MSP Mastery: Ctrl-Alt-Deliver
Welcome to Ctrl-Alt-Deliver: MSP Mastery — the podcast for IT leaders, MSP owners, and service delivery professionals who want to elevate performance, improve processes, and stay ahead in the fast-changing managed services landscape.
MSP Mastery: Ctrl-Alt-Deliver
Tas Gray on Building, Productising, and Selling an MSP Side Hustle
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Welcome to MSP Mastery: Ctrl-Alt-Deliver Podcast, the podcast for MSP owners and leaders who want to build a better MSP; one that actually works for them.
I am Jeni Clift, joined by my husband and long time business partner, Nick Clift. Together, we unpack what is really working in thriving MSPs, including insights from the trusted partners who support them.
In this episode, we are joined by Tas Gray, founder of Axiom IT and the creator of MSP Magic. With decades of experience in software development and managed services, Tas has successfully navigated the journey many MSP owners dream of: identifying a gap in the market, building a product to solve it, and achieving a successful exit.
What makes Tas’s story particularly relevant for MSP owners is his candid reflection on the reality of the side hustle. We explore the strategic decisions behind starting a separate venture, the tipping point where an internal tool becomes a marketable product, and the personal toll of running a service business and a SaaS company simultaneously.
Here is what we covered together:
✅ Identifying the Gap: How the release of Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Intune created a greenfields opportunity for multi tenant management.
✅ Internal Tool to Global Product: Why Tas decided to capitalise on his internal solutions to create a product for the entire industry rather than keeping innovations to himself.
✅ The Reality of Competition: How to stay focused when open source and free alternatives enter your market and light a fire under your development.
✅ Strategic Funding and Risk: Why separating the side hustle from the MSP financially was a critical move to protect both businesses.
✅ The Acquisition Journey: The process of selling to Hornet Security and how to assess a buyer’s culture to ensure a successful exit.
✅ The Personal Cost of Hustle: An honest look at the chronic stress and cortisol levels that come with dual leadership, and why decompression is vital.
✅ Lessons in Commitment: Why Tas believes that to truly succeed in a new venture, you must eventually move it from a side hustle to the main game.
✅ The Identity Shift: Navigating the emotional transition of selling your "baby" and finding purpose after a major business exit.
We created this podcast to share the real conversations and lessons we wish we had more of while running our own MSP; practical insights from people who understand the challenges of this industry.
For more about Tas and Axiom IT visit: axiomit.com.au
Tas Gray LinkedIn Page: linkedin.com/in/tasgray
👉 Read more episode notes here: mspmastery.blog
👉 Listen on YouTube: youtube.com/@MSPMastery
🎧 Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4gftErFYrR8F80kthgvFbs
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/msp-mastery-ctrl-alt-deliver/id1828105793
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Microsoft eventually released the business premium SKU and and the ability to join, and that that basically changed everything. So at that point in time, I you know, I was quite excited because it meant that we could deliver a lot more value to the customers.
SPEAKER_02We talked about AI, and we've had a few guests on the podcaster that kind of into AI and guys that I know that have spent six, nine months building AI solutions, and all of a sudden one of the frontier models brings out a skill and it's like their whole product suite's gone.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to MSP Mastery, the podcast for MSP owners and leaders who want to build a better MSP, one that actually works for them. I'm Jenny Clift, and alongside my longtime business and life partner Nick, we unpack what's really working in thriving MSPs, including insights from the trusted partners who support them. With 60 plus years of combined experience, we've seen it all from the first break fix calls to the sophisticated MSP tools of today. We've been early adopters of the tech and the strategies that shifted our industry toward recurring revenue and long-term success. Our goal with this podcast is to share the real stories and hard-won lessons that inspire and add genuine value to our industry, helping you build a business that is both profitable and fulfilling. This is MSP Mastery. Here's Nick, myself, and today's special guest. We're absolutely delighted to welcome back a familiar face to MSP Mastery today, Taz Gray. Backed by popular demand, Taz is returning to the show after his first appearance back in episode 31. Taz is the founder of Axiom IT and has held a lifelong passion for technology, having dedicated his entire career to the IT industry. With formal qualifications in programming, he's well known for his dedication to automating business processes and building the smart systems that allow an MSP to thrive without constant manual intervention. Today, Taz joins us to discuss a fascinating topic and something that Nick and I talked about for years and never really got there was building and selling a side hustle. We will be exploring his journey of creating an additional venture alongside his core business and the lessons learned throughout the eventual sale and exit process. Taz, welcome back to MSP Mastery.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Jenny and Nick. Nice to be here again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good to see you, Taz. Can be an interesting story this one. Uh well, I hope so. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It's gonna be fantastic.
