Michal Jankech - The true partner playbook

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Michal Jankech, Vice President of Enterprise, Small Business, and Managed Service Provider Segments at ESET. With 16 years at ESET, a first decade in product management, and a strategic advisory role shaping how the company evolves, Michal brings rare depth across both technical and commercial perspectives to a conversation about what actually builds durable partnerships.

Michal opens with the story of how a decade in product management shaped his approach to partner strategy. Traveling with clients as a product manager showed him something that still holds: many cybersecurity decisions are partner-led, and the strongest relationships between vendors and technical partners are built engineer to engineer. That foundation now feeds his advisory work with the CEO on how to steer the company through change. In a matrix organization the size of ESET, influence beats authority, and driving transformation depends on relationships, belief, and a clear, consistent story everyone across the business is willing to carry.

From there, the conversation turns to ESET's evolution ahead of its 40th anniversary. The company has been quietly using machine learning in detection long before it was called AI, and the current moment brings new relevance to that engineering-first heritage. Michal shares how perception matters as much as substance, and how the company is modernizing its communication to match what it delivers. He also gets into where data sovereignty is landing for European buyers today. As a fully European vendor with all core processing on the continent, ESET has turned a former disadvantage into a real differentiator.

Michal closes with the pillars that hold the strongest partner relationships together: rock-solid technology, predictable commercials, a clear vision partners can invest in, and the constant work of listening. It's the foundation of trust that keeps ecosystems moving forward.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we dive deep into the mysteries and secrets of partnerships and the channel. My name is Michel, I'm head of marketing at Chanex, and I'll be your host for today. And today I've got the pleasure of speaking with Michal Jankek, Vice President of Enterprise, SMB, and MSP at ESET. It's great to see you. How have you been so far?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Very good. It's incredibly warm these days here in Bratislava. So it's uh good that uh I have an AC at home.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I I hear you. Uh I you don't see it here, but I have two fans blowing cold air at me simultaneously because it's unrealistically warm in the Netherlands. I think it's 34 degrees right now. Uh luckily I have my cooled water and my fan, so we'll make it work. I hope the excitement won't make me even warmer regarding this conversation. Um hey Michal, uh, welcome to Partnerships Unraveled. I'd love to hear a little bit about who you are, your background, and your role at ESET.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Okay, so I'm uh already an inventory uh at the company and with ESET for more than 16 years. Uh for the first decade I spent uh at product management. Uh so I climbed the ladder from taking care of first the server products, then the business portfolio, then the uh management console. And eventually, after 10 years, uh I transitioned to a more executive advisory role. I'm uh uh it was at that time called segment director, but uh eventually it's a segment VP. What does it mean? It's a metrics role. Uh so normally ESED has line organizations, divisions, RD, sales and marketing, uh, customer care, etc. But uh we there are originally three, now two VPs that are advising directly to the CEO about uh how to steer the ship. So, like what to do next, uh, how to adjust the proposition of the company, if there are any growth initiatives that we can bring that should accelerate our business. So, and that's pretty much my daily bread and butter over the course of last six years.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Well, that sounds fascinating, and I'd love to dive into the strategic advisory part a little bit later. But the first thing I'd like to ask is spending your first 10 years in product management, that's an interesting foundation for someone who ends up leading channel and partner strategy and providing advice around this. I can imagine that that gives you

Why Partners Shape Buying Decisions

SPEAKER_01 2:20

a pretty different lens than someone who came up, for example, through purely sales or commercial rules. So, what was it about the partner and channel side that attracted you to jump into this role?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

I would say it this way. Like uh when I was a PM, I traveled a lot, I met a lot of clients, and I realized that within cybersecurity, many of those decisions are actually not customer-led, they are partner-led. So it's the it's the channel partner that actually has the a lot to say. If we talk MSPs, technically MSP is the customer. So MSP is the one procuring your solution. He builds the business. So I made a lot of uh MSPs. Uh, I like working with them, they are very technical people usually, you know, like uh the owner of an MSP is the engineer. So, an engineer to an engineer, they always had a lot of technical product questions. So uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

