Terry Hedden (00:00)
Are you an MSP that’s confused about AI? Maybe you’re looking for an answer. Want to offer AI to your clients, a gen-take AI that can help them drive organizational efficiency and profitability, but you’re confused on how to tackle it. Clint and Johri are in town from Intuist, and they’re going to share with you what you can do to offer AI to your clients without taking risk or taking on a lot of burden on becoming an expert on yet another technology to your clients. So if you want to win an AI, This one’s for you.
I am so excited to welcome Clint and Johri onto the Grow Limitless podcast. They represent what I think is the single greatest opportunity for managed service providers today to become something unbelievably successful. In fact, some of our analysis about what AI can do for an MSP involves increasing EBITDA profit by 10 or even a hundred fold.
And I’m really excited about what they bring the market and their company and the value they bring the small to medium sized business market. Thank you guys for joining the Grow Limits podcast.
Johri Dhanotra (01:11)
Thank you.
Terry Hedden (01:12)
Awesome. Awesome. Very good. Very good. ⁓ So Jari, kind of kick us off, man. What led you to start the organization? What was the inspiration that made you take that jump?
Johri Dhanotra (01:25)
Absolutely, Terry. So Intuist AI based in Silicon Valley here in California. What we do is the following. AI, as we all know, is the rage right now. There’s a lot happening in the Silicon Valley. AI outside of the Silicon Valley is yet to be adopted. There’s a lot that has to be done in the market, especially with the organizations that don’t have IT departments. And that’s where the small businesses, medium enterprises and SM…MSPs come into picture, they don’t have IT departments, they don’t have millions of dollars to spend on AI. And our platform, which is called the Veda platform, makes it a breeze to deploy AI in the small enterprises in minutes. The money that these enterprises used to spend on some kind of AI, hundreds of thousands of dollars can be done in 10,000 or less now.
Implementation deployment is a breeze and there is a lot that is happening ⁓ in this area. So our mission is to democratize AI for the small and medium enterprises. And I would love to actually delve deeper into ⁓ this area as we move forward in the conversation. Clint, over to you.
Clint Parr (02:39)
Yes, ⁓ democratizing is a very important enablement, ⁓ especially for the MSPs that we talked to. They don’t have the ability to hire AI resources, right? And commit those resources to building out a team and a platform or even using other ⁓ more higher code systems. What Jory has invented and built over three years is a platform that integrates with any integration point, whether it’s SharePoint or ServiceNow or 365, it doesn’t matter, but also it integrates with every LLM. So we’re completely agnostic. That’s great, but if you’re not a programmer, you typically can’t use it. Well, the layer that Jory has built on is no code. You literally can either type in what you want your agent to do, or you can talk to your computer.
And it will make an agent for you in front of your face. That is a democratization feature that I don’t think anybody else has right now, but it’s proving out to be valuable to the MSPs especially.
Johri Dhanotra (03:50)
And just to add that, Terry, one more thing before I hand it over back to you. ⁓ It’s as Clint pointed out, it’s a platform with whom you can chat and build integrations. You can say that I want to build an AI app that pulls in my Salesforce data and the HubSpot data with the Google workspace in the picture and create a dashboard that combines all the data for me. So those kinds of integrations were kind of impossible in the past ⁓ or would cost a lot of money. And by the way, these integrations will have AI infused in them as well. So it’s like AI infused applications. And that is the future. And that is what we bring to the table at a very reasonable cost to our customers.
Clint Parr (04:37)
And let me also mention that it’s a reasonable cost for the MSP’s customers, but also the very same platform can be used to automate their internal operations. And there are a few companies that do a really good job of that and they’ve been around for a long time, but they’re quite expensive and they’re too technical. So once they leave and something goes wrong, you have to call them back in. This is another circumstance where we can build with them, the AI agents, teach the MSP how to fish, so to speak. We can teach them how to do it internally, streamline, get higher margins in their operations, and then take that same knowledge base and go to their customers. And at the end of the day, that all feeds into one dashboard they can manage. It’s huge visibility. It’s not just multi-tenant, it’s like 2X multi-tenant. So that’s a real feature and a benefit that we’re seeing MSPs are telling us about.
Terry Hedden (05:37)
You know, I want to dive into that piece you mentioned there, Clint, because I see a tremendous opportunity. think that’s easy, right? I think we all do, right? We know that we see the opportunity, we see the risk. There’s a lot of debate about timing, but no one’s going to debate the opportunity. Right. You said something that I think is super important to MSPs that are struggling to figure out how to do it. They’re busy, they’re overwhelmed. They already are struggling to know all the tools they already have. They’re already struggling to…understand how to manage infrastructure. Like they’re not looking for more things to do. They want the money and more importantly, they want to secure their clients and help their clients, but they don’t want to do a lot of work. And Clint, you said we’ll work with the clients. We’ll do it for them. Is that, tell me about that. mean, dive into like what you do for an MSP. I’m Joe below MSP. got a customer who’s got a need and I say, Clint, help me out. Walk me through the services that you offer from pre-sales all the way to long-term support of the product.