SPEAKER_02It it is uh it's interesting because yeah, in the the modern world we're in today, it's all the talk is about automation and bits and pieces. And yeah, you got into this years ago when you first got into your MSP. I imagine you're thinking, why are we doing all this stuff manually? So I'm really interested to hear the story.
SPEAKER_03Certainly in fashion now, but uh that wasn't always the case.
SPEAKER_01So okay, as always, let's start off the episode with sharing your personal and professional best. Now we're not going to go the last six months for your personal particularly, because we saw you recently here in Bali. So share a bit about our little journey, our little adventure.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right. Well, I I guess no one would know this, but I I live in Jakarta and Jakarta's not too far from Bali, obviously. So I think it was was it Easter weekend?
SPEAKER_01Easter, yeah. April, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we headed over to Bali to meet up with you guys with the family and headed up to the hills, Cinnamon. Yeah, it was a very enjoyable weekend, at least from my perspective, hopefully, hopefully for you too as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I only broke my scooter once, but you know, I hit a massive pothole, nearly smashed the front wheel and rear number plate fell off. But you know, other than that, no problem.
SPEAKER_01Nearly threw me off twice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. There were some near misses. But look, I did for me it was great. I'd uh jumping on the scooter and uh you know, riding through through the chaos that is Bali and then or all the or the or the tourist spots in Bali at least, and then out of the city and up in the mountains. That was yeah, sort of something I won't forget for a long time. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_01Nice. And a professional best.
SPEAKER_03I guess there's been a bit of change on the professional front for us. We we've had a had a bit of a shifted mindset this year and really focused on growth, which is something that we haven't always prioritized in the past, at least not in the MSP. And so, yeah, in line with that, uh we've hired our first full-time dedicated salesperson, which is going well so far. So yeah, that's that's it's really shifted the momentum a little bit. And yeah, so I'd say that that would have to be it.
SPEAKER_01Nice. It's always a bit of a journey going down that uh that path for the first time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, uh, yeah. Maybe it's not first time. It's first time in a long time anyway, so hasn't worked out well in the past for us. So this time it's looking like it's it's gonna be different.
SPEAKER_01Good to hear. Good to hear. Taz, I'll as you've been with us before, I won't get you to go into your full history, but just a brief your story, how you ended up in an MSP.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure. I think as you mentioned in in the introduction, my my background is in software development and spent somewhere around five, ten years doing that professionally as a job. And then pivoted out of that into what's now Axiom IT and my own business. So that was probably 13 years ago now, roughly. I think stop sort of stopped counting a little bit. But yeah, so so yeah, essentially background in software and then and then into the MSP game and as well as a few other bits and pieces, which we'll talk about today on you know on the side.
SPEAKER_01Nice. So I'll get you to start at the beginning. So we're talking today about the side hustle that you built, and I'm guessing, and I'll get you to take it through something a tool that you were using in your own business, uh, MSP Magic. So tell us about it. What was it? How did it come about? You know, it was always intended to be a separate venture. How did it all come about?
SPEAKER_03Sure. So I guess that the story for for MSP Magic really begins maybe 2018, 2019, I can't remember exactly when, but there was what I would describe as the second wave of of Microsoft Cloud, where you know we we shifted from the first wave, which was basically getting the exchange and file server workloads up into the cloud, into what was then called Office 365. Yeah, so that so that second wave really was when when the ability to Azure AD join Windows Machines came about and that Microsoft released a new SKU, which was the Microsoft 365 business premium SKU, which included the additional licensing that you needed to take advantage of all of that functionality. And then, of course, the other component of that, which which was the real game changer, I suppose, was Intune. And what Intune allowed us to do was to push policies onto endpoints in a way that we'd previously done with group policy.
SPEAKER_02Yep. The old server-based AD and group policy, which is where I I spent all my time, and we we developed quite sophisticated processes for rolling out machines and auto deployment and basically just F12 on the keyboard, pixie boot, the whole everything happened. Machine got joined to the domain, auto named, put in the OU software deployed, bang. But all that changed with the whole M365 part, and I gave up and walked away and got scared.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, you know, uh from my perspective, we'd never invested too heavily in the approach that you just described there, Nick, because uh I could see that that was going to fade away and that the cloud approach was definitely gonna take over. But we did have this transitional period where the cloud technology in Intune wasn't quite up to the task, and more and more businesses were wanting to go to the cloud and not have on-premis domain controllers. So for a year or two there, it was we're kind of stuck in limbo. And anyway, Microsoft eventually released the business premium SKU and the ability to join, and that basically changed everything. So at that point in time, I you know, I was quite excited because it meant that we could deliver a lot more value to the customers, and you know, they didn't have to go through that exercise of buying the hardware and the the on-prem server and all the rest of it, that were the things that didn't really align with our philosophy of being a cloud-first MSP. So moving forward from there, I was thinking to myself, you know, that this someone's gonna have to come out with some tooling to support this new technology. And, you know, in my mind, it was an obvious thing that the vendors in the space, you know, the other RMM, dato RMM, and and so on, to me, it just seemed like that that was there gonna be their re knit and that they would build some tools to support all of this. But but what what transpired in say the next year or two thereafter was was just basically nothing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it never happened, did it? It was crazy, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I it's at some point I thought, well, if if they're not gonna do this, then then you know someone someone will someone else will, and that that might as well be me, right? Which which might may, you know, in hindsight, might have been a little bit uh over over ambitious and as somewhat naive, but you know, the uh here we are. Yeah, the enthusiasm was there.