So so that that makes a lot of sense to me. And I I see that a lot across any type of SaaS or technological business where you kind of figure out that so much of this is built around relationships in in every kind of function within the organization, and that building strong relationships and understanding them can really bring you forward. What I'm curious about, you just mentioned that engineer-to-engineer narrative. I can understand that that in indeed builds trust from the start. Uh, is there anything else that the product background that you had brought to how you lead uh commercially?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I was in a little bit of everything. So it's uh, you know, when you are a PM, you are technically a mini CEO of a product, so not of the whole company, but you need to understand the things around how the product is licensed, how the margin structure works. You know, there is a lot of competitors out there, uh, so you follow them, you monitor like uh what they do, what what is their go-to-market. So uh you do a little bit of everything. Of course, you understand the product itself the best, so you know what the functionalities are, what benefits are, but you touch all of those other areas. And I would say that that gave me one of the advantages when I was applying to this role that uh uh for me the uptake was not as big as uh maybe for a purely sales-driven person to understand all the technical stuff. Because again, in cybersecurity, the product is a very significant part of it. Because again, even it's not a product, it's technically a service, because the product itself you cannot just install it, it won't run if it's not properly updated, it's subscription technically, so it's uh yeah, it's very important part, but I always had my hands in all the other areas, so it was a faster uptaker for me when I started, I would say. Still a lot of money, but uh I hopefully I manage it quite well.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

I think that's such a such an important perspective to share, and and I think that's also an important note to anybody now in in commercial roles, like really do also take the time to deeply understand your product because um I I think also when it comes to deep differentiation, and this is just my my personal opinion, like you can find things within how a product is is developed, designed, engineered that you can then actually use in your conversations that can give you an edge around

Product Management As Commercial Edge

SPEAKER_01 5:30

uh over a commercially minded person who might not understand kind of the deep benefits and the the legacy of a of a certain solution. Um so yeah, even if you are a veteran commercial leader, dive into the products, you know, understand what makes a solution tick and how it differentiates itself on a product level. I think it's uh it's great advice. I'd like to touch a little bit around about how you uh build your role from a strategic advisory perspective. So I speak to a lot of leaders inside large organizations who are navigating these matrix structures that you mentioned, and they constantly tell me that influence basically matters as much as authority. Your role obviously has a strong strategic advisor component, which I think is incredibly important to drive change at scale. But how do you actually drive transformation across an organization the size of ESET, like building alignment across teams throughout the business?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

