Play It Smart

Epizode

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  12 Acquisitions, One Brand: Inside Nexus IT’s MSP Integration Playbook 10.10.2026 57min

  Earl Foote has done 12 acquisitions and folded them into one brand. How Nexus IT funds its deals, integrates teams and systems across a managed service provider (MSP) platform, and where artificial intelligence (AI) already saves his service desk roughly 400 hours a month.
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  Your Difficult Client Might Just Be a Pipeline Problem 25.09.2026 35min

  A managed service provider (MSP) owner complained about a demanding prospect at an industry event, and Tarek Meliti suggested the real issue was probably his pipeline. How TDM Group, his London-based MSP founded in 1997, made Middle East expansion an explicit strategy, and where he draws the line on artificial intelligence (AI) adoption.
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  He Ran Security for The Weather Channel. Now He Keeps Factories and Fleets Online. 17.09.2026 36min

  If a just-in-time supplier is late with a windshield, the entire plant shuts down, and John Penrod says the supplier can be fined $50,000 every 15 minutes. How his managed service provider (MSP) keeps customers like that running.
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  Why This Healthcare MSP Moved Every Client to One Security Standard 16.09.2026 31min

  Stuart Millington runs a healthcare-focused managed service provider in Western Australia. How he moved every client to one security standard, why the practice manager is the linchpin, and why clients now find him on ChatGPT and Claude.
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  He Sold His MSP to Private Equity. In 18 Months, Most Clients Left. 11.09.2026 40min

  Shawn Walsh sold his managed service provider to private equity, and the buyer lost most of the clients within 18 months. What he now teaches owners about hiring, process, niches and the exit.
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  Six Private Equity Offers a Week, and He Sold to His Staff Instead 31.08.2026 39min

  Eric Rieger turned down private equity and sold WEBIT Services to his own employees. The real numbers on what an employee stock ownership plan costs and how it works.
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  He Ran IT Inside the Agencies. Then He Started Serving Them. 26.08.2026 36min

  Georg Dauterman came to managed IT from the other side of the desk. A history degree, a quarter-life crisis, a Mac repair bench, then years running IT inside publishing houses and a Havas ad agency. In 2004 he quit, with a three-month-old at home, and joined Valiant Technology: a Mac-heavy managed service provider (MSP) for creative agencies in New York and Los Angeles, built when everyone else sold Windows and called it a day.We get into how a creative-only practice actually runs. Every engineer gets a Mac and Parallels and a 90-to-180-day onboarding. Freelancers work in isolated environments priced so agencies can grow and shrink. The buying moment is not a breach, it is the day an agency hires a chief operating officer (COO) who reads the master service agreement (MSA) and realizes there is no HR, no finance, no IT. And after a year of outbound experiments that did not yield, the pipeline runs on referrals, Google reviews, in-person networking and his own podcast.What we cover:- Running Valiant on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), with the integrator seat split across two people- Core values you can live with, and why "cheer" made the list- A history degree, a Mac repair bench, and an education inside a Havas agency- Quitting in 2004 with a newborn at home to join a non-cash-flowing business- Block hours and hands-on work before the remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool existed- The RMM-plus-cloud inflection that created the MSP industry, and why AI feels the same- A Service Leadership peer group as his master's degree in business- Cross-training every engineer, Mac and Windows both- The unmanaged Macs sitting in your clients' boardrooms- Due diligence questionnaires (DDQs), MSAs and the trust chain that makes agencies buy- Employees and freelancers as two separate user classes- Referrals, Google reviews and a podcast instead of a thousand dials- The quarterly committee that decides the product stack- Managed Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for under $2,000 a monthGeorg Dauterman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georg-dauterman/Valiant Technology: https://thevaliantway.comThe Creative Stack podcast: https://podcast.thevaliantway.com
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  The MSP Built for Clients Nobody Can Standardise 25.08.2026 30min