Clint Parr (06:40)
Well, and a lot of this is in coordination with Marketopia. So it’s a blended business plan, technical plan and marketing plan, if you will. So the simple way to start and everyone’s that commits to going into an AI services type division, they think they need to be in a hurry and you really don’t. Let’s walk and then run and then go hypersonic. The industry is changing so fast.
You know, what you know today is going to be obsolete a month from now. So let’s just take it one at a time and, and build out a few agents internally as a part of the onboarding process, help them build the dashboard they want to manage everything. And then on the resale side, ⁓ have that lead gen and lead generation engine going with you, Terry, and start to, start to bring in prospects. And I think, ⁓ the people I’ve talked to,
They really would appreciate new prospects based on, know, lure them into their organization because they have some AI expertise versus initially reselling to the, to their existing customer base. That was my thought, but in recent conversations, lot of these MSPs have pent up demand. mean, like some of their larger big contract accounts, they’ve been griping for, for a solution for a long time.
And they just need kind of the expertise behind them. And we very much co-sell. They’re a reseller, but we’re really co-selling with them. Then after the sale, ⁓ we handle all the support, even during the sale. So sale support, ⁓ along with tier one and tier two technical support, which is not a heavy lift, it’s just a distraction. We’ll take that on too, right? And really, really fine tune their service offering.
Terry Hedden (08:18)
Love that.
Clint Parr (08:38)
Over time and when they want to take on more responsibilities and more rev share, we’ll do that. But you know, right now let’s put on our shoulders to get you off the ground and familiar and fluent and then allow that momentum to happen with Marketopia and everything else.
Johri Dhanotra (08:58)
Just to add to that Terry, ⁓ to Clint’s point, so that’s the marketing and the go-to market plan, the plan that Clint pointed out. We have a technical platform and a strategy as well on how are we going to do it for the MSPs and their customers without disturbing their day-to-day lives. Our platform makes it, it’s a wipe coding platform like Replet or Revibo but it’s more enterprising. it’s very really good at real making the integrations happen in no time. So it will not be something like a project that takes months to be completed. It will be like hours or days using AI. So our go-to-market strategy also from a technical and implementation standpoint also involves what is called as the forward deployed engineers, FBEs. That’s a new term in the Valley, Palantir is using it.
Number of other companies, OpenAI is using FDEs as well, wherein the AI engineers are deployed in with the customers to implement and handhold them and give them the AI strategy as well. So it’s like AI consulting, working with you, making the stuff happen for you ⁓ when it comes to AI. Because there are so many things happening in the AI world right now. Not everyone, it’s a full-time job to actually keep an eye on what is going on in the AI.
So our customers or MSPs don’t want, they don’t have the time as you pointed out. So we are there for them for AI consulting, AI strategy, AI implementation without taking months. We’ll do it in hours and days.
Terry Hedden (10:34)
You’re meeting them where they are. If they’ve got robust capabilities, you’ll jump on top and help where they need help. But they can take the lead if they’re ready to take the lead. But what I love about that is that we’re all in a journey, right? And the reality is AI is moving so quickly and we’re all trying to keep up and catch up with that journey. But every MSP is also on a journey. Some people ⁓ are more mature than others. Some people have really robust marketing department, sales department, service department. Some of them have the capital to go out there and spend a couple hundred grand to hire some AI engineers on their own. But most of them don’t, right? Most of them just, they want the revenue. They want to take care of their customers. They want to be cool and hip and be pro AI, but they don’t, they don’t have the ability. And I love how your solution, sort of end to end, Clint, you talked about co-sale and all of that. I think that matters. I think it matters a lot. And I think it bodes well for.
The resellers that jump on because they can come in wherever they are. You’ll help them where they’re weak. You’ll help ensure they’re successful. And I know Marketopia will as well. We will do everything in our power to get them leads and help them close deals. And I know you will too. And that’s, that’s a really unique situation. They can, they can achieve the ultimate goal. They can make the money that’s out there for them to make recurring revenue, upfront project revenue. But
They don’t have to do it all themselves. They can just be as they could be what they are today and still be successful in AI. think that’s something that, that is very unique about your go-to-market strategy. You’ve got competitors out there, right? And there are some that are making inroads in the MSPs, but every single one I talked to is struggling to get leads, close sales, and be successful in the implementation. They’re signing up, they’re looking at it, they’re starting. then honestly, they get overwhelmed, they get intimidated and they stop and nothing ends up happening.