You actually said it. It's uh about uh relationships uh in the first place because uh technically I cannot order anyone, I have just two direct reports, so that I can tell them what to do, but everybody else, I need to I need to get their buy-in. You know, like you the people will only drive change if they are convinced that the change is for their benefit. And uh, of course, uh ESOD exists for almost four decades. We will have our 40th anniversary of the first technology next year, and uh therefore you can imagine that the company needed to do a lot of changes recently to actually adopt, you know, to transform. Uh initially, just the pure product business, now it's a SaaS uh-driven company with a big services portfolio, and that actually introduced a lot of changes. And uh people are in general resistant to change. That's uh in our human spirit, you know, like oh, but everything is working, we are still growing, why we should do all of those changes. And uh I would say it's not about what do you say, it's also about how you say it and how confident you look saying it, you know, like it's uh I'm all uh when I I spend a year in the US and I always said that uh, you know, like when you see the American military videos when they want to join you the army, and uh they pretty much I realize that what they need, they need three things. They need a good training, they need a good weapon, but they need a strong belief for the case. And I would say it's the same in commercial business, you know, like to me it's the product, and then they need the goal, but they need the belief that uh the weapon is right to achieve the goal. So the product fits uh the market where it goes. And uh so transferring the belief in form of uh energy, in the form of uh data-driven uh presentations, which clearly showcase the opportunity, that was for me the key to success. You know, like it's uh it it's pretty much been a lot of presentations and convincing. And of course, when the results eventually come, uh even the ones that initially don't believe, they will start believing as soon as they see that it's actually working. So it's you you need to get the I would say first 10% of the another enthusiast that will help you cascade the change uh through the organization. So you need to pick the ones that uh you know you can get on board, and then they will pick another 10, another 10, and then it cascades down the whole organization.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, it's like a really positive network effect that you then uh that you then create uh to have evangelists within the organization. But I like listening to what you were saying, there's there's another interesting point that I see happen a lot myself as a marketing leader, and that is the the alignment of the story is is such an underutilized part of how we talk. And and that's about how do you create one narrative that everybody shares and carries? And if you keep on hearing the same thing, you're going to start to believe it more as well, right? If everybody uses a different narrative, a different approach, it's going to be very difficult to say what is ESET, what is our solution suite, what do we offer? If if one person says X and the other person says Y, they could mean it genuinely, but you're not going to get that broad, kind of carried message across the organization. And I think that's another really, really important point for organizations is engage with everyone across the matrix organization to find out what the core of your solution set is and how to tell that story in a singular way. I I I think you see that in most like really strong brands and really strong organizations. If you ask someone what does your company do, they'll all say the same thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yes, yeah. And it's and it's a very challenging thing to do actually to maintain the level of engagement, and especially when you do these changes to get it updated. You know, I'm a I'm a I have a little bit of OCD myself, and uh, for example, the company was changing the tagline. And it's funny that even a couple of years after you still find someone using the old tagline. It's uh uh because you know, the internet is full of it, and especially now in the uh uh in the time of the AI, when we get candidates, it's sometimes funny that candidates try to impress you that uh they will do a branding content for their presentation, but the the AI will simply use the old version of the branding. And then it's like, ah, I see it, I see it, I'm very sorry, I see it. Yeah, so it's it's a challenge, it can be done, but it requires decent effort, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, exactly. Decent decent effort and constant repetition, I think, is also a huge part of it. But uh speaking about the transition to the AI era, uh, as opposed to the the branding element of that, I wanted to talk a little bit about how ESET is using AI because you just mentioned that ESET's going to be celebrating its 40-year anniversary next year, which is incredible.

Influencing Change Without Authority

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Congratulations. I mean, I think uh a lot of cybersecurity companies I speak to, they they basically started yesterday, right? So it's a pretty big difference. And obviously, you've been using machine learning in detection for for years and years, far become before AI became the word in every company tagline. I'm curious, how do you make sure that that story lands with partners and customers in a way that reflects your history and your pedigree of what you've actually built over such a long period of time?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

