tickets are actually getting done, how much value is getting delivered?
Speaker B:It's not just about, yeah, the number of tickets, but how much is getting out and how do we get that up over time?
Speaker B:How do we get more efficient through?
Speaker B:Do we automate more?
Speaker B:Is there better requirements on the ticket?
Speaker B:Maybe we did too much.
Speaker B:We call it gold plating.
Speaker B:That can happen.
Speaker B:We give ourselves a bunch of time to do a project.
Speaker B:We can do too much, like literally gold plated laptop kind of stuff.
Speaker B:And whether it's a 365 migration or security project, we did too much value.
Speaker B:That was not necessary.
Speaker B:So if we can streamline all those things, eliminate the waste.
Speaker B:Eliminate waste and just get that throughput up on the real value.
Speaker B:That's what the conversation we like to have is, reducing the multitasking.
Speaker B:Because when you're switching between all these projects, which is typically what happens, we're trying to optimize the calendar and utilization, which is the wrong game to play.
Speaker B:Because then you're.
Speaker B:When you move between 5, 10 projects as an engineer or even as a PM, that context switch is huge.
Speaker B:Like you add 20% to everything you do.
Speaker B:So if you can do one project at a time you've already saved 20% across everything you do, which is going to outweigh having a nice looking schedule.
Speaker B:Look at that.
Speaker B:And also when you switch tasks and gear quality, you make mistakes because you're like, where was I?
Speaker B:You're getting interrupted halfway.
Speaker B:So a lot of things there.
Speaker A:You did something interesting with, with your businesses.
Speaker A:You started out with two MSPs and then you developed a piece of software to help, you know, MSPS selling into the MSP space.
Speaker A:So what, what did you, did you just run into a problem yourself or why did you start top left?
Speaker B:This goes back to probably 10, 12 years ago is I was growing my MSP doing the marketing following like true methods for like operations.
Speaker B:And we worked with C level operations as well.
Speaker B:We worked with Robin Robbins on Outbound.
Speaker A:Yeah, who hasn't worked with Robin and Robbins?
Speaker B:Everyone's tried it or kicked the can, right?
Speaker B:Some people get great results that we were actually doing that.
Speaker B:We signed up clients, we were getting results.
Speaker B:So I had somebody on the phones getting meetings, Zoom networking, had an outside sales guy was doing meetings and we added some really nice clients and really nice proposal, doing the shock and all box, all these things, really nice presentations.
Speaker B:I think the marketing, the sales was good and then we bombed on the delivery.
Speaker B:I remember the one project I quoted that 200 hours, that's with some padding, right?
Speaker B:Okay, 170.
Speaker B:You pad it to like 220 or something, add some buffers and it was way more complicated.
Speaker B:The text did more work.
Speaker B:They're like, we can't.
Speaker B:These workstations are such a mess.
Speaker B:They're not on the domain.
Speaker B:It's like we need to like format them and do new Windows installs and just like, okay, it makes sense, let's do it.
Speaker B:It ended up taking 800 hours, that project and wow.
Speaker B:I don't think I got any more revenue from them.
Speaker B:I don't think they paid any more.
Speaker B:And they were.
Speaker B:Obviously it's impacting their business because we're in and out and it's dragging on.
Speaker B:And yeah, the network was complex.
Speaker B:There's a car dealership and like two car dealerships.
Speaker B:They wanted to share resources but they each got very different VPN requirements with their, with their manufacturers and stuff.
Speaker B:It was, it was crazy.
Speaker B:So doing that, these other clients came on.
Speaker B:They were also impacted.
Speaker B:So basically we added like four nice clients that year and we like ended up losing all of them because we couldn't manage the projects with the service because the same people are doing projects and service and fixing the Issues that come out from the projects and that's.
Speaker B:We're on Connect Wise.
Speaker B:We have all the billing, all the tracking is fine.
Speaker B:We're tracking all our time and there's so many tickets.
Speaker B:And it's like we were just chasing our tails on who was complaining the most.
Speaker B:The squeaky wheel.
Speaker B:I hired a PM, like a senior PM.