SPEAKER_02So I don't think so, Taz, because I think back to our early days, like we first started our support, IT support business back in 1996, and you know, there was no RMMs, there was no PSAs. Hell, we didn't even have broadband internet, it was actually dial-up. And we wrote our own PSA twice. The first one used floppy disks that the guys did their timesheets on, and they'd bring the floppy disks back to the office and hand them to the one of the girls in the office, and they would upload them and build a database in Access, which would generate reports and invoicing for clients. Then we did build another one in Lotus Notes, and then we eventually found the PSA softwares, and we ended up going down the auto-task path. So yeah, I think lots of people have invested in building bits of software to solve a problem in their own business, but no one's actually turned that into a commercial product, and then ultimately something they could sell. So that's that's the really cool thing that you you ultimately achieved, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, I guess coming back to the question for us as we went down that road of bringing more and more clients and on board and and joining them to the entre directory or the Azure AD at the time, you know, it we were basically building out policies that would needed to be applied to every every client. And that policy set was evolving at you know, as our, I guess, capability grew, but also as the capability of the platform grew, which which in it you know at that point in time was was happening quite rapidly. So what we did internally was we leveraging our capabilities or our scripting and programming is that we built a whole series of PowerShell scripts that could uh interface via via the PowerShell modules Microsoft made available, as well as the Graph API and things like that, so that basically when we brought a new client on board, we had a script that we could run essentially and get us from nothing to uh a baseline configuration, you know, in a much shorter amount of time than what it would have taken if we would have got log into every portal and and manually configure things by hand. So so I guess that that was where we started internally with that, as well as creating the ability for us to you know, say push a new policy into every tenant or to to modify one into every tenant. And and and really what we did is we at some point we we decided that you know if we were gonna build a product that we we had a good foundation in in what we were doing internally, but obviously we couldn't go out and sell PowerShell scripts, no one would likely buy that. Instead, what we needed to do was build sort of a graphical front end to wrap around that functionality.
SPEAKER_02And was it is that uh from a technical point of view, were you on-prem server hosted? No, of course not, because you're cloud first. It obviously would be an Azure-based product, I imagine.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we were the predominantly running Azure services in order to do that, but short answer is cloud-based. It was a cloud-based solution for a cloud-based problem.
SPEAKER_02And the funny thing today is like even today, like 2026, I still think Microsoft doesn't have multi-tenant at anything, does it? It still treats each client's tenant as a separate entity.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and look, I don't think that'll ever change. I mean, Lighthouse is does some things, but you know, that back in the time when we were looking at this problem, there was really nothing. Uh Lighthouse didn't exist, CIPP didn't exist, and you know, Enforcer certainly wasn't a thing either. So yeah, it was very much a you know, it was a greenfield's opportunity, I suppose. And just to go back to the question, you know, was it intended to be a separate venture? Absolutely. We registered another business, we brought in an additional partner into the equation as well. And yeah, you know, it started day one as its own thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I think a lot of the these sort of tools that have come through the industry and have ended up a marketable product have been uh an internal tool that then at some point you think, oh, you know, I can sell this. But interesting that you started this with the intention of a tool for the industry. So take us through the process of because I'm presuming here that you uh used it internally till it got to a point that you could then take it externally. So what was that sort of tipping point of you know, I we can start to promote this now?
SPEAKER_03I don't I don't know if it quite happened like that. So what had happened is we'd built enough capability internally, but it it got to a I guess we'd we'd done all the easy bits and to to go to that next stage was gonna require quite a bit of investment, probably like development-wise and and in turn financially. So I guess the thinking was if we're gonna do that, let's let's not just do this for us, because we'd done that many times. We we've solved a lot of problems and and just kept it to ourselves. And yeah, I felt like I'd I'd potentially missed a few opportunities around cloud early on by doing that. So this time around, I thought, look, let's not do that. Let's if we're gonna go to the go to the effort of doing this, let's do it in a generalized way that we can productize and then and go to market with.
