MSP Mindset with Damien Stevens

MSPs stand on the edge of a once-in-a-generation profit boom—yet most will sleep right through it. Discover the exact shifts Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Canalys, says are days away from reshaping your margins forever.

Live at Pax8 Beyond 2025, Jay joins host Damien Stevens to map the next 20-year tech era—agentic AI—plus the hidden $8.45 of services that trail every Microsoft cloud dollar. If you’ve ever wondered how to turn today’s SaaS chaos into tomorrow’s 300% multipliers, this episode is your playbook.

Connect more with Damien and Jay:
Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
Jay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymcbain/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/@mspmindset

Co-managed backups: daily checks, immutable storage, full quarterly DRaaS testing — all done for you ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

Tired of feeling trapped in founder-led sales? Vince Gremillion scaled past the “no-man’s-land” every MSP dreads—while hitting 99% CSAT and out-maneuvering private equity threats. In this episode, Damien sits down with Vince, founder of Restech, to unpack the hard-won systems, culture shifts, and acquisition plays that propelled his MSP from a two-man shop to a 40-person powerhouse.

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:07 - Starting Restech
10:00 - Being a Human focused business
13:17 - Enthusiasm vs Passion and finding the right people
18:58 - Teaching by modeling
25:12 - How do you stand out to potential clients?
28:10 - Building a business and personal life
31:44 - Hitting "no-man's land"
41:38 - Showing grace your team
45:50 - Dealing with loss
47:59 - Growing $1M ARR in one year
52:31 - How Restech is going about acquiring
55:37 - MSP Titan Questions

Connect more with Damien & Vince:

• Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens/
• Vince: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincegremillion/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/@mspmindset

Co-managed backups: daily checks, immutable storage, full quarterly DRaaS testing — all done for you ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

Want to know why most managed service providers never break the $5 million ceiling?

On today’s episode, Damien sits down live at Pax8 with Shawn Freeman, CEO of Impactful MSP and founder of a $5 million MSP which he sold in 2020. Shawn unpacks the mindset shifts, leadership upgrades, and pricing strategies that let him scale, cash out smart, and still create massive upside for his team. If you’re an MSP owner hungry for real strategy, this episode is your roadmap.

Connect more with Damien and Shawn:
Damien - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens/
Shawn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnfreeman-/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/@mspmindset

Co-managed backups: daily checks, immutable storage, full quarterly DRaaS testing — all done for you ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

On today's episode, we have on Dan Shapero, President of TeamLogic IT, and we're focusing on scaling MSPs through a franchise model, the mindset and character of successful owners, and the operational systems TeamLogic uses to grow rapidly—launching 30 new MSP offices a year.

Key themes include:
➡️ The $500K–$1M “ticket trap” MSPs often face and how to overcome it
➡️ The importance of culture, process, and peer groups in building scalable MSPs
➡️ Hiring and leadership mistakes, and how Dan now emphasizes compassion and integrity
➡️ Security as the top ongoing challenge in protecting the MSP brand
➡️ Long-term trends like AI, cloud, and offshore labor changing the landscape

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
2:14 - How Dan got to TeamLogic IT
5:00 - TeamLogic IT's size
7:41 - How they're starting 30 MSPs over the next year
15:40 - How to find owners and why culture matters
26:10 - Why peer groups are important to them
32:42 - Following the system
35:36 - What are some challenges he's faced?
41:33 - What are the challenges he sees MSPs facing?
54:08 - MSP Titan Questions

👉 Connect with Damien and Dan:
Damien - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
Dan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danshapero/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/@mspmindset

Co-managed backups: daily checks, immutable storage, full quarterly DRaaS testing — all done for you ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

What if the secret to scaling your MSP wasn't tech—but customer experience?

In this episode record at Pax8 Beyond, Justin Esgar, CEO of Virtua Consulting, drops a truth bomb: most MSPs fail at the one thing that matters most—hospitality. From spilled milk baby onesies to handwritten birthday cards, Justin walks us through how he's turning CX into a competitive advantage.

✅ Why Justin made “Unreasonable Hospitality” mandatory reading for his team
✅ How your P&L reveals budget for WOW moments
✅ Why zero-touch onboarding is killing your client experience
✅ The $0 gesture that makes you better than 70% of MSPs
✅ CX lessons MSPs must steal from Michelin-star restaurants

👉 CONNECT MORE WITH:
Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
Justin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinesgar/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/@mspmindset

Co-managed backups: daily checks, immutable storage, full quarterly DRaaS testing — all done for you ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

Would you call your MSP a “family”? Sumeet Sabharwal wouldn’t—and his brutal honesty helped him grow Netgain Technology into one of the top 11 MSPs in North America.