  Noah Landow co-founded Macktez in 1996 and is still running it, still independent, and still deliberately not built like the rest of the industry. Most managed service providers (MSPs) chase one stack across every client because that is what scales. Noah spent 25 years reluctant to use the label at all, because his clients cannot be standardised: nonprofits, cultural institutions, organizations in the middle of a build, and a public park in the middle of the Hudson River.We get into the mechanics. How he staffs jobs where the delivery date beats the supply chain. Why he keeps a closet of decommissioned switches and a cabling team on the payroll. What his recurring revenue number actually means once you strip out the five-year projects billed as subscriptions. And how a firm with no outside money reads the private equity money now moving through the channel.What we cover:- Taking jobs where the deadline cannot move, and phasing the network in anyway- Buying equipment six months early against a nonprofit's three-year budget- Keeping cabling in-house with almost no temporary staff- The 25 years he called it IT consulting instead of managed services- Co-managed work as a live negotiation over who does which step- What the 65 to 70 percent recurring figure hides- The three business units: managed services, consulting, physical installation- Where clients come from after 30 years, and the window in which a buyer is reachable- A two-year evaluation cycle before changing a ticketing system- Why JumpCloud changed the shape of the work- Thirty calls with private equity and venture groups, and what he makes of them- Single-vendor lock-in and what it costs to leaveNoah Landow: https://noahlandow.comMacktez: https://macktez.com
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  The $500K Wire That Turns an MSP Into the Defendant 24.08.2026 33min

  A client wires half a million dollars to a criminal. Their cyber policy covers a hundred thousand, maybe two hundred fifty. The plaintiff's attorney does the math and knows exactly who to go after next: the managed service provider (MSP). Joe Brunsman has watched this from every side. He runs the Brunsman Advisory Group, an insurance brokerage in Annapolis built around MSPs, spent fifteen years with the United States (US) Navy, holds a master's in cybersecurity law, and has dealt with close to a thousand cyber claims. His starting point: before 2020, lawsuits against MSPs effectively did not exist. He went looking and found two, one of them an employment claim. Then the plaintiff's bar noticed an industry with no licensing regime, no statutory protections, and clients who lose real money when something breaks. Breach litigation has gone parabolic since, and MSPs are being named as co-defendants. The myth he wants dead is claim denial. In 11 years he has never had a cyber claim denied, across close to a thousand claims. Cyber insurance is dirt cheap, the policies are broader than most people fathom, and they pay. What actually sinks MSPs is everything around the policy: an indemnification clause pointing the wrong way, a client who skipped their own cyber policy and plans to sue you instead, a definition of technology services narrower than what you actually do. So the episode builds his defense in depth for the business itself: the master services agreement (MSA) first, hold harmless and indemnification done right, contractually requiring clients to carry their own cyber insurance, then your own technology errors and omissions (tech E&O) policy on top. Plus the phrase that matters when artificial intelligence (AI) shows up in a claim: "including but not limited to." And his mutual insurance framing, which turns the client risk conversation into a reason to trust you. What we cover: Why MSP lawsuits barely existed before 2020, and what changed How a plaintiff's attorney builds a case against an MSP, played out through a half million dollar wire fraud The 2019 research that said you needed a billion dollar company and 200,000 lost records to get sued, and why it no longer holds Whether your client's cyber policy protects you (it protects them) Hold harmless and indemnification, one way versus two way Defense in depth applied to the business, not the network The claim denial myth: 11 years, close to a thousand claims, zero denied Subrogation, explained with a car crash The big client versus small client risk math Tech E&O decoded: the four buckets and the one definition to read Contra proferentem, the rule from the year 462 buried in every argument about vague policy language What happens when the claim involves AI, a rogue large language model (LLM), or an outsourced security operations center (SOC) that missed the alert How many MSPs actually carry tech E&O (his estimate: under half) Where liability lands next, and clients running AI over your MSA The mutual insurance framing that wins the client conversation Find Joe on YouTube (Joseph Brunsman), where everything is free and nothing is monetized, on LinkedIn, or at thebrunsgroup.com. His books include Damage Control: Cyber Insurance and Compliance.
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  Why a Three Person Fund Gets Billed for Ten Seats 21.08.2026 43min