And that's a that's a very difficult task because we are a company founded by engineers, driven by engineers. Uh the pretty much uh the original founders were all engineers, the CEO is an engineer. So they always looked at an engineering problem to fix, you know, like it's uh let's say in good old days uh when it was just malware distributed on diskettes and uh dial up internet, etc. It started to scale, and we needed to find a way how to scale faster than the thread landscape. And uh so the clever engineers started to look at uh some initial machine learning models, like okay, but what we can do? Can we do some uh feature extraction? Can we do a common commonality analysis in the sample of code? And they started to slowly incorporate it into the product. They did not tell anyone because they thought that no one would actually care, because nobody nobody will be able to understand. The product was working, it was at that time pretty much the best AV on the planet because all the other competitors had huge virus signature updates, but ISEC was able to do just a few a day and it worked, it was very light, and it was because somebody had a clever idea to leverage technology which at that time did not even have a name. And uh then, pretty much I would say in last 20, but predominantly in last decade, cybersecurity started to be a very attractive investment uh area. So a lot of external funding started to come in, a lot of new companies started to penetrate the market, because the truth is that uh the market was existing for quite some time. There were, you know, the behemoths like Simanteg or McGee here, pretty much dominating the market, but nobody was happy with their products. So, and if there is a big market where clients are unhappy, that means there is a potential for disruption. So a lot of new companies came in and they started to distinguish themselves by claiming they are next generation. And uh and then they started to leverage all of those uh acronyms, you know, like it's uh it's DAI, it's whatever, and it pretty much was still the old tech uh that we've been using for quite some time, but they invested a lot of external funding to actually make this message stand. And I remember having a lot of discussions with uh clients that uh and Michal, are you a next gen AV? I said we technically have all the uh functionalities that next-gen AV does. So, yes, we are an X-Gen AV, but it's not written anywhere on a red web page. And if you don't say you are an X-Gen AV, technically you are not. So, and then we realized like it's it's you know, it's not about what's under the surface, but it's what the eye can see and ear can hear. So we needed to actually uh adopt this modern language, and uh especially now in the last couple of years with the total explosion of AI. You know, it won't be a presentation this year that would not include AI word at least twice, one as an opportunity and one as a threat, especially in cybersecurity. So we are now uh leveraging it a lot, uh, but we don't want to overshoot it. So, you know, like many vendors they included.ai in their name or their web page or everything is named AI. Like it's we still keep the company branding, the product branding. We have a lot of AI-related features that uh we will be rolling out, so we are investing a lot. We see a big opportunity in both leveraging AI for uh protecting our customers, but also protecting the AI because uh everybody's using it either intentionally or unintentionally, and it creates security risk. So there is a certain movement within the company around the AI communication. We just had our EC World conference a couple of weeks ago in Berlin. A lot of AI talks, big investment uh for a company of our size that uh we want to build our own uh foundational models uh for cybersecurity analysis. Uh, because you know it's uh you you said the magic word, it's trust, and that's the very important uh thing in cybersecurity. Uh, we cannot uh risk it. So we want to keep it safe because AI can do a lot of good, but also a lot of harm if it's not used the right way. And uh sharing all the secrets with models controlled by third parties is a big supply chain risk for a company of our likehood.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Well, especially if those models can suddenly be turned off without any notice. So uh yeah, no, I I totally agree. And I I I think there's uh uh almost an interesting paradox there that humility uh doesn't translate well into into branding. And and and even if you're incredibly, incredibly good at something and you've you've been applying machine learning models for years, that if you don't yell loud enough, uh uh that that will kind of fall by the wayside. And I I've used this example before, but it reminds me so much of growing up in the SAS era, right? Where at one moment, I think around 2013, 2014, everybody started saying that they were SaaS, uh, but they actually just had like a server running in a basement somewhere with the Wi-Fi connection. But but you could and I felt almost bad saying, like, oh yeah, but you need to join that wave, you need to move forward. And and your product can be fantastic, but you still need to use that language. And I think that's a tricky balance sometimes for organizations to bring heritage.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

If you want to be honest to your inner yourself or be successful on the market, sometimes it's like an agreement with a devil, you know. It's uh I remember again once, especially in the United States, you know, like state is a different beast. The the way how they talk, and I remember meeting a partner, it was a big MSP partner that we unfortunately lost to a competitor, one of those next gens. And we had a meeting with them. They were at that time still using us, and he said, you know, perception is everything. If you don't say you are the greatest, nobody will think you are. You know, you need to be confident, you need to actually uh uh make the claim. Of course, you need to fulfill the claim, but if you fulfill the claim and not make the claim, nobody will think of you because they will not even dare to try. You know, like a lot of startups, they come to big trade shows like RSA, they invest a huge amount of money into a booth, they will be there just once because next year their funding will run out and they will disappear. But they they their belief is when you showcase you are strong and powerful, the people will believe that the product is equally good because otherwise you won't have the funding to actually go to the trade show. So it's uh and it was completely opposite with us, you know. Like we have uh almost 800 million ARR, almost 100 million profits, and we've been going to those trade shows with like a tiny boob at the edge of the floor. And uh and people were like asking, and what are you guys? Like, are you some kind of a startup? Uh what's