Johri Dhanotra (12:29)
As well, Terry, there are times when there is no visible ROI on ⁓ capital spend. And that’s where we excel as well, which is that we will make sure that you see a clear ROI on AI implementations and the spend. ⁓ And our shibboleth, our slogan is that you’ll see 10x the productivity gain and productivity gains and 10x in the expenses ⁓ reductions as well. So you’re becoming more productive and you’ll be using less money when AI comes into picture. So the AI inhibitions, AI fear is something that we have to address as well and clear ROI for our MSP friends and their customers as well.
Terry Hedden (13:10)
Yeah, there’s a lot of money to be made. Every single MSP I talk to, when they start diving into this, whether you’re talking about agents like your, your space or software, it doesn’t really matter. The numbers become huge when they just look at the opportunity before them. I worked with one, it was at the beginning of this week and he, his first AI lead would increase his EBITDA by a hundred fold. And frankly, he said he would probably sell his MSP in 18 months instead of the five to 10 years of his original horizon. That’s how big the opportunity really is. So we talked about MSPs and you’ll meet them where they are. They could be a one man band. They could be a really mature MSP. Your solution is going to compliment them to where it kind of applies to everybody. Talk to me about customers. What makes a good prospect for you guys and what are the types of solutions that you’ve implemented in the SMB market specifically?
Johri Dhanotra (14:07)
⁓ That’s great question. me ⁓ go for it, Clint, and I’ll hand it over to you. imagine, go ahead, Clint, you were saying something. Yeah, absolutely. So ⁓ imagine, Terry, small to medium, or the small enterprise, let’s say there are five employees, there is no IT department, and they have been using ⁓ many tools like HubSpot and Salesforce and ServiceNow or a ticketing system. And there are 10 accounts to be managed and they have their email services well from ⁓ Google or Microsoft and their IT budget is insane because there are 15 accounts to be managed. We come into picture and they, by the way, they also have AI. ⁓ They use ShadGPD at times, they use Cloud at times, they use Gemini. So it’s like all over the place. We come into picture and we say, we have one AI platform.
So you don’t have to worry about OpenAI or Entropic or Gemini or anyone else. We have it all for you. By the way, it’s your call as well if you want to use Gemini. So that’s the very first benefit that our customer will find. Number two, you don’t need any IT department. No one is, ⁓ it’ll be managed by our platform and there is no extra expense. Number three, all those immediate accounts that you have, ⁓ they will be folded up in one platform, one dashboard. And if you don’t like some of them, we can actually build them using AI as well. So it is literally going to result in less expensive IT expenditure, more productive, more AI infused, and you’ll get all the other AI benefits. So this is what I just talked about is reducing the expenses. The second part, the next stage will be increasing the productivity using AI.
Now that’s so it’s like reduced expense and increasing the AI productivity using AI. It’s really, which means that you’ll be able to do marketing campaigns using AI ⁓ in a very effective manner. You’ll be able to do sales campaigns using AI in a way more productive fashion. You’ll be able to manage your finances. You’ll be able to manage all the dashboards with the data coming from media sources. So you’ll be paying less and you’ll be doing more with the same number of folks that you have in the team. So that’s what we bring to the table without IT departments, by the way. Clint.
Clint Parr (16:34)
Yeah. So with regards to the SMB market, ⁓ the SMB market, think is really without a doubt is the root of innovation right now in AI. We see more creative ideas coming out of like even sole proprietors, right? We have one customer, he’s a human resources coach and he can touch like 10 clients a week, billing at whatever an hour. Okay.
Or he can create an agent that is essentially him. Right. now he’s, now he’s touching thousands of customers, 24 hours a day. Think about that. So that’s, that kind of intellectual property is something you, you, you could just replicate everywhere. Right. I think he’s thinking about doing that too, is this being a reseller. But, you know, where in any, in any tech wave, you have the early adopters.
And then you cross the chasm and then you go into mainstream. think a lot of the early adopters are still hooked onto vibe coding platforms and starting to realize that’s too complicated. And where Intuist is, I think we’re already on the other side of the chasm waiting for the market to catch up to us. Because I use the analogy that if you look at AI, we will tell you, you can do anything you want blows people’s minds, but they can’t envision what they want. So we have to be there as the coach to say, okay, this is the way it was done. Here’s the way it can be done. And you can do it yourself. It’s a powerful proposition. But it’s just like when PowerPoint came out 20 years ago, nobody knew how to maximize the use of PowerPoint. It was a canvas that you could do something with or anything with. It’s the same thing with creating an AI agent right now.