In this episode, Damian talks with Sumeet, CEO of Netgain Technology, about what it takes to scale a PE-backed MSP with real heart and high standards. From radically reshaping company culture to building a full SOC in-house, Sumeet shares lessons in leadership, focus, and execution that any growth-minded MSP needs to hear. Discover how Netgain grew its verticals by up to 36% and why talent, clarity, and accountability matter more than ever.

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
2:18 - Sumeet joining Netgain as CEO backed by PE
11:33 - Brining in changes
24:07 - As a business, you aren't a family & handling a new team
37:28 - Building in their SOC
46:00 - What Sumeet attributes their growth to
48:30 - MSP Titan Questions
59:00 - What Netgain is doing with AI and why you should start now

Connect with Sumeet and Damien:
Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
Sumeet: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ssabharwal/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbzzyR7yX9l9XQaZCBp0v0g

Servosity's co-managed backups: daily checks, immutable storage, full quarterly DRaaS testing — all done for you ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

In this episode, FusionTek CEO Brian Miller reveals the gritty, self-funded strategy that took his MSP from a 1 man shop to a 100-employee powerhouse through four carefully targeted acquisitions and organic growth. We unpack how he spot-checks culture fit, the metrics he tracks before signing, and why an internship pipeline and AI tooling now power his next chapter of scale.

Connect with Damien and Brian:
Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmillerfusiontek/

Special thanks to Pax8 for letting us record live at Pax8 Beyond in Denver! https://www.pax8.com/en-us/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbzzyR7yX9l9XQaZCBp0v0g

Learn more about how my robust backup process can secure your client’s data ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

Keith Willis of ECX Systems built a fast-growing MSP by doing things differently—putting his family first, cutting out high-stress clients, and redefining what MSP sales should look like. In this episode, Keith shares exactly how he built a business that gave him time, peace, and profit.

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
2:00 - Building a Family-First MSP
9:50 - Intentional business building
28:40 - Being intentional with family and business
39:50 - How to properly handle sales at an MSP -
52:16 - Being the MSP for MSPs
1:06:11 - MSP Titan Questions

👉 Connect more with:
Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
Keith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taloncc/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbzzyR7yX9l9XQaZCBp0v0g

Learn more about how my robust backup process and secure your client’s data ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

In this episode, Damien interviews Karen Schell and Melissa Bryant, outgoing and incoming presidents of DP Solutions. Both rose from the trenches of customer-facing roles to lead a thriving MSP with nearly 80 employees. Their journey is full of hard lessons, from choosing to walk away from a major deal that didn’t align with company values, to surviving and thriving after a catastrophic RMM failure that wiped thousands of machines.

Here's some of what we discuss:
✅ How customer service experience can translate into effective leadership
✅ The pivotal decision to walk away from a misaligned large client
✅ How a disaster involving 4,000 wiped OSs unified their team
✅ The mindset that helped them grow from 50 to 78 employees without acquisitions
✅ Why unreasonable hospitality is their growth lever going forward

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:39 - Karen's path to President of DP
6:55 - Melissa's journey to President of DP
14:45 - Evolving through the roles
20:18 - Growing through acquisitions and what they learned
33:29 - Their worst day and what they learned from it
49:22 - How they're growing organically
1:01:03 - Having clients for 30 years
1:04:51 - Why don't we see more women led MSPs?
1:12:32 - MSP Titan Questions

👉 Connect more with Damien, Karen, and Meslissa:
Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
Karen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karynschell/
Melissa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissabryant5/

🎙 Listen on audio:
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/msp-mindset-with-damien-stevens/id1669572779
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5B1k3Z8qXBGBSCJeSScjBE?si=c5d185c306064520

#msp #managedservices #managedserviceprovider

Learn more about how my robust backup process can secure your client’s data ►► https://bit.ly/3X1L8ED

Niching your MSP sounds great in theory—but what happens when it means turning away revenue, firing clients, and rebuilding your stack from scratch?

Vinod Paul, President of Managed Services at Align, did exactly that. In this episode, he unpacks the real cost—and real payoff—of going all-in on a single vertical. Learn how his team scaled to 210 staff, ranked #31 on the MSP 501, and did it all without acquisitions or outside capital.

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:28 - How he got to Align
10:38 - Making the bet on automation
14:57 - What does he attribute to their rapid growth?
18:00 - Challenges in niching and having hard conversations
22:04 - The vision to buy into niching
27:36 - What you should do when niching
32:03 - Will they do any m&a?
34:55 - How far out they plan
39:43 - Vinod's thoughts on AI
44:33 - MSP Titan Questions

👉 Connect more with:
Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
Vinod: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinodgpaul/

📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbzzyR7yX9l9XQaZCBp0v0g