SPEAKER_02So from day one, it was yeah, interesting because it was literally a concept. So you were developing the product in a separate entity that you ultimately used in your own MSP as well, and at the same time, that was ready to market and bring external clients on pretty much straight away.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'd I'd phrase it a little bit different differently by saying that we we developed a solution to a problem internally, which we then decided to turn into a product that we could sell to the market.
SPEAKER_02Yep, perfect.
SPEAKER_01So, how did you market it? Like where where was your market? How do you get this tool that you've developed internally that, as you said, you've you know, there's a problem, you've found a solution to the problem. How do you then go and sprue that to the industry?
SPEAKER_03Well, that part is, I guess, surprisingly easy, I felt. And I think one of the things that appealed to me about building a product was that you know, as you would know, sales in MFP, like service-based business sales, uh like they're tough. And you're not dealing with a high volume of leads, and it's can be quite a long sales process if you're, you know, well, I was just I was gonna say if you're not good at it, but I I think even if you are good at it, often it's still a long process, yes.
SPEAKER_02100%.
SPEAKER_03And and so yeah, what what appealed to me about you know, like a SaaS type product was that that none of those things were true, and uh it has some experience. Previously, we we built uh you know a very simple product to help MSPs with that were using WHMCS sync their licensing through to write, you know, right now known as Crayon, but so we and and we commercialized that, but it was it was a very different thing to to this. And so I guess I'd seen what happens when you put a product in market that solves a problem that that the sales almost take care of themselves a lot of the time. And that really appealed to me. So I guess to answer the question, how do you how do you market that? Well, you just create a website and and then you just get on Reddit and you know you just start telling people Hey, you solved the problem, yeah. Yeah, they these things tend to espe especially when at the time you know the timing of all this was there was really nothing. So it people were out there looking for you know multi-tenant management and things like that. So you didn't have to do a lot of SEO work to appear at the top. And yeah, it was a global, global product, really. So just yeah, leads just started flying in the door. It was it was easy.
SPEAKER_02So I I have a side alignment question because I I I really admire what you did strategically at the start to not, and I'm assuming by setting out a separate venture and having another party in bowl, it was financially separate from the MSP. So you weren't cannibalizing your cash flow and daily profit from the MSP to build this software product on the side. And I think that's a really strategic point. Because I've seen, I mean, I personally we we sunk uh about 200k of our MSP profit into building a project management solution that we never solved. We sold one and then but that caused an issue inside of a council with political people downing tools and quitting work because they didn't want to be managed that closely. So we ultimately it was a it was it was a lost cause. And uh yeah, I just cannibalized the profit, basically a year's profit, to build this software venture with another guy who had the IP, but our guys did the I the software. And in hindsight, and listen to your story, I wish I had done it the other way, because it wouldn't have impacted. And it took us a couple of years to get over that because it was staff cost and the actual real sunk external programs as well. It was a whole lot of so I really admire the way you set it up, set it up strategically to do that, and it sounds like it worked out in the end.
SPEAKER_03Yes and no. I mean, look, the business needed to be funded, and you know that so that there was still a financial risk when you have multiple businesses, you tend to fund one with you know money from the other. Perhaps from an accounting perspective, it was a little bit cleaner, but I think from a risk profile perspective, no.
SPEAKER_02You're still a director of both, aren't you? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, you're still investing the money one way or another. So, you know, potentially could have lost a lot of money, but it fortunately didn't. So I guess in some ways we got lucky.
SPEAKER_01So from a I guess profitability point of view, when you look back, can you give us a bit of a timeline, maybe of you know, from when you said nobody else is doing this, might as well be me, to when you felt like it was a worthwhile venture and and investment. What was that sort of timeline?
SPEAKER_03I I don't think there was ever a time where I didn't think that. It was it it sort of went well from the beginning in terms of uptake, and so it was always it was kind of okay. Like we we it wasn't ever going backwards at an alarming rate where I sort of felt John comfortable. But yeah, it was from so financially it was it was reasonably okay. I I think the biggest challenge we had was that it felt like one day we woke up and we had 10 competitors, and you know, that that that was the thing. We sort of ran uncontested for a little bit, and then all of a sudden CIPP comes out, open source product free. So so suddenly it's a little bit harder to sell a product when you've got a competitor pro, you know, arguably a competitor product that that's not charging anything. And then yeah, increasingly over time, more and more competitors. So that that certainly lit a fire under us at certain points, but you know, that's always going to happen, right?
SPEAKER_02Like no one's ever gonna sort of and and like more so today, like yeah, we talk about AI, and we've had a few guests on the podcast that are kind of into AI and guys that I know that have spent six, nine months building AI solutions, and all of a sudden one of the frontier models brings out a skill and it's like their whole product suite's gone. Yeah, so it's just so rapid today. And on the flip side, it's very easy to vibe code something to solve us uh an initial problem, but to turn that into an actual uh commercial product is still a massive task. Uh I don't know if you've got any thoughts around that because it's yeah, it it seems to be 90% of these vibe-coded solutions are basically internal use, but not too many of them make it to a production sellable product.
