Freeing Minds™ 2016: A Great Success!
BY IT GLUE | October 05, 2016
The first ever IT Glue™ Freeing Minds event took place on October 5th at the Terminal City Club in Vancouver. This amazing event featured best-in-class guest speakers who shared their knowledge of how to grow a great MSP. The heads of MSPs from across Western Canada and the U.S. were in attendance, soaking up this knowledge.
Ron Harris from Omega Computer Systems, an IT Glue partner for two and a half years — one of the originals!
Fred Voccola, CEO of Kaseya
The opening speaker, Fred Voccola, CEO of Kaseya, delivered his insights into the future of the MSP business over the next few years, dispelling the myth of consolidation and highlighting where the best opportunities lie.
Chris Day, CEO of IT Glue
Chris Day, CEO of IT Glue, was up next, presenting on 10 Lessons Learned Building a $10M MSP. This presentation highlighted some of the experiences that Chris had building out Fully Managed. The lessons learned along the pathway to success are ones that any MSP can relate to, and learn from.
Joel Abramson, CEO of Fully Managed
Joel Abramson, CEO of Fully Managed, presented on the ideal technology stack, and how to use the stack to present the best possible offering to the small- and medium-sized enterprises that make up the target market for most MSPs. With the right approach to your stack, you can deliver that high value “white gloves” service that carries the highest margins, and Joel gave some great advice on this subject.
Mike Knapp, Partner at Incrementa Consulting
The morning came to a rousing finish with Mike Knapp from Incrementa discussing compliance and security issues in the MSP business today. We say that without irony, too, because compliance and security are two of the biggest market opportunities for MSPs going forward.
The afternoon session featured some excellent information about IT Glue, in particular the upcoming features that we are working on.
David Reeve, Founder of Unleash Culture
The excellent David Reeve of Unleash Culture then took the stage to talk about the importance of organizational culture, in particular how having a purpose is one of the most critical aspects of culture that can drive success in your organization. This is a great lesson for MSPs, as many small MSPs never really consider culture and purpose, but David was able to show the value in thinking about those exact subjects.
Julian Scott (left), VP of Global Identity Services at Kaseya, answers a question from the audience
The event concluded with a panel discussion where the MSPs in the audience were able to pick the brains of seasoned MSP pros, including IT Glue CEO Chris Day and Julian Scott, VP of Global Identity Services at Kaseya, about a variety of topics. As part of this discussion, Ted Garner from IT Weapons spoke about the process behind the decision to sell to Konica Minolta — providing the sort of unique insight you simply don’t get at other types of events — to a room full of MSP owners who may one day face the same decision.
Feedback from the event was amazing. Several attendees already run successful MSPs, and noted that the presentations provided “reassurance that we’re on the right track,” as Mike Burton from Superion explained.
Nigel Brown from Microserve was impressed with the broad focus: “It’s not all about the tools, but rather is valuable, broad-based information,” a sentiment shared by many in the audience.
Jennifer Ouderkirk from Trivalent Group in Michigan noted “It’s not just about efficiency; it’s about expansion.”
The unique structure of the event provided tremendous value to those in attendance. As Chris Faist from Integrated Computer Systems Support so brilliantly summarized, “There’s not much that is worth me taking a day away from the office, but this was worth a day of my time.”