Johri Dhanotra (18:29)
One of the problems, Terry, that I have seen and that problem, we solve it in a ⁓ marvelous fashion is that a small medium business owner is not very unlikely to be willing to learn yet another tool. They don’t have the time. So what we propose is that, you know, ⁓ tell us how you want a certain tool to work. Tell us the way, so we’ll design it, our dashboard, we can build these artifacts or the UX and the UI, the way you want it. And that used to be like, you know, a very expensive proposition. You have to hire developers and whatnot. Using AI will just change the way you work. So essentially AI is coming bending to your will and it is willing to do the work the way you want to do the work. And that is very, it’s profound because the ⁓ sole proprietor or a small business.
They have a lot of work to do. They have to focus on their business. And the IT is something that should be actually helping them, not hampering their efforts. So AI is super useful if it can bend to their will and is willing to work the way they want to work. And that is actually, to me, very, important and ⁓ useful to the SMBs.
Terry Hedden (19:48)
Cool. so let me ask you, pull back a second. Like we’re talking about some pretty cool things, right? I could do anything with it. Um, you know, anything that could be done, these grand things. we all listened to Ellen Musk talking and, and, and, and, and Zuckerberg talking about where this is going to go. How, how, how, how much of an impact do you think this is going to have on the SMB market that the MSPs depend on today?
We charge primarily per user, right? So as users drop, they’ve got to either shrink the company profit revenue or replace it with that percentage of AI spend kind of logic. How quickly do you see contraction in the labor market and the SMB market? ⁓ you know, what type of margin could an MSP count on for every FTE it replaces? I know it’s a hard question, but trying to understand kind of.
How quickly you expect this to happen and how much we can offset in terms of ⁓ MSPs lost revenue. ⁓ How do you see this playing out over the next one, three, five years?
Johri Dhanotra (20:56)
I think there will be a short term, medium term and the long term implications. One thing that I’m witnessing in the market in real time is that ⁓ seat based pricing is being replaced by what is being called as the outcomes based pricing, which is that we will solve the problem for you and if it solves it, us, otherwise don’t pay us. It could be something like a customer service agent.
And if it solves a problem for your customer without any human involved in the process, pay us the money. Otherwise we don’t charge you. ⁓ By the way, the SaaS apocalypse, know, the SaaS, the pressure on the SaaS companies is because of the seat based pricing that they have at the moment. And the end customers are saying, you know, I don’t want to pay by the seat. I want to pay by the outcomes. What that means is that I think the MSPs have to be kind of prepared ⁓ for this avalanche and this change in the pricing model.
They have to be prepared in changing the seed based without combination pricing. So that’s part one. Number two is that, ⁓ you know, the marginal cost of building software is literally going to zero. So it’s like, there’s a, it’s going down. So if any MSP, it’s better to embrace this rather than kind of be fearful of this, this process, this phenomena. You have to be prepared that.
No, the end customer will not, will not be very willing to pay thousands of dollars to build a software product. They would want it sooner. They would want it at a very reasonable cost as well. that pressure is coming, ⁓ is happening as well. How the money will be based is how Marketopia makes money. How Clint ⁓ and I and Intuist works with Marketopia. What does it mean? That means the relationships that you have built over the years.
The trust, the trust will be very important because your end customer will be willing to work with only trustworthy folks that they have been working with. And these relationships will be very important going forward. So the, you know, they talk about the distribution, the power and whatnot. To me, it will be the trust and the relationships that will be very important going forward, because it’s a very, it’s an upheaval and we’ll have to navigate it together with all our partners and we’ll have to work and grow together.
And there will be more, I would argue there is this paradox called Javen’s paradox, which means that if there is a commodity like AI, intelligence is becoming cheap now, right? So super cheap. If something becomes super cheap, end users end up using more of it. That’s called the Javen’s paradox. ⁓ So what we will see is that AI will be used even more going forward, midterm to longterm. Short term, will be an upheaval. Mid to longterm, there will be a lot of ⁓ usage of AI.
What we have to do as partners is to actually build trust, work with our MSPs and their customers in the short term, implement AI, and what we’ll see is amazing results in the mid to long terms going forward. And that’s how I see it. So just to recap, it’s super important that we, all our partners, we work with them and create this wonderful trust platform.
Terry Hedden (24:10)
I know you’d come at things from a different perspective than Jari. I’m eager to hear from you. If I’m an MSP and I’ve got 500 customers I’m working with, some are going to be enterprise, some are going to be mom and pop shops, average is probably going to be north of 10, maybe 20, 30 employee type companies. I’ve got 500 of them. From your perspective, of the 500, what’s a reasonable expectation about the number that would benefit from AI?