SPEAKER_03That sounds accurate today.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because there's lots of YouTubers out there that make money off YouTube, but not off the product that they developed. Does not surprise me. Which is not a bad business model. Hey, it's really entertainment, isn't it? We're paying Yeah, you're getting paid for eyeballs on a screen. That's that's kind of a business model, but not what we're talking about today.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so let's talk about selling, because this was the topic of today isn't building it, but then you know, going through that sale process. So was there a an intention to build and sell? Was it more opportunity based? I know we had a conversation with you at the time that just wasn't the right time. Time for for us probably but yeah, take take us through that process.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so so I think for for any business I've I've got involved in, there's always been a view to sell at some point. And that that's you know that's always been a consideration in in terms of how we do things. So you know, did did we did we build it purely for the purposes of selling it? I wouldn't say that. I I think that we we saw an opportunity to to fill a gap in the market and and felt that that that that itself could be profitable. However, you know, we it was it was my first venture in into s into a you know a SAS type product, and there was obviously a lot that I didn't know about about that. And ultimately, I think we got to a point where it, you know, we you know we built up a good amount of recurring revenue or covering costs, things like that. So it was it was okay. But in order to go to that next level, we we really needed to get a big injection of capital. And I think timing for us was a little bit off because there there was a lot of sort of veg capital money sort of floating around, and then all of a sudden there wasn't. And that that sort of coincided with when we were sort of started looking for it, and and that that did make things a little bit difficult for us. So I guess the thought of selling became more appealing when we realized that getting capital was going to be difficult and that people were coming up on our heels, and there was a limited window of opportunity, I suppose. If we were going to sell, we needed to do it reasonably quickly, otherwise we we may not have anything left to sell. And and I say this in hindsight at the time. I I don't remember what I was thinking, but yeah, so selling was always a I guess a good opportunity if the product itself couldn't be profitable. And and I just yeah, we were struggling, I think, at some point to get get there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I remember talking to uh lots of different people that have built tools for MSPs, and they are they all had the similar story, and you pretty much got to get to that three to five hundred individual customers using your tool, and then you become a commodity that one of the big players may actually come and pick you up. And a good example of that was uh Glue, the quoting tool. You know, it started off as nothing. Lorenzo built it, then we kind of it got enough volume that in the end at the end, Dado acquired that, and then Caseo went on to acquire that. So it's uh that's I've seen that story a few times, haven't heard of any recent ones. So it's an interesting thing because yeah, you've got you get to that point where you've you've proven it, you've got a market, but you'd that massive capital injection to get to the next level. And you know, it's it's an interesting one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think you know, building the MVP is relatively easy, and uh especially now, if you were to take, you know, if we were doing this now with with AI, wow, it would be it would be so easy. But you know, the uh the 80-20 rule definitely applied and that that last 20%, whether it was, you know, product roadmap features and things like that, or just you know, the the marketing and the investment you need to, you know, ultimately if you're not in the American market, then you're gonna struggle to sort of to own own the space. So they someone told me if you don't own the US, then then you know you don't own anything kind of thing. You you really have to win that market. And obviously to do that, you need someone there. And it it just it just sort of gets exponentially more difficult as you go from a startup operation into something a bit more that reflects a real business.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100% right, because it's it it is a global, global industry if you like. Like you can build a product here and market and sell it anywhere in the world, but the US is still kind of in technology space, it's still a leading market to get a foothold in there. One of our other clients is in the software product in a completely different industry, and he's just been in the US for three weeks at a conference and really working hard to get contacts over there, employ people over there, take the values and all kind of stuff from the Australian-based company and get that market going in the US. And he said that that they have to do it. There's no way, otherwise, that's just not going to happen. And I was talking to a guy the other day this week, actually, and he's a SaaS product in Australia, Australian-based company, and 90% of their market is US, Canada, and Europe, and Australia's less than 5%. But they're all based in Australia, but their marketing is all online, it's a complete digital platform type of thing. There's very few staff involved in the whole operation, and they've been successful because they've cracked that how to generate online leads, and it's completely not not a technology space play, but bit of software that solves a problem and it's a global market. So it can be done, but it's it also is plenty of people try and don't get there either. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So going back to that sales process, I guess two questions here. Did you ever seriously consider selling the MSP and keeping MSP Magic or selling both, just walking away and starting fresh?
SPEAKER_03I'm not sure. The we the I I think that probably the to the first question, I think probably not. I I don't think we had got MSP Magic to the point where I was comfortable enough to keep going and and to and to take away the safety net of the MSP, because that really was financially that was that was the underpinning. And without that, yeah, m I I I I would have needed to get MSP Magic to a point where they could replace that, and now we and unfortunately we we just weren't there. But to the second part of that question, you know, had I had I considered selling both. Well yeah, I had. And and that was something we seriously considered, and and there was an opportunity to to do that, but but ultimately not not what happened.