Speaker B:The guy, he's like, I used to get paid 160,000 a year for doing this and I've got 40 years of experience.
Speaker B:He was in his 60s.
Speaker B:I'm like, okay, he came in for a cheap, he's willing to help us, right?
Speaker B:He's like.
Speaker B:But after like 10 months of that, we were no better off and the clients didn't have any more confidence in us, so kind of let him go.
Speaker A:Did he not have what it takes in hindsight or did you have the wrong framework in place?
Speaker A:Like, why didn't he work out?
Speaker A:Seems like he had experience.
Speaker B:I think it's like a culture issue, probably core value kind of issue.
Speaker B:Just okay.
Speaker B:Not that I questioned honesty or integrity.
Speaker B:I'm just doing, I think, good things that we maybe would have worked in another environment.
Speaker B:And I was probably maybe a bit too hands off with it.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:Also I haven't mentioned that yet.
Speaker B:I had another company going throughout that period which was like SD WAN software for like bonded Internet.
Speaker B:So I was spending like two days a week on that business and not as much in the MSP as it probably needed me.
Speaker B:So I ended up selling my shares and then my owner, my, my partner bought me out like six, seven years ago on that.
Speaker B:But basically we had it.
Speaker B:We had basically in our office, we had like another room just for the devs on this software product.
Speaker B:So I was watching that they were using Jira and Scrum and the Agile methods.
Speaker B:I'm like, they're calm, they're cool, they're collected, they're improving their flow.
Speaker B:They're doing all these methods, getting the projects done, getting features out the door.
Speaker B:And I'm like, we got this chaos in the MSP and we got, they're using Jira and the nice tools and visualizations.
Speaker B:They're doing it kind of by the book, literally.
Speaker B:We bought the Scrum book and Matt and I, who is my, yeah, the dev team lead, he was implementing it there.
Speaker B:So I'm like, how do I do that with ConnectWise and MSP, obviously you can't really time box if things are broken.
Speaker B:You can't wait for a two week sprint, right?
Speaker B:You have to go do it.
Speaker B:I'm okay.
Speaker B:Scrum won't work.
Speaker B:We need to do Kanban method.
Speaker B:But there was.
Speaker B:She couldn't do it in connectwise.
Speaker B:And I'm like, we can't go to another tool.
Speaker B:So I built like a proof of concept with Excel.
Speaker B:With some SQL queries against ConnectWise I'm like, hey, this has potential.
Speaker B:So I put a developer on it for like 50 hours to build a web app and that's how we got started.
Speaker A:So have you used the SQL database access via ConnectWise before?
Speaker B:Oh, I've done a ton with it, yeah.
Speaker B:Very comfortable with that.
Speaker A:What's been your experience with that?
Speaker A:I've been thinking about building a.
Speaker A:A product that would, that would need.
Speaker A:I haven't done the.
Speaker A:I'm just curious what your initial works.
Speaker B:If you're on prem like self hosted.
Speaker B:If you're on the cloud, you don't really get direct live SQL access.
Speaker B:They might give you a snapshot.
Speaker B:If you pay them more money, you might get like a 24 hour snapshot.
Speaker B:I haven't looked at that.
Speaker B:Some people complain about their database.
Speaker B:I think it's actually pretty good.
Speaker B:They give you erd like documentation on it.
Speaker B:You can go to SQL Query analyzer, whatever the tools are on SQL Server to explore the database and they got good view store procedures.
Speaker B:It's fast.
Speaker B:So I could get out of it what I needed to.
Speaker B:The only thing, if you're starting a new app, I wouldn't recommend it because it doesn't work with cloud.
Speaker A:How are you getting access and integrating into clients right now for this purpose?
Speaker B:Oh, 100% with the REST API.
Speaker A:Oh, you're using their REST API?
Speaker B:Yeah, we use the API.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that works very.
Speaker B:It's a really.
Speaker B:It's good.
Speaker B:Like we've.
Speaker B:We also support Autotask, not as good.
Speaker B:And we're adding Halo now and it's horrible.
Speaker B:Halo API is awful.