AI Heritage Versus Market Hype

SPEAKER_00 18:30

your funding? And we were like, so you know, it's perception is very, very, very important.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yeah, yeah, I I totally understand. There is one benefit though for a company like ESET that actually does have that heritage and does have the skills to actually uh do what they say they can do, that the perception does actually match the reality. So that's that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

And that's how the trust is earned. Because there is this very common saying in the IT world, like don't fix if it's not broken. And if you are able to bring in a product that works and it's uh actually fulfills its pro promise, the stickiness is very high, you know, like and every company loves ARR these days, and uh yeah, it's uh if the product works uh and client is happy with it, that's pretty much the best testimony of uh a company that you can get.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think that a word has come up multiple times now in this conversation, and that's trust. I I want to take a little bit of a different angle. I want to talk about the data sovereignty. I'm curious from your perspective, how much that conversation has changed in Europe? Because to me, it feels like it's moved almost from like a compliance checkbox to an actual buying criteria for a lot of customers. Uh and how real is that as a channel differentiator right now? Does it does it change how partners position ESET and how customers ultimately decide?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yes. Uh especially in Europe. Like it's uh it stands substantially. So, you know, like and it's again, it's advantageous that was a disadvantage that became advantage again because uh historically uh we had a large customer base that was running on-prem software, you know, like they installed our management console in their own data center or a physical server in the basement, as you said. Uh guy wanted SaaS. So when you were doing SaaS, you were likely partnering with vendors like Azure, AWS, etc. Uh, which we still uh it works for majority. Now the challenge is is Microsoft or AWS sovereign? And you know, like they they claim they are, they are building data centers in almost every country, but you know, under certain legislation, it's still an American-operated entity, so there can be an influence. So uh but if you are able to run in an agnostic data center, it gives you credibility. But it's not just about when your SaaS is running, it's also how the data that you processed, where it's located, where it's processed, who can access it, how your services are delivered. So especially this part, you know, like it's customers kind of understand that okay, uh, most of their workloads are uh inevitably running in Azure because or AWS, because if you use pretty much all the big tech, you know, Salesforce, Workday, all of those applications, they are there. So that's kind of okay, it's necessary evil. They expect that nobody will dare to turn off Azure, because if they do, they will have much serial problems than just this, let's say this way. But uh especially the data access criteria, uh, that started to be a very relevant discussion. And that's our advantage being uh European, because pretty much all of our data processing uh happens here in Europe, you know, like all the malware analysis centers, all the AI models, uh all the locations where the actual replication of uh samples happen, and also the way how our MDR is delivered, it's within SOCs located in European countries. For US, yes, we have a SOG in the US. It won't be uh fair to uh claim as. Otherwise, but those are the people only accessing the data of American clients. But for Europe, it's pretty much all done here. So it's uh and that's a very big talking point, especially now, because as you said, it's became listed as a criterion. Interestingly, the I would say that the term sovereignty is a little bit overused sometimes that people just say, is your solution sovereign? But they don't necessarily uh know how to define it. So the conversation is usually two-way, you know, like you ask them the right set of questions and then you narrow it down. Uh but usually you come to a conclusion. But I do agree, it's changed a lot. And uh for us as European-owned and 100% European-originated vendor, it brings a big advantage.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yeah, no, I I totally understand. And I I think it's also something that I mean, it it's buzzing, right? It's buzzing on the news, it's buzzing within companies I speak to, and being able to offer that basically from the start uh seems seems like a really important differentiator. And it's always interesting to see how things like that they don't become an issue until they become an issue, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