SPEAKER_01So talk us through what did happen. So you decided the time was right to sell. How did you go about finding the right buyer?
SPEAKER_03I yeah, look, I don't think it was a conscious decision necessarily, but we had interest from from vendors in the space and you know, some of the some of the larger players we'd had several meetings with, and so we we were fortunate in in that we didn't have to go out and and search for a buyer, they they seemed to approach us, which was wonderful. So I guess it you know, anytime that that happened, and it happened several times, you know, at several different points in time throughout the the whole journey. But yeah, initially I think we weren't so interested, but then as time went on it became more appealing as we started to realize that there were things we weren't going to be able to overcome, you know, without the backing of a larger company.
SPEAKER_02So ultimately did the offer come from a was it a I don't know, where were they US-based, a big international company, or someone buy it for internal use? I don't know the story to be honest. I'm sure people out there listening would be really interesting to get what happened. What happened to MSP Magic? Where is it now? Is it on the shelf somewhere? Is it being used in an enter part of an bigger enterprise play at the moment, or uh is it all part of Cassaia? I don't know. And maybe you can't tell us.
SPEAKER_03No, I don't I can talk about certainly who acquired the product. So ultimately we ended up selling to a company based out of Europe that are called Hornet Security. And like, you know, in Australia, I'd never I'd never heard of these people before, but based out of Germany, actually, and they they're they're a massive vendor, probably the biggest vendor in in Europe, I would say, in the Microsoft space. So yeah, that was ultimately who we sold it to.
SPEAKER_01So they were they using the product? Is that how they knew about you, or were they looking for something specific?
SPEAKER_03No, they they they definitely weren't using the product, but they have a a suite of products, and I mean ultimately their main product was is a product called Total Protection, which was an email protection product as well as a backup product and and a few other bits and pieces. But essentially their history was in email protection, and over their lifetime, I suppose they've they've you know developed and acquired other products to to round out their offering. And for them, tenant management was one of the gaps in their offering, which they were looking to fill. And so they they'd obviously you know asset all the products in the market and including ours and and quite liked what we had. So that was where it all started.
SPEAKER_02Oh, excellent. And yeah, like obviously obviously we we sold out of our MSP as well, and there's lots of different ways to do that and lots of different terms and conditions attached to it. So maybe you could share a little bit about that. So I've heard of these golden handcuffs where you kind of you do a deal, but you don't actually get the money until all these milestones are made and a whole lot of benchmarks. And can you kind of talk a little bit through the the terms, I suppose?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think we were quite fortunate in in that regard. So we were certainly weren't their first acquisition and they'd been down that road many times, and so we were able to speak with people who had been through the acquisition journey with them, which gave us a lot of comfort, and also one of the products that they acquired was uh I forget the name of it, but it was a backup product that was based out of Malta, and so that entire you know, team of people from that product, Altaro, I think it was called, they were still there, right? So several years later, and so that gave us a lot of confidence that you know that it was a good, you know, they were a good company and and that the things that they were saying were actually true. So so the terms of the sale and all that kind of stuff were very reasonable and there were there were no sort of like long-term lock-in type arrangements at all. So it was actually it was a very favorable thing for us, and so it it that made that decision quite easy.
SPEAKER_02And the team that were working in MSP Magic, did they move across or did they kind of do a you know, like work, you know, did a handover, or how did that kind of pan out? And just have the people listening here, if you've got if you've got a product or you're even thinking of selling your MSP into a bigger thing, there's some lessons here that you can set yourself up for success. And understanding uh what the buyer wants and how you present yourself to that market makes a huge difference when it comes to actually uh being what we call a successful exit versus an unsuccessful one, which can end in tears, or you know, people I've heard of people not getting their money and being caught for five years and all this kind of stuff you don't want. It's great that you had a successful one like we did. So yeah, what happened to the people that were in the original MSP Magic team?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, in our case, it didn't make a lot of sense for the people to go with them, and just geographically that wasn't going to work. So that's really, I guess, not what happened in our case, but we were also we didn't have that many people, so it it didn't it wasn't such a thing. What what you're saying about you know how people that get to situations where they don't get the money or you know they they end up in a dispute and things like that, you know, that that that's a real worry. Like that's certainly something that that worried me throughout the process. But I think at the end of the day, no amount of contracts, no amount of lawyers, anything can can really protect you against if someone is out to screw you. Yeah, like there's just it it's really hard. And it's almost you've got to make an assessment of the person's character to the best of your ability and just hope that you're right. Because yeah, otherwise, yeah, if you went up in a situation where you're fighting it out legally, then that's gonna be really expensive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, and nobody wins, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_03No, no. So so look, we we were really fortunate, you know, that that's not what Horn Security were about. And you know, we got a good feeling from them from the get-go through, you know, early on they contacted us, the CEO came out, flew out to Melbourne, stayed in Melbourne for a week. You know, we spent the week going out for dinner, getting to know each other, meeting their team on team schools and things like that. So, yeah, that instilled a lot of confidence, I guess, up front. And then further into the process, they took us, you know, they they flew us over to Germany, which is where their headquarters were, and then and then from there they sent us over to Malta to meet the Altaro, you know, the four you know, the old Altaro slash Hornet team, who, you know, were then they were gonna basically pick up their development resources, we're gonna pick up the project. So you know, there was just a lot of things like that, and we got to meet the team, and we actually got to be in their office and and get a feel for you know the company culture and just all that kind of stuff. So just after doing all of that, I it yeah, I really had no doubt about the motives or you know whether we were, you know, we could trust what was about to happen.