  Most managed service providers (MSPs) price per seat and then quietly lose money on their smallest clients. Raffi Jamgotchian bills a three person firm for ten.He founded Triada Networks in 2008 and spent the early years taking whatever walked through the door. Four years in he looked back and noticed that of his first five or six clients, four or five were investment firms. He has aimed the business at financial services ever since. Not exclusively, he is clear he is no purist and plenty of those early non-finance clients are still with him, but that is who Triada markets to and who the business is built around.The pricing rule is the part worth stealing. Triada sets a floor at ten people. A three person fund pays the ten seat bill and keeps paying it until it grows into the number. That sounds aggressive until he explains it: the compliance layer takes roughly the same work whether the firm has three people, ten or thirty. Same labour, smaller invoice, so the money has to come from somewhere. He is careful about the reason, too. Plenty of these firms do grow, three people to seven in a couple of months, ten by the next year, maybe twenty after that. But he says the floor is not a bet on growth. Some clients decide to stay small and nimble and that is fine. The floor exists because there is a built in cost to servicing any regulated firm, whatever its size.Then there is the marketing, which nobody in his corner of the industry does. He runs Facebook and Instagram ads, and Instagram works best. His reasoning is simply that finance IT companies do not advertise, so turning up in the feed of someone who fits the profile is a pattern interrupt. People reach out. The ads point at a due diligence checklist he built from his last book.He is also blunt about where the industry is kidding itself. Asked what is most overrated right now, he says artificial intelligence (AI), and that everyone is sprinkling AI dust on places that do not need it. Asked what is most underrated, he says identity protection, human and non-human both. His own clients generated more support tickets once AI tools arrived, not fewer. When he asked other MSPs in his peer group, they were not seeing the same thing.What we coverHow Triada ended up focused on financial services, and the four year delay before he noticedThe two client types today, alternative asset managers and independent wealth advisorsWhy teams breaking away from Charles Schwab, Merrill Lynch and UBS suddenly need an outside partnerWhat an investment firm needs that a manufacturer does notWhy investors started asking cyber due diligence questions before the regulator didSecurity in three places, identity, data and devices, and why the program beats the toolsWhere new clients come from, new funds versus firms leaving a generalist providerThe ten seat pricing floor, and why compliance work does not scale with headcountThe channel mix: referrals, chief compliance officers, commercial real estate brokers, ads and cold callingWhy Instagram ads work for an MSP selling to investment firmsSelling one all-inclusive tier instead of three, plus co-managed and advisory arrangementsWhen a firm should hire internal information technology (IT) staff instead of an MSPWhat AI actually did to his ticket volume, and the guardrails they builtThe move toward consumption based pricingThe lightning round: one tool he cannot work without, most overrated, most underrated, cloud or on-premiseFind Raffi on LinkedIn, where he says he posts videos regularly. He does not name a website or a book title on the episode.
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  Your Gross Margin Is Misreported and Misunderstood 20.08.2026 44min

  Daniel Welling of The MSP Finance Team on the gross margin number most MSP owners are reading wrong, what a new client really costs, and the US expansion that broke on delivery.
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  Stop Selling to the Office Manager: How an MSP Owner Became the Board's vCISO 07.08.2026 37min