Speaker A:Yeah, they're good at some things, but they've got to be behind in some other things.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's just how it is probably it's all relative.
Speaker B:You can get the job done.
Speaker B:And what I'd say is they are very responsive to like hey, how does this work?
Speaker B:Or this is weird.
Speaker B:They go and fix it and change it.
Speaker B:So I, and I really appreciate that attitude.
Speaker A:That's interesting.
Speaker A:And what.
Speaker A:How did you get up to speed on the connectwise, you know, integrations and.
Speaker A:Because the whole, the whole thing is going to be built on ConnectWise.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like for your first clients.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we're for top left.
Speaker B:Yeah, we started Connectwise that was like 10 years ago and then about five years ago we launched the autotask support.
Speaker B:So that's the equal class citizen.
Speaker B:And now we're doing the Halo and basically now we're rebuilding it so that it's easier to support any PSA to just more shared code and a better whole new UI design.
Speaker B:So that's, that's coming out now because we want to support any PSA in the industry.
Speaker A:So you've got three businesses that you're working on.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:Which one are you most excited about?
Speaker B:It's always what I'm working on right now.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Which is top left.
Speaker B:And I just see the impact on the lives and the teams and mental health and profit.
Speaker B:Like there's just so many upsides to it.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:There's a challenge because it was kind of an education challenge and we talked about that just now.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like hey waterfall and what's in it?
Speaker B:Right, what's in it for the business?
Speaker B:Because yeah, you can plug in tools and everyone's kind of skeptical of more tools that they buy and then don't use.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But how do you get your real results?
Speaker B:Like what's the impact?
Speaker B:And I think it's like 10% the tool and 90% this education side on because many people get into this.
Speaker B:That's been my story.
Speaker B:Like my degree was not project management.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:I had one course on pm, my degree was not business.
Speaker B:I had like maybe one or two courses on finance and here I'm.
Speaker B:We're running these pretty big budgets now.
Speaker B:We've got like 40 plus employees.
Speaker B:So there's a lot we learn on the way and that's true for most people in this space.
Speaker B:Like good technicians get promoted to be team leads, project managers and they're not set up to win on that.
Speaker B:So we're.
Speaker B:Everyone's just kind of crying out for leadership and examples and inspiration on this.
Speaker A:Have you thought about investing more in the education portion and even like a community aspect for what you're doing?
Speaker B:Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker B:So I'm working on now is actually running community events and even in person.
Speaker B:So working on in the Vancouver area, running, hosting like a one day.
Speaker B:I don't know what the right word is, like a meetup.
Speaker B:I guess I don't want it to be about us selling product.
Speaker B:It's not a sales or marketing event for us.
Speaker B:It's all education.
Speaker B:Helping mid level managers, the PMs, the coordinators, managing partners if you will, around these efficiencies and throughput.
Speaker B:How do you Impact culture, the way people work.
Speaker B:So just building community.
Speaker B:And doesn't have to be us presenting.
Speaker B:Just bring in partners, clients, people who are making a difference.
Speaker B:And so I've been doing that.
Speaker B:A lot of our webinars actually bring in our clients to speak and they share this story.
Speaker B:Like Tenille came on in the fall and talked about how she was able to phase out her dispatcher completely.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:And double utilization of technicians in her team.
Speaker B:So she just has how she did it and the impact and the results speak for themselves.
Speaker B:Like teams happier, more fulfilled.
Speaker B:And we're talking about these changes and a team of what, 10 people.
Speaker B:This is like 150, 200k a year impact.
Speaker A:Well, it seems like a perfect opportunity to like figure out how to set up an online community too.
Speaker A:Because if I was a pm, I would love to join like private community where I could ask questions, I could talk to other PMs to learn about what the best practices are.
Speaker A:Hey, I'm running into this man.
Speaker A:That would be awesome.
Speaker A:I would get my PMs to join.
Speaker B:So what's the best platform and structure for that that you've seen?
Speaker B:What would you like to see?
Speaker A:I would take a look if I were you at a platform called Circle.
Speaker A:That's one of the main community platforms.
Speaker A:But it's really easy to roll up.