And then if you take that number and calculate where you see the margins for those customers, how much money is there to be made for that MSP who go full on into this and works as hard as they can to cross sell and upsell AI into their existing customer base, nevermind the greater population of their market. Right.
Clint Parr (24:58)
The fascinating thing about AI is it touches every workflow, every department, every concept within operations of a company. They have A, they have a lot of doors to go in to sell agentic AI services. ⁓ To be more poignant, mean, all 500 are going to have demand.
Terry Hedden (25:23)
Applicability, I guess. ⁓
Clint Parr (25:27)
What we’re seeing in the market is the customers that have ⁓ investors. The investors think venture capital, now even up to the PE companies, they’re demanding an AI strategy and sometimes a certain percentage of the employees be agentic. Really? agentically enabled. Yes. And we’re working with one of your customers, Terry. ⁓
That MSP reports to a venture capital firm. The venture capital firm is acquiring companies and to integrate those companies, those companies need to have an agent execution layer put in is the fancy term. And that is happening everywhere right now. And, but the point is if you have, if you have your agent, it game plan, right. The valuation of your company is going to go up.
Johri Dhanotra (26:24)
And that’s it.
Clint Parr (26:25)
I just inherently, it’s going to go from a 10X to a 20X because you have the ability to scale like nobody else. ⁓ a very interesting development, we work with ⁓ some very high end human resources consulting firms and think of them like a mini Deloitte size firms. They’re seeing a day as in human resources, departments are going to have a lot of say in agents which agents come on, right? Because there are some people literally considering that if you’re in a company and you’re a manager and you have three people reporting to you, ⁓ if you have those three people and you add 15 agents, you become a director because you’re actually managing 15 people now. see how this works? And it gives that employee the incentive to bring on agents.
Not to replace their staff, but to augment what they’re doing and let them focus on more strategic things than tactical, repetitive motions, if you will.
Johri Dhanotra (27:32)
That’s all.
Terry Hedden (27:32)
Back to that MSP for me, Clint. Yeah. How much money is there to be made for that MSP that has 500 customers? Both of them are small, medium sized business, sort of 20, 30, 40 person companies. How big is the opportunity within those customers? And what’s my cut of it if I’m that MSP? I’m trying to monetize this for them. Give them an idea. their, what kind of pot of gold there is the end of this little AI rainbow when it comes to working with you specifically.
Clint Parr (28:00)
The motion we’re getting into that I can see is sitting down with the MSP and going, okay, what’s the fastest way we can get to a million dollars ARR? Right. In a lot of cases, especially if they have a large contract customer already involved, that could be in a year. Right. But all we’re doing is is, is seeding their customer base with an agent or two. Well, the year after that.
Each one of those customers might have five or 10 agents, right? Because we’re democratizing. We want to empower their customers to go off on their own and make agents. And every time they make an agent, it makes another agent. And so, yeah, there’s just, if you can get to a million, you’re feeling really good about things. That’s great. the year after, year, pardon? ⁓
Terry Hedden (28:51)
Are you talking about revenue or profit right now, Clint? Okay. So if I’m an MSP and I’m wanting to like buy a car, hire techs, sell my business, how much profit am I looking at from selling into that 500 customer kind of number? Like help me understand how much money I might make if I really went head strong into this and really was successful working with you guys.
Clint Parr (28:54)
Just revenue. Yeah, mean, sky’s the limit. Year two, might have 10 times more revenue because you have people added or your customers added 10 new agents. Right.
Terry Hedden (29:30)
So, million and turn it into 10 million kind of logic.
Clint Parr (29:35)
We have that whole, we have the offer to the MSPs to, if we need to sit down with you and write a three-year business plan and scope out what money you can make with resources you need to do that. And how much Marketopia do you need? Let’s go. Let’s get the formula down and you can either raise money with it or just have comfort. And you have a ⁓ realistic plan of how to get there.
Johri Dhanotra (30:02)
Let me give you an example, Terry. What we are seeing here in the Valley is that there are talks of, and not only talks of real companies, real startups with four or five people thinking of making a billion dollar revenue company. I’m not kidding. This is actually happening. Four, five people company doing a billion dollars in ⁓ revenue yearly.
I will not be surprised if an MSP who embraces AI in its entirety has learned it all. MSP with 500 customers can go from 1 million to 10, 200 to a billion. this is not, know, this is not, it is real. It is very feasible because the productivity is like exponentially growing. It’s an exponential play and humans and people, humans do not have a very good grasp on how two becomes four becomes 16 becomes 16 into 16. So exponentiation is AI is growing rapidly. That one MSP with 500 customers can go from 10 to 100 to a billion. If you meant AI. It is happening and it will actually. It’s very exciting really.