  “It's the biggest risk to their business, almost certainly.” Dave Lane has run an MSP since 2006, moved it from the UK to Malaga, and then did what most MSP owners only talk about: he stopped competing in the break-fix race to the bottom and rebuilt the business as fractional IT leadership and vCISO work, sold directly to boards. We get into why he could not deliver real business value while his contact was the office manager, what shadow AI does to a company that thinks it has IT under control, and why good governance starts with people, not tools. What we cover: - Building an MSP from 2006 and moving it from the UK to Malaga - Why break-fix stopped being defensible and what he rebuilt instead - Selling direct to boards, and the “two bosses” problem of working through MSPs - Shadow IT vs shadow AI, and why the second one is worse - Governance without surveillance: policy, training and least privilege over spying (yes, the mouse jiggler story) - AI security tooling that cost tens of thousands of pounds a month five years ago and hundreds now - Why one- and two-person MSPs face a consolidation wave as cyber and AI risk outgrow them Connect with Dave: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davelane/ Good Choice IT: https://goodchoiceit.co.uk Amalan Advisory (vCISO): https://advisory.amalan.co.uk
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  You Can't Take AI to Court: Why Compliance Still Needs Humans 05.08.2026 34min

  “You can't take AI to court. You have to take a person.” That one line is how Tim Golden thinks about compliance in the AI era. Tim ran a 100% federal-government MSP for 25 years with almost no tools, then turned the compliance work he kept giving away for free into Compliance Scorecard, a governance platform built for MSPs. We get into why the product costs $89 and stays that way, why he refuses to pay for ads, and what building a channel vendor actually looks like from the inside. What we cover: - 25 years running a federal MSP with almost no tools (while holding FedRAMP moderate) - Giving away two days a week for free until it had to become a product - Lead gen with zero paid ads: community, referrals, and showing up - “AI suggests, humans approve” and who answers when auditors come knocking - The $89 pricing bet and why he won't chase enterprise - CMMC in plain English: close to 50 MSPs walked through it, seven perfect 110s - What a raise actually buys: “poof, a million dollars goes quick” - Profitable and beating monthly goals every month since September Connect with Tim: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothygolden Compliance Scorecard: https://compliancescorecard.com/ Tim's podcast: https://mspthoughtleadership.com/
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  Buying MSPs at 1-2x Profit While the Market Pays 5-8x 23.07.2026 40min

  Peter Moriarty built itGenius, a Google-first, cloud-only MSP, from a $20-an-hour teenage side hustle into Australia's number one Google partner for small business. His growth playbook breaks every MSP convention: he serves the under-20-seat clients nobody else wants, buys distressed competitors at 1-2x profit while the market pays 5-8x EBIT, gets 90% of new clients from YouTube organically, and keeps 95% of acquired customers with a "give love" onboarding philosophy. We also get into the AI bot that's already eating his help desk, the labor-arbitrage model behind his "AirAsia of IT" pricing, and why he thinks level-one support is disappearing. What we cover: - The origin story: charging $20/hour at 15 because McDonald's paid $7 - Going all-in on Google in 2011 and becoming Australia's #1 SMB partner - The accidental YouTube channel that now drives 90% of new business - The M&A playbook: 11+ acquisitions, bootstrapped, at 1-2x profit - Post-acquisition churn: the "give love" philosophy and the break-lease analogy - Serving under-20-seat clients profitably: the "MSP Lite" model - Albert, the in-house AI bot resolving tickets before humans see them - Why level-one support is disappearing, and what MSPs should do about it Chapters: 00:00 Cold open: the "give love" churn philosophy 00:33 Intro 01:12 Origin story: teenage IT hustle to founding itGenius 02:42 Picking a lane: going all-in on Google 04:17 Scaling through partnerships and speaking 07:46 How YouTube became the #1 growth channel 10:50 The M&A playbook: buying at 1-2x profit 16:00 Keeping churn low after an acquisition 21:25 Cracking small clients at scale: the MSP Lite model 27:40 Bots eating the help desk 32:48 Staying ahead of Google's own AI 34:20 Quickfire round 40:31 Where to find Peter Guest: Peter Moriarty itGenius: https://itgenius.com Contact: [email protected] (itGenius is actively looking to acquire Google Workspace MSPs) Play It Smart is where the smartest founders in managed IT, security, and AI show how they actually build. New episodes on YouTube and every podcast platform.
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  The Google-Only MSP That Turned Its Audit Into a SaaS 21.07.2026 35min