Speaker A:You can have a bunch of educational content in there.
Speaker A:It allows you to, you know, there's a whole bunch of different ways you could do it.
Speaker A:You can even create a Slack channel.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like there's a ton of.
Speaker A:And maybe Slack's the better.
Speaker A:Yeah, because you want to geared more towards the, you know, the nerdy PM side.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So something like that where there's just bringing people in the same spot use, you know, create a bunch of value in there.
Speaker A:Maybe have lead ins for like say hey, I've got PM templates located inside this community join.
Speaker A:Check it out.
Speaker A:People are talking about stuff that they're going through every day.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:Yeah, that would be awesome.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'd love to do that.
Speaker B:I've so tried a couple things and it hasn't taken off.
Speaker B:So I've got to iterate on that again.
Speaker B:We offered it to existing clients.
Speaker B:We had something like Circle and that we invited our.
Speaker B:Basically we have a challenge, like a coaching challenge.
Speaker B:Like we call it a three week challenge for completed tickets.
Speaker B:So I get your ticket counts down like at least half in, in like three weeks.
Speaker B:And we invited those people to the forum and no, nobody got in there.
Speaker B:I opened it up to all clients like A slack channel to all our clients and it was kind of wet crickets.
Speaker B:But it's not like you're, you're suggesting something broader that's not topless specific but just an agile community.
Speaker A:Just think any, anyone in your ideal client profile, right.
Speaker A:Which is PMs and MSPs and people want to do.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Build it specifically around that function.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Your projects suck.
Speaker A:They're never on time.
Speaker A:They're really costly.
Speaker A:It makes clients mad.
Speaker A:Here's the community for how the best practices and the people are doing it and they're sharing real time things.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So think of it as like similar to like you and I are, are in probably other peer groups.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like I'm an eo, you're probably in something else.
Speaker A:But I go there to talk to my peers.
Speaker A:But a lot of our employees don't have that option or opportunity and so I'm finding one for my CEO right now that's a similar sort of thing.
Speaker A:I'd probably do it for my PM if my, if there's a PM community available and I'd probably even pay for it honestly.
Speaker A:But you could use it as just free.
Speaker A:Free and you get people to jump in and then you know that 10% of those people will be interested in your solution.
Speaker A:And the other ones, it's just free you.
Speaker A:It's a, it's a lead gen magnet and just provide as much value as you possibly can to that.
Speaker A:That those folks.
Speaker B:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker B:That would dovetail nicely with the in person stuff as well.
Speaker B:So the online community and then regionally outreach to get people.
Speaker B:So we're targeting our province of B.C.
Speaker B:is reaching out to every single MSP and say hey, would you be interested in the local event?
Speaker A:So yeah.
Speaker A:And then when you're reaching out to folks right, it's, it's not hey come try my product.
Speaker A:It's hey go get a bunch of value for yourself for free.
Speaker A:Your opt in rates will be much higher and you're actually going to create a relationship with them.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:You know, I only charge 15% recurring on, on anything you make off of this.
Speaker A:So I'll send you bill later.
Speaker B:All right then I'll get you a coffee.
Speaker A:Sounds good.
Speaker A:Anything else you wanted to, you wanted to dive into or anything we missed as it relates to your story, your businesses right now?
Speaker B:We could always get into a lot more things.
Speaker B:I know we've, we've covered a lot there.
Speaker B:It's probably a good, good spot to leave it there.
Speaker A:Sounds good.
Speaker A:We'll save it for next time then.
Speaker A:Well, Wim, I really appreciate you jumping on and diving in.
Speaker A:I loved hearing about your story and, man, doing a lot of stuff.
Speaker A:And I'm gonna.
Speaker A:I've got a couple of inspiration things that you've given me, honestly, as it relates to the different stuff that I'm working on and being able to craft the vision and having complete ownership of each of those different units.
Speaker A:So honestly, I'm going to take some of that and apply it to my own business.
Speaker A:Thanks, dude.
Speaker A:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:You're welcome.
Speaker A:All right, talk to you soon, man.
Speaker B:Bye.
Speaker B:See you next time.