The AI sovereignty is also a relevant part. Like, okay, where is the model running? Who has access to the model? Is it a third-party model that you just leverage, or is it your own? We see also the big opportunities in this area, like really have our own models. Because the amount of data cybersecurity companies are able to analyze is significant. Uh, AI can do a lot of uh good, but uh also you need to be careful what AI it is, how controlled, how governed it is, because otherwise it creates a big supply chain risk, which we cannot risk to not lose the trust. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Yeah, I totally understand. This triggered a thought in my mind, just on a more product level perspective, which I'm sure you love to talk about. And that's that if you look at the um the costs and benefits of uh internal AI or home-built AI versus existing AI models, I wonder if there's conversations going on now with with potential customers about obviously the value of using mainstream AI models is that they're massive and they have huge amounts of data and they're they're they're proven, so to speak. Uh, but then on the other side, obviously, having a home-built AI means you have far more control on the guardrails, you have far more control on security, where data goes. Is that a discussion you're having as well? Like the benefits and and and challenges of internal versus external?

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah, but it's uh even internally, you know, like it's uh there is a whole AI unit that uh takes care of all of this. And uh it's about what you do with what AI, you know, like it's if it's not if it's uh uh generic thing that uh you you uh that does not process any customer sensitive data, it's more like you know, anything from product design, writing some educational content, whatever, you can easily leverage all the publicly available models. But when you are talking about low-level level data processing, thread incident response or the agent tick sock as uh uh is the term uh that we want to keep in-house because uh uh you know that's a very it's pretty much all the low-level events that are happening in the organization, you know, and when you which you are processing within your XDR platform. And uh, if you want to leverage AI, it needs to be AI which is as trustworthy as your own employees from this point of view. And uh, we keep pride in having a long-term employees that uh we know, you know, it's uh there are a lot of those uh uh stories about uh companies remotely hiring North Koreans into their organizations, uh, you know, because of them faking their identity, etc. No, we don't do that. We actually still invite people physically to the interview uh whenever we can. And uh it's the same with AI. We want to know who the AI is, how the AI works. So with our own AI. We have a long-lasting expertise in researching and building, so that's our advantage, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah, no, that that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

It's a big discussion, like when to use also, you know, tokens, credits, uh, the cost, managing the cost of AI is also a big, big, big topic. So when you run it internally, you know, you just need to make the upfront investment into a very powerful hardware and training the model, but then you have it under control. When it's a subscription-based, it's impredictable. You know, those companies will eventually need to start making money. As of now, they are burning them like crazy because they need to, but eventually, you know, somebody will start asking, okay, where is your rule of 40? You know, like you are no longer growing a thousand percent a year. So, how's your profit margin looking? So they will need to start increasing prices, setting uh fair usage policies, and that can very easily break business models of so many companies that are leveraging on this. Uh, so you know, you want to be on the safe side if it's a mainstream component of your business.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yeah. Well, I mean, you you see the same thing in certain consumer uh tech companies as well, that they they indeed they're they're priced a certain way because they have a bunch of venture

Data And AI Sovereignty In Europe

SPEAKER_01 27:00

capital money and they can burn through cash. But at one moment, indeed, that profit margin becomes more important, and then they have to increase prices to a point where consumers are like, Wait, well, that's not worth it.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