  Dan Taylor built one of the most unusual MSPs in the world. It's Google-only, it serves international schools only, and it runs on a small remote team spread across five countries. No Microsoft, no local market, no office. Then he turned his own Google Workspace audit into a product other MSPs buy, and it took off almost immediately. We get into how he went from Deloitte to a failed recruitment agency and then stumbled into the Google-for-education world, why niching down twice made the business instead of limiting it, how Google quietly took the schools market from Microsoft with almost no salespeople, and what it really takes to turn a service into a product. What we cover: - Why "Google-only, schools-only" was the whole advantage - Running a seven-figure MSP on almost no external software - The jump from $6k manual audits to a real SaaS product - Whether AI and "vibe coding" threaten a niche tool like his - His honest take on where MSPs should niche to actually make money Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:35 From Deloitte to a failed recruitment agency 02:26 The random tip that started a Google empire 06:49 Why international schools became the niche 10:17 How Google beat Microsoft with zero salespeople 12:41 Running a remote MSP across five countries 15:48 From $6k manual audits to WorkspaceAudit 23:22 Can vibe-coding kill his SaaS? 32:30 Lightning round 34:56 Where to find Dan Guest: Dan Taylor AppsEDU: https://appsedu.com WorkspaceAudit: https://workspaceaudit.com Dan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/appsevents/ Play It Smart is where I sit down with the founders and operators building in managed IT, security, and AI. New episodes on YouTube and every podcast platform.
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  140 Clients, No Employees: How a Solo MSP Does It 11.07.2026 37min

  Marco Hernandez runs a one-man MSP with 140 clients, 100% referral leads and a 100% close rate. This episode takes apart exactly how.
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  Turn Clicks Into Cash: Conversion Hacks Every Business Needs 06.12.2024 46min

  Oliver Kenyon is a UK-based entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of ConversionWise, a company specializing in conversion rate optimization (CRO). Under his leadership, ConversionWise has collaborated with over 3,500 brands, including GFUEL, Lotus Biscuits, and Lamborghini, as well as prominent figures like Lionel Messi and Kim Kardashian.He is also the Founder of AffiliateFix, a leading affiliate marketing community that grew to over 70,000 members and 400,000 discussions. This platform was later acquired by Neil Patel’s investment firm in 2017.Before his entrepreneurial ventures, Oliver was a fully qualified chef. Beyond his business achievements, he is dedicated to education, offering courses on platforms like Udemy to share his expertise in CRO. SummaryIn this episode with Oliver Kenyon, you’ll learn:How Oliver built ConversionWise, a large conversion rate optimization (CRO) agency, including how they helped put landing pages on the map.Since the landing page industry exploded, how ConversionWise has evolved and adapted.When Oliver met his co-founder Andy and how they divide their workload.Whether they have any systems in place, such as EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) or OKR (Objectives and Key Results).The current status of the affiliate community that Oliver built (and his first exit), AffiliateFix.Whether Oliver started out specifically aiming at eCommerce or if he had adopted a more general approach.Some examples from Oliver of best practices that apply across the whole industry.Where Oliver sees issues where direct response does not really work but conversion is optimized, such as traffic that is too expensive.Whether Oliver thinks tech stack and brand infrastructure can affect conversion.How he feels about the future, including CMS (content management systems), Shopify, and AI.How ConversionWise works with brands on the CRO side and what their retention is like.How you can get in touch with Oliver.
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  Don’t Dilute Your Ownership! The Debt vs Equity Debate Every Tech Founder Needs to Hear 29.11.2024 34min