SPEAKER_02So Yeah, but the thought, the thoughts, yeah, and it is it because it it is your baby, right? And whether it's an MSP that you're thinking of exiting or selling or merging or whatever, or a product, it's your baby, right? You put your heart and soul and blood, sweat, and tears into it, and you want to make sure it's looked after no matter what. So I think that was that was an amazing way to do it is for them to come out, meet you, then go there. And and during, you know, Jenny and I've our journey with the acquisitions and you know mergers and sales, or we did, we did exactly the same thing. You know, you don't just get a random phone call and hand a check over and walk away. It's it's a journey. You've got to understand the motives and where you're going and what you're doing and all that kind of stuff. And it it it's really important to do that. And emotionally for you, was it because I know for me, I I we had a couple of different opportunities over the years, and I couldn't I couldn't act on them because I didn't know what was going to be next for me. So did you have any of that yourself, like that emotional attachment to hey, this is my baby. I I yeah, it makes sense to do this, but I don't know, I really don't want to do it. You know, that's just you wake up cold sweats at three in the morning, go, what the hell am I doing?
SPEAKER_03You know, the the MSP magic product, uh that that was never about me. And I guess in some ways I was at the face of it for a little bit, but I I certainly wasn't as emotionally attached to that as I would as or as I am to to say Axe MIT, because I'm just a lot more actively involved in that on a day-to-day basis. So the decision to sell that was was not an emotional one in terms of you know, could I let it go and uh and and and and that and things like that. But um, and also I think knowing that that in the hands of a bigger company with far more resources, it was actually the product would actually do better. I think that with with an MSP where where that that's very much a a business-led, sorry, an owner-led business, and and the success of the of that business, you know, is largely dependent on the on the owner or owners. In most cases, it shouldn't be that way, but it is. I agree. 100%. That is a more emotional thing. So, you know, as I said earlier, there were discussions about you know selling MSP as part of the deal, and certainly that aspect of it left me wondering at times whether whether that was a good thing or not. And then what would I do without that? Because that that's I guess, rightly or wrongly, is a large part of my identity now. And so it is daunting when you think about that going away, and then not, you know, there was obviously constraints and things like that, which meant I couldn't go and start another MSP if I wanted to. So yeah, that that part of it was a bit of soul searching involved, I suppose. And I guess ultimately we didn't do it. So that probably answers any questions you have about that.
SPEAKER_02That's good. That's good.
SPEAKER_01We are living proof that the MSP goes on without you.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01As wounding as that is to the ego, but it does.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think we've learnt that. Yeah, I had a bit of a wake-up call during the process with our one, and it's yeah, I was DWM and it was me, and I had this identity crisis. I couldn't sell it, I couldn't do anything because it was just me. So when we did the merge, it was I had very much strategy was I'm not the front of it anymore. I'm not the kind of it's not me all the time, and it worked for us. So, what other cool projects is Taz Gray working on now? Because I don't imagine you're just sitting there twiddling your thumbs watching the MSP tickle over, you'd be doing something, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_03Well, you would think that, I suppose, but believe it or not, I don't there isn't too much. You know, the the three three or three and a bit years that I spent trying to run an MSP as well as having a you know, like a SAS product at the same time, probably took ten years off my life. And, you know, it was just high stress. I think, you know, I think my cortisol levels were unhealthily elevated for a long period of time. And so it's actually, you know, it took me, I think it there was probably a year or two that I needed to decompress after all of that. And you know, where are we now? We're probably in the third year. So it uh obviously life circumstances have changed a little bit for me too. So I'm not necessarily looking to be busy seven days a week like I was back then. And but look, if the if the opportunity comes up, sure. But I'm not actively seeking that level, that level of stress again.