Terry Hedden (31:16)
Jari, I want to ask you a question on that. You talked about that five person startup in the Valley. Of course, most of the Valley is moving to Florida anyway right now, that’s a separate topic for another day. They’re building agents and then reselling those agents. That’s what those pop-ups are pretty much doing, right? Why would someone work with you guys and build an agent from scratch for their customers versus going to market and trying to find one of those little firms who’s got these agents they’re building?
Johri Dhanotra (31:26)
Yes, yes.
That’s a beautiful question. And here is the problem with those guys. You cannot be a subject matter expert. ⁓ You can never understand the problem that an MSP or their customers face. ⁓ You cannot have an agent that is pre-built for them and it will solve exactly the problem that they want to solve. The way we come at it is that we want to understand your problem and we’ll build a custom agent that does the job for you.
So ⁓ a company that is building generic ⁓ agents for, let’s say, a legal vertical or for sales or for marketing, it may work 20 % of the time, but what our ambition and vision, our thought process is that, no, it is that small business, that MSP who understands that problem better than anyone else. And our platform will work with them to create a custom agent.
And now that the cost of building these custom agents is so low, we can actually crank them out real fast. So our proposition is that we have a platform that will do what you want to do. So it’s all about the custom agents that are built for, tailor-made for the MSPs and their customers. As against pre-built, out of the box, use it or don’t use it kind of an agent.
Terry Hedden (33:04)
Wow, that’s really
Clint Parr (33:05)
Well, and another eventuality to point out is ⁓ if an MSP’s customer is buying a sales agent from vendor A and a marketing agent from vendor Viper Coder B and another agent from some other place, those three agents will never be able to talk to themselves. Right. If you have it all on one platform, there is a day.
When you will want to have your agents talk to each other or have an orchestration agent or also a universal agent it’s called. And now you can really maximize what you built because essentially you can create a CEO of the agents. get another layer of value that isn’t going to be there if you’re piecing your AI strategy together.
Johri Dhanotra (33:51)
That’s right.
Johri Dhanotra (34:00)
And you’ll be you’re now as against paying to three vendors, you are working with one vendor as well. You know, that’s another ⁓ benefit because and that’s a great point, Clint, by the way, which is the agents working with each other is absolutely going to happen will be needed. And if these agents are coming from the same platform, it becomes very easy, you know, for them to kind of, you know, work together and be more productive because they they talk the same language. They understand the same problem and they are custom made and tailor made for SMB.
Terry Hedden (34:31)
I tell you that every day I learn something and every day, I’m kind of blown away a little bit about what’s there, what’s the potential. I just started working with Claude, for example, less than a month ago and I was really chat GBT before that. And I’m just like blown away at what Claude’s doing. then almost, it feels like every day some sort of a new feature that’s a game changer is coming out. And it’s just hard to fathom as things become more more…built by AI, how quickly the impact is going to come. It’s like a tsunami coming at us. I feel like our role, Mark Chobby’s role and your role is to make sure that everyone’s surfing that wave instead of getting mowed over by it. Whether it’s the MSPs that are entrusting you with their partnership, and you’re going to do everything in your power to serve their customers that we help bring to them.
Johri Dhanotra (35:17)
Beautifully said yes.
Terry Hedden (35:28)
To make sure that their customers are also surfing this wave. So it’s like a multiplicative effect, right? So we’re gonna succeed, you’re gonna succeed, I’m gonna succeed, the MSP is gonna succeed, helping end user small businesses succeed and thrive in this age of AI. So I don’t think there’s any more noble calling than to help people survive. So I’m excited about that. Let me pivot a little bit over to you guys and why you decided to partner with Marketopia. What was…
What was lacking in your go-to-market? What challenges were you facing? How does Marketopia help ensure that you’re successful?
Johri Dhanotra (36:02)
I think it’s that to me, Clint has a lot to say on that, to me, ⁓ Terry, it is the trust and the warmth that you bring to the table. ⁓ Everyone knows that you are the kingmaker. You are awesome. It’s a wonderful company. We love it. But to me, was ⁓ this trust that comes out of ⁓ this company, this willingness to ⁓ work. And as you pointed out, in turbulent times, It is this kind of a solid relationship that wins the day. And that, to me, is the most important thing. And I’m sure, actually, we’ll do wonders. And Clint, I’m sure, has lot to say as well.
Clint Parr (36:42)
I’ve had a lot of interaction with Marketopia over the years, but what I’ve learned is Marketopia is really just one step ahead of the MSP, right? They’re ahead of enough to go, okay, ⁓ the water’s fine, it’s time to get in, and then I have the growth engine to help you do it. so that kind of vision and appreciation for how MSPs work, and of course, Terry, you used to own an MSP, it’s invaluable.