But the implications obviously for uh B2B are far more impactful, where changing that commercial model could mean that you obliterate your own profit margins as well, right? So yeah, I I think it's a really smart move. I agree that the the complexity obviously up front is is far higher because it's uh it almost seems like really easy to just implement existing AI models to use that power and to offset that to someone else, right? It's almost just a service. But yeah, I think in the long run this will make a lot of difference, especially seeing the complexities, uh geopolitical complexities, uh tech complexities, cost complexities arising. I have one more question for you, which is uh you mentioned that your MSPs are almost like your your internal customers as well. And and I see that a lot, right? That within a partner ecosystem, they're your customer, but they're your channel at the same time. Um, and it really creates a different dynamic than a pure reseller relationship. So I'm curious, how do you design a partner program that supports both those realities? So supporting them as a customer, but then also enabling them as a delivery vehicle, especially in this kind of complex transitional phase that we're all in. Easy question.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's uh like you said, uh the question is like how do you design that partner program? I would say this way you keep changing it constantly, how the reality is evolving, you know, like it's uh transactional notion, you know, the standard margin profiles, etc. Versus in MSP, it's more like volume-based commitments, and eventually you want to merge them because you realize that uh pretty much, oh again, that's how I see it. I might be wrong, but more and more I'm convinced it's true that uh there are hybrids. Most of them are hybrids from the point of view that they have an MSP part of a business, so they have clients which they deliver uh as a service, and to some they just resell and opportunistically offer one-time services for implementation, but they just don't do it on a managed contract level. So you need to have uh both technical and commercial conditions that are enabling both and not creating too much burden uh from the operational standpoint. So, you know, there is always a discussion like okay, partner portals, marketplaces, how easy it is to do the transaction. And you have a different partner profile, you know, you have the ones that you service completely. So there is just the person that does it for you because we love you. Uh, you are too big for us, so we give you this extra service. There is Longtail, uh, which does it on their own through an intuitive marketplace, uh, very simple with predictable pricing. So uh, and it's changing constantly, you know, like uh uh their preferences, uh preferences are changing, like uh, and also they are totally inconsistent among uh geographies, you know. Like it's uh, for example, again in the US they love to talk, they love to call. In Europe, no, no, no, no. I I just want to do it, just give me an intuitive UI. Now AI comes to play. So it's uh you know, like people start to like to chat, but not with a human, but with a chatbot which does them all of the magic. So I would say it this way like how do you design? You listen to the ones you work with carefully, you balance, you all you never can satisfy everyone, but uh you know, it's a constant game of uh chess to actually do a uh to be one step ahead compared to the others, but you need to be flexible. Yet the foundational principles of the partner relationship should stay because you know, like it's that they you know for partners and especially for MSPs. Uh I'm like what I see, MSPs are much more loyal because usually to be a true MSP and a good MSP, you need to buy in on a technology because you ideally become good when you standardize. So you have one cybersecurity for endpoint, you have one network, and you become an expert on it, and you make sure that all of the tech pieces that you actually leverage uh works well together. So you get a complete buy-in. So you need to make sure that the technology is rock solid and works and does not change and does not break up because that's the number one. Like if you break it up, your MSPs will lose trust in you. Uh, then the second part is predictable margins, you know, like it's uh and predictable roadmaps. They don't buy for your uh today's self. They ask you, okay, where are you heading? Where you will be in a couple of years. Because again, it's a big investment for them to adopt your technology. And most of them they look forward, so they might have a vision where they want to become, how big they will be. Are they gonna scale? Do they want to adopt more services? So you need to show them a vision, like where are you moving? Because you know, if your visions are aligned, uh it's a successful relationship in the long term. And uh last but not least, of course, the commercials. You need to have some track record of your commercials being reasonably good. Of course, there might be some changes from time to time, but you always need to do them in a way that uh you keep the balance, you know. Like it's uh even we were forced to do some changes with regards to the pricing structures, you know, like it's uh I said was a company, even the external analyst told us that you have not touched your prices for decades. So uh when you actually do it, then everybody's but then when you actually explain why and uh all

Build AI Or Buy AI

SPEAKER_00 32:40

the changes, they understand. If you, of course, don't double them, but we never did that. But uh, you know, it needs to be predictable. So you know what to expect in the long term, product-wise, commercial-wise, relationship-wise, you need to deliver good support. And those are all the bits and pieces that uh uh establish a successful partner program. But as I said, it's never finished, it needs to keep evolving.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