  In this episode with Luc Arama, you’ll learn:HSBC Innovation Banking’s acquisition of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Luc’s feelings about it.How companies manage a debt facility with SVB in both the UK and the US.Why a founder should consider going down the debt route rather than the equity route.At what stages does HSBC Innovation Banking lend to companies.What terms HSBC Innovation Banking usually offer for someone who is raising money through both an equity round and a venture debt facility.How HSBC Innovation Banking differentiates itself in the market against traditional banks, venture debt funds, and VC funds.How it differentiates from revenue-based financing.Why HSBC Innovation Banking helps so many software companies compared to e-commerce.What the due diligence process is for HSBC Innovation Banking when it underwrites.Examples of covenants being breached and what happens if they are breached.What needs to happen for HSBC Innovation Banking to auction off a business.How Luc sees the financing landscape evolving in the future.How you can get in touch with Luc.
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  The Path to Independent Success: Rand Fishkin on How to Build Without VC Funding 28.10.2024 57min

  In this podcast episode, Alexej and Rand Fishkin discuss the advantages of angel funding over venture capital for startups, emphasizing sustainable business growth over rapid scaling. Rand shares insights from his experience with Moz and SparkToro, highlighting alternative investment structures and the potential impact of AI on search and SaaS industries. They also explore wealth-building approaches for entrepreneurs and the importance of antitrust policies in fostering innovation.🔍Timestamps:00:01 Alexej welcomes Rand to the conversation00:44 Rand introduces himself, discussing Moz and SparkToro02:19 Discussion on non-VC funding choices04:40 Reasons for preferring angel investment over VC08:34 Critique of the venture capital model13:57 Explanation of SparkToro’s unique funding terms18:19 Approach to building profitable, sustainable businesses22:18 Liquidation preferences and SparkToro’s terms24:31 Structure of SparkToro’s board and decision-making29:27 Investors overlapping in multiple projects34:01 Future of search and AI's impact on Google38:03 Discussion on AI's role in SaaS42:05 Implications of AGI and SaaS models45:07 Wealth-building through sustainable entrepreneurship51:54 Challenges of modern entrepreneurship and monopolies57:00 How to connect with Rand on LinkedIn and Threads-- LINKS -- ► Show Notes: https://nuoptima.com/saas-podcast/sparktoro-rand-fishkin🔗 Follow NUOPTIMA:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexej-pikovsky-9743701/Website: https://www.nuoptima.com 🔗 Follow Rand:LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/randfishkinWebsite: https://sparktoro.com/🔔 Stay Updated: Turn on notifications to never miss our latest videos on growth tactics in SaaS, trends, and business insights. 
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  From Viral B2C AI Video templates to leading AI Video SaaS platform 31.07.2024 47min

  In this podcast episode, we dive deep into Rizzle's innovative journey from a short-form video platform to a leading SaaS for AI-driven video creation. Discover how Rizzle prioritizes product features, manages challenges, and envisions the future of video editing. Hear personal insights on fundraising, team dynamics, and the entrepreneurial spirit from the co-founder with a rich tech background. Don't miss key lessons and an inspiring success story on navigating the tech industry and scaling a startup.🔍Timestamps:00:00 Introduction to Product Features and Prioritization01:03 What is Rizzle?03:21 The Journey of the Founders05:13 Pivoting the Business Model12:15 Current Focus and Market Positioning16:34 Team Structure and Engineering Talent22:49 Building Brand Awareness and Moving Away from Free Models23:10 The Future of Video Editing with AI25:46 Challenges in Fundraising and Market Competition29:44 Lessons Learned from Fundraising Struggles35:18 Splitting Roles and Responsibilities in a Startup36:26 Critical Lessons for SaaS Founders39:48 Quick Fire Questions and Closing Thoughts-- LINKS -- ► Show Notes: nuoptima.com/saas-podcast/rizzle-vidya-narayanan🔗 Follow NUOPTIMA:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexej-pikovsky-9743701/Website: https://www.nuoptima.com 🔗 Follow Vidya:LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellovidyaWebsite: https://rizzle.com/🔔 Stay Updated: Turn on notifications to never miss our latest videos on growth tactics in SaaS, trends, and business insights.