I would have to believe in with the MSPs I’ve worked with that work with Markitopia, they would be one tenth the size, right? Had it not been for Terry.
Terry Hedden (37:20)
love it. Yeah. Thankfully, it’s much bigger than me these days. I’m just the ugly looking guy that has the fancy title. I have an amazing team and I appreciate those kind words, We’re a billion percent committed to the channel’s success and you guys are part of that now. And why we chose you is because you get it. You get it. The reality is you could call…all 12 million small businesses in the United States and try to gain their trust and build a digital relationship. Maybe get on an airplane and fly to every town in this country to try to close deals. But you recognize that the path, the biggest opportunity for AI is definitely not Fortune 100. It’s the SMB market. The easiest path to the SMB is through the MSP.
Terry Hedden (38:15)
And then UCS is the easiest path to the MSP. Is that kind of a safe way to
Johri Dhanotra (38:21)
Yeah, that is, you know, to talk, if someone was to ask me what is the next one, sure, you have the trust, you love the team, what is the next level, you know, what was the next reasoning, and you just nailed it. That is it. Now SMB is the huge, is the biggest market opportunity because the big companies have their ITs and they’re spending millions and whatnot. But this is an area that has been overlooked and underserved for the longest time, especially when it comes to AI.
So it’s like an open, it’s a green field, it’s open for all. And the first movers advantage will be huge. And the first movers who gain the trust and do a great job at this will be the winners.
Terry Hedden (39:02)
Completely agree.
Clint Parr (39:05)
It’s fun working with the MSPs too, because they kind of undervalue themselves. That sounds weird, but you know, if it wasn’t for the MSPs, I mean, the MSPs saved hundreds of thousands of companies during COVID, right? Because a lot of them didn’t have remote workers. Also, now you had to have remote workers. Who’d you call? You call the MSPs, right? Just like, you know, save the day.
But nobody recognized that, really. And so we look at the MSP saving the day for AI and the SMB in the same fashion that, hey, I’ve got something here to help you and I know you’re going to need it quickly. Here’s the way to go.
Terry Hedden (39:50)
Really great. Well, I mean, the channel is, is at the vendor level is filled with multi-billion dollar companies and very few of them are making any attempt to go direct. They understand that direct only makes sense for the top tier of the market. And the rep is like, Hey, listen, be my sales force, be my service force, be my billing force go out there and leverage those relationships to get my products and services in to your customers so that we can have an impact and make a difference in their lives. And I commend you guys for doing that honestly, because a lot of vendors don’t understand that. And it shows a more advanced thought. You’re playing chess and maybe your competitors are playing checkers. And I think that says something a lot about you and your culture. ⁓ That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome.
Clint Parr (40:36)
It’s a long-term game and we’re just really just beginning. I don’t know if you’ve seen the chart by Anthropic. They showed the impact of AI in the, in the labor force, right? And there’s this little bitty splotch in the middle of this target circle. It’s just an insignificant amount of impact so far. Yet the projections are just enormous.
Johri Dhanotra (40:59)
Timing is right Terry. This is the moment and As you pointed out we are all of the team with ⁓ with marketopia is ready to grab the opportunity and I think it’s the energy the vibes are awesome and let’s do it
Terry Hedden (41:15)
I was talking to my team, you know, our goal is to reach 12 million small businesses and bring leads to our partners. And the thought of sending email campaigns to 12 million companies is like mind blowing. The idea of building PPC campaigns that don’t have restrictions on audience. In other words, it’s just like freaking, I’ll take any business that’s more than five employees in the United States. Let’s go.
⁓ and, and, and, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re trying to build out that network of MSPs to where you have them national footprints of someone like you can come in, plug and play and say, all right, I got a lead in, you know, Butler, Pennsylvania, who’s my MSP. And we give them that lead and they go close it and, and, everyone is successful. So, so that’s amazing. You, Clint, you, you, said something that I’m, gosh, I’m a little bit confused by. said that I’ve heard Jari said the timing is right, but you don’t have to go fast. Do you really mean that? How many years do MSPs have to where they have to jump on board with this whole AI thing? How many years, how many decades do they have to make this decision that they got to go and go hard into this?
Clint Parr (42:24)
Yeah, well, they don’t have to be in a hurry in terms of going into a company and scaling them up with dozens and dozens of agents, right? Whereas go across all 500 of them and get everybody confident about how to use the technology, understand the capacity of it. Right. And that’s where the long game is. It’s not the onesie twosies. the, it’s the, your customers that are going to have 10, 20, a hundred agents.
Johri’s company. Jory, many agents are running your company right now?