So the the four things I can take away from what you just mentioned, I think these are all great points. Listen, continuously evolve, communicate a strong vision, and have strong commercials.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Did I summarize that correctly? Very good, very good. It's uh you know, fair licensing, pricing model, fair amount of flexibility. Uh they need to feel that uh it's not, you know, like MSV business is uh business which can be very volatile, you know, like a client goes out of business, they stop paying. So you need to be sharing the risk with them. So contractual commitment, don't force them, for example. Like it's give them the flexibility. When the client stops paying, you can stop paying. We understand it. Don't penalize, give them easy API because they love to automate so they can plug in, you know, like the the best MSPs I've met, they barely even used the tech we gave them, they just integrated their own tech to our tech via APIs, and they had it nicely automated because that was their added value. Uh so yeah, give them listen to them, give them what they need, what they want, not everything, but uh you need to have the you know the sense like who's talking real stuff, who's talking just some fancy dreams that they might not even want. But the more you listen, the more you engage, the more partners you spend your time with, uh the better you become at filtering this, you know, like it's uh it's about relationship in the end. I I have to say that I uh that's the part of my job that I love the most is actually to meeting the practitioners, to meeting the people that actually do the stuff. Because it's uh you learn a lot. And uh if you can transfer those learnings into your day-to-day operations, and then you eventually see the outcomes of it, and you get that ah, you did this change and it was a good one. And and uh you then come a couple of years back when you had a discussion very intensive that we should do this change, and no, no, no, no, no, and now you see that it's actually working, you know, that gives you motivation and uh energy to actually continue forward. So it's uh yeah, that's uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

No, I I love it so much, and I I I think um I feel that myself having these these conversations with with people like you is like having these conversations gives insights that you didn't expect, or they can support assumptions that you were already making. So indeed, building those relationships, having those conversations is is so critical. Honestly, I feel like I could talk to you about this for hours, but uh let's not do that. I want to be respectful of your your time as well. You've never you've mentioned some really, really interesting points in this conversation, but I wanted to ask to wrap this up, do you have any final insights, tips, or tricks that you'd like to share with the audience?

SPEAKER_00 35:48

First of all, don't be oblivious

Partner Programs For MSP Hybrids

SPEAKER_00 35:50

of uh what's happening around. So it's uh you need to look outside, you need to carefully uh see the network. Uh, you know, like it's uh I'm always saying that uh I'm too old to be on uh TikTok, I'm uh too young to be on uh I don't know what, but I use LinkedIn a lot and I follow. I follow a lot of uh competitors, I follow a lot of uh meaningful people, and that's usually my bedtime routine, you know. Like I checked in for LinkedIn, what's happening? Because you need to know, you know? So that's the first one. Don't be oblivious to what's happening around because many companies become very self-centric, they just care about themselves, they live in their little universe, but the ecosystem is changing so quickly that uh you can easily miss uh the trend. So that will be number one. Then number two, I said it listen, listen, you know, like uh especially in a business which is uh channel driven, the channel partner is the best source of feedback for you. It's actually the source of feedback that you can relatively easily access because you already have the established relationship. So engage with them, uh, keep them engaged, show up. That's a very important part, you know. Like the it's like with normal relationships, you know. If you don't keep them by uh keep them alive by reaching out and not just reaching out, hey, how are you? but also uh giving them meaningful insights and keeping them engaged, they are gonna fade out. So that would be a second one, third one, but that's more a personal one, work-life balance, you know, like it's uh it is a I would say tremendous industry, a lot of energy in it, but you know, there are people that feed you energy, there are people that drain your energy, find a balance. You know, you see a lot of Lango, it's for me, it's uh very good to find my inner balance, you know. Like after a difficult day, it's

Final Three Pieces Of Advice

SPEAKER_00 37:40

the best thing you can do. You can sit quietly, build something, you immediately see the result. So uh that would be number three. It's I think that I will just keep the three.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

It's uh that is a nice lists of three always work online, right? No, I I I really appreciate that. I think these are all uh words to live by. I want to thank you incredibly for for sharing your thoughts and and taking the time to speak with me. And for you, dear listeners, thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you, Michal. Thank you.