1001 Reasons Not to Be an MSP
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In another thread the idea of a book on "1001 Reasons Not to Be an MSP" came up. And I thought "what a great idea for a thread". We should collect reasons why starting an MSP is not a good idea or reasons to be wary of starting one.
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Okay, I'll start: The field is over saturated.
It is a big market, yes, but one that is completely full of people competing for the available work. There isn't enough work to go around.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Okay, I'll start: The field is over saturated,with poorly trained people that should not be running a business service.
FTFY
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Getting customers isn't trivial. People often make it seem easy, but it is not. Most MSPs start by having an anchor customer on day one and building an MSP around an existing customer, many never get another one. If you try to start an MSP without that opportunity you have little chance of getting to critical mass before running out of funds.
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It's always your fault, even when it had nothing to do with you
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@MattSpeller said:
It's always your fault, even when it had nothing to do with you
This is a bigger deal than can be easily described. Customers generally hire MSPs because they know little about IT. In turn, they have little means to evaluate when their MSP is protecting them or screwing them and often lash out at MSPs trying to help them the most and lean on those taking the most advantage of them. Not universally but it is a real problem. Because the industry is full of con men and slick salespeople who all have the loudest voices, the honest IT pros and vendors trying to help the customers often look like they are going against the industry because the customer can't identify a legitimate industry voice from that of a sales person. Or don't care to put in the effort to do so.
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@scottalanmiller aye, nailed it
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You have to wear too many hats. Sales, Marketing, Customer Relations, you are rarely just the IT guy.
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@coliver said:
You have to wear too many hats. Sales, Marketing, Customer Relations, you are rarely just the IT guy.
That's big. Being good at IT doesn't imply that you are good at sales, marketing, business or accounting. Very few people are good at all of those. At best you are a renaissance man and will have to task switch like crazy. At worst you will have to hire lots of people to do each of those things. It takes a lot of people to support a single full time IT pro.
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I love not being an MSP.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
I love not being an MSP.
ha ha. /sarcasm
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Well I had to say something
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Making the leap from one man MSP to a functional multi-person company is not an organic one. Only in the rarest cases can you just go from working alone to having a team. The cost of bringing on that first employee has to come from somewhere and unless you can bring on new clients that pay for the new staff at the exact same time as the new staff you will have major financial overhead to carry.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Making the leap from one man MSP to a functional multi-person company is not an organic one. Only in the rarest cases can you just go from working alone to having a team. The cost of bringing on that first employee has to come from somewhere and unless you can bring on new clients that pay for the new staff at the exact same time as the new staff you will have major financial overhead to carry.
I know someone in that boat.
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Do I get a co-writer credit for providing the title?
reason #427: The customer is rarely right, but you still have to kiss ass to get their money.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Making the leap from one man MSP to a functional multi-person company is not an organic one. Only in the rarest cases can you just go from working alone to having a team.
Would this not also apply to businesses of other shapes and sizes?
If you want to go from a single restaurant to 2 locations, there is a cost, there is a leap you have to make, a decision which carries risks but it could be an investment that pays off, many times it does not but on the occasions it does pay off, wow.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Making the leap from one man MSP to a functional multi-person company is not an organic one. Only in the rarest cases can you just go from working alone to having a team.
@Breffni-Potter said:
Would this not also apply to businesses of other shapes and sizes?
If you want to go from a single restaurant to 2 locations, there is a cost, there is a leap you have to make, a decision which carries risks but it could be an investment that pays off, many times it does not but on the occasions it does pay off, wow.
It does, but the leap form single to more than one is huge. It maybe less people or tings than opening a second location, but it is a much different animal in other ways.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Making the leap from one man MSP to a functional multi-person company is not an organic one. Only in the rarest cases can you just go from working alone to having a team. The cost of bringing on that first employee has to come from somewhere and unless you can bring on new clients that pay for the new staff at the exact same time as the new staff you will have major financial overhead to carry.
I know someone in that boat.
I've known many over the years.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Making the leap from one man MSP to a functional multi-person company is not an organic one. Only in the rarest cases can you just go from working alone to having a team.
Would this not also apply to businesses of other shapes and sizes?
If you want to go from a single restaurant to 2 locations, there is a cost, there is a leap you have to make, a decision which carries risks but it could be an investment that pays off, many times it does not but on the occasions it does pay off, wow.
I think that people opening restaurants have a very different situation. Sure, opening another location has costs, but the existence of the restaurant, in theory, brings in revenue itself just by being open. Adding staff to an MSP does not do that. You have to have the staff and then figure out how to generate work for them. Just having the extra staff does not itself generate work.
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Because no customer "to be" knows what you do and you have to educate every single one of them before even finding out if they might make a good customer. It is really tough working in an industry where the people who need you most have no idea what you do.