Johri Dhanotra (42:58)
We actually literally every marketing, sales, ⁓ campaigns, everything is an agent. Even the building of the platform is 80 % done by the agents. Actually, just to add to that, Terry, to your point, I think it has to be a mix. ⁓ The thinking fast, thinking slow kind of thing, which will do some things, will advise the MSPs and our partners to think fast and implement fast certain things. Low hanging know, chat agents, customer service, there are areas that can be done right away. Thinking slow will come into picture wherein there are these ⁓ complicated workflows and processes in the backend that need to be understood and replaced with AI going forward. So it can be like go in there, low hanging AI, done. And then we go in, we understand the workflows and the processes, and then we replace them, you know, in a very methodical process without disrupting the business.
So that is going to be a little slow. So it will be a mix of fast and slow. the first thing has to be like, go grab it, know, go start talking to them. ⁓
Clint Parr (44:05)
But, I know where Terry is heading now. We do need to go fast in terms of really customer or new prospect capture, right? Let’s grab as many SMB customers under the umbrella of the MSP as possible and do the onesie twosies and get all the seeds planted. Yes, Terry, we need to move fast on that. No doubt.
Terry Hedden (44:28)
I think the time is past for taking your time to make a decision. It’s now strategic decisions like who’s going to help me get the leads, who’s going to close the deals, who’s going help me do the service. That needs to be made quickly and people need to go and go fast and hard. And I think one of the things that you guys bring to the table is that you’re going to help them. So if God blesses them with 500 leads in the first campaign they execute on March 30th, you’re going to be able to help them close those deals. Whereas a lot of people might be just fearful of the tsunami that’s coming before them. It sounds like you build a scalable organization, partially leveraging AI, partially loving really talented people like you guys, and you’re ready to help them grow. You’re ready to help them deal with the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with growth. And I think it’s a very, very cool thing. A lot of the vendors that are in the community, to be honest with you, are like, look at this tool we got. Look how cool it is. Look what it can do.
And then they’re just looking at the MSP to do the rest. You’re like, that’s just how it works. You you’re not inventing a new switch. You’re not Cisco saying, Hey, guess what? Now, instead of a gigabit switch, it’s a two gigabit switch. Go deploy it. It’s not that simple. There’s a lot more to this. And, and I really applaud you guys for sort of taking that approach to business and, and, being the answer to not only your customers problems, but also the people that going to help you get those customers. So I think that says a lot about you guys and your, your understanding of the overall market and, and your vision for what is needed to really achieve the success that everyone’s looking for. So I really applaud.
Johri Dhanotra (46:03)
I think it’s all about how to scale using AI. That’s the gist of it. And we have embraced it, we have learned it, we practice it, our platform does it, and we want to take that scale using AI to our partners without adding more resources or overhead. And that’s how we do it in this new age of AI, right? So scaling using AI is the key there. Otherwise, that’s like the old way of doing things. That’s not going to work in the new age.
Terry Hedden (46:31)
Right. That’s awesome. Well, you know, I, every time I talk to you guys, I leave inspired, man. I love the vision. I love the energy. I love the confidence. I love this technology and the solution that you’re bringing to market. And I see just a tremendous opportunity for everyone to win. And that’s really awesome. Right. At the end of the day, it’s, it’s not about the dollar. It’s about the difference you make. And if you can make a dollar while making a difference, then that’s the ultimate, right? And I really see that. I see that in your business model. I see that in your product.
It’s about helping the end customer win and in the process, helping the MSP win and then process you guys win. I guess since we’re partners, we win as well. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing. So I applaud you guys for that. And I look forward to many, many, many, many millions of successful miniature campaigns going out on behalf of thousands of MSPs worldwide.
Clint Parr (47:21)
Yeah, well, Terry, we appreciate you and the MSPs appreciate you for really taking the lead on introducing, it’s not just us, it’s all kinds of AI types of solutions to the MSPs and vetting them and then putting the campaigns and everything together to make them successful. Right. And nobody else is around to do that unless you want to pay a heavy price to be on a distribution platform. Right. So, and no one’s willing to do that.
Johri Dhanotra (47:46)
And we should be doing more of these are Terry, these podcasts, because one of the things that we have to be doing on top of all the other stuff is to actually spread the AI, spread the messaging. And we should be talking a little bit more on AI because it’ll be, you know, people should be able to just learn the new, new things in the market. Let’s make a, you know, think about doing an AI podcast on a regular basis. I think that’ll be a good next step.
Terry Hedden (48:13)
Love it. I love the idea, man. Thank you so much for the inspiration. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. Thank you for bringing your solution to market. Thank you for doing your best to mentor and challenge and support the MSPs that are looking to achieve their dreams and help their customers achieve theirs. I wish you the nothing but the best and look forward to many years of success together.
Johri Dhanotra (48:31)
Same here, Terry. Thanks for having me.