SPEAKER_02I can relate to that. Yeah, I like Taz. I know that yeah, we talk a lot and we know we're working, we're both kind of keen on AI and bits and pieces, and it's really interesting to think about where we were in the MSP land you know two years ago, versus now there is a part of me that misses not having access to a database of 10,000 tickets or 10 million tickets or whatever we had for the 30 years of data we had in our autotask platform, because I am sure that we're not too far away from an actual proper agent-based uh service desk tech that can actually do a lot of work. So it's a topic for another discussion at another time, but you know, I'm sure we're all kind of thinking that. But uh the advantage I suppose you've got and the people out there that have MSPs now is you've got the data. You've just got to figure out how to do that securely to leverage and see where it takes us. Because I don't think the big it's gonna be the same as Microsoft and and the I don't think the big vendors are gonna solve this problem. I don't think the big vendors are gonna come out with a ubiquitous agent for their PSAs that solves all these problems because they would have been working on this for 10 or 15 years, and I still haven't seen anything that's useful.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, look, I think I think it opens up a lot more opportunities. And but yeah, it's early days, I think. You know, it's it's it's very much early days in in this AI era that we're in, and I certainly don't think the dust has settled yet. And as you said earlier, you know, you know you know people who are building products to to fill gaps in in current AI capability, and then you know, anthropic come along and just drop drop a new feature that just wipes them out. So it's almost I feel like it's a good time to be on the sideline right now, just observing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, getting engaged, having yeah, testing it out, but not not committing hundreds of hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars to developing a solution when yeah, someone could just turn a switch and like, oh, that's all built in now. It's it's it's exciting and scary at the same time.
SPEAKER_03It is and and look, the other thing too is that when when we started MSP Magic Art, MSP was a lot smaller, and this was sort of pre pre-COVID era, and then COVID hit and and our MSP doubled. And so, you know, in some ways I think I was a little bit bored and and and looking for for that extra thing, and and now I don't I don't necessarily feel feel that feel that. So I've got enough on my plate, I feel, whereas back then I didn't, and it was it was quite ironic that you know the second I started something else that the MSP card took off. Which is, you know, I'm not complaining about that, but it certainly uh wasn't factored into the plan and and and made things a little bit more difficult.
SPEAKER_02So it's like they say it doesn't rain at pours, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well that's very true in my case.
SPEAKER_01So just to finish off, so now that you just said this, the dust has settled, the money's in the bank a couple of years down the track, how when did you actually sell it? Was 24?
SPEAKER_0322. I think 23 was was kind of the year that we yeah, it all kind of I don't think it fully finalized till early 2024.
SPEAKER_01So what's one thing that you know now that you wish you'd known at the start?
SPEAKER_03There are many things, and so to to give you one is is is a is a difficult choice. Well, I think if I was to do it again, I I would completely exit any other business or remove myself from any other business re depending on me, and so I could give it the full attention. I think in hindsight that was needed, and I would have potentially changed things a little bit. So yeah, unless you've got really good people around you, I think you need to fully commit to the side hustle.
SPEAKER_02It can't be a side hustle. No, it's got to become the main game and the other one's running under management with your partner or whatever. And yeah, I agree 100%, Tazan, that people I've met that have successfully the word pivoted from one business to another is they get it running, put some build the leadership team, get it right. You're still an owner and you're involved in you know whatever level you need to be, but you're 99% focused on the new venture. And that's the way to give it that initiation, you know, that that lift up and get moving. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like I think that that's the main main thing for me. There's there's obviously a lot of other small things, but yeah, if you know, as far as anyone else who's considering doing something like this, that would be the probably the the key bit of advice. And yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate your time, as always, to share your experience. It's something that I know a lot of MSP owners kind of play around with. A lot of us never get there, but always kind of talk about one day doing, but so well done not actually doing it and having a successful exit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like I said, we we did a lot of it in in the early days in our MSP of building software for ourselves and because there wasn't anything out there. And the thought of commercializing that out to somebody else was just didn't even wasn't even a thought. Which in hindsight was pretty pretty stupid, really. And then when we did have that product that we were trying to build, we weren't trying to sell the software to someone else, we were trying to get clients for ourselves as another revenue source for the MSP, we built this bit of project manager software, and that that was a flawed methodology as well, because we didn't we relied completely on an external partner with the IP of the product. We wrote the software, but no one really knew the product that well. And it was there was no sales team structured. It was in hindsight, it was like either hell, people do that. I like the idea of it, and then you I could see that there was a need, but it wasn't. We didn't get to MVP quick enough. So that was a that was a challenge back then.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I mean it the these things are you know always a lot harder than you think, and I certainly underestimated a lot of what was involved, but you know, you'll live alone.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. That's what we're here for, sharing stories. Thanks a lot, Taz. Really appreciate it. Pleasure.
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