Testing Zulip
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For fun, let's say Scott as the CIO of NTG makes a base salary of $100,000. Pretty low, but an even number to work with. That's $80 per hour the company is paying to employ him. Let's also say it takes two days of work to set up a new solution. Actual setup, testing, etc. Over however long it's probably 16 hours of work, even if it's more than that in days. We'll be generous and say NTG has 40 employees.
At $2 a month, you're at $80 a month for their hosted SaaS solution. No notification limits, no managing servers, etc. For the $80 a month to catch up to the 16 hours of work testing and moving to another solution, it would take 16 months. And that's just the initial set up cost, not including server maintenance.
Customer cost doesn't come into this because they should be billed for the service. They should be currently billed for this because the maintenance of the server isn't zero, so they should be paying for some aspect of it.
It's a no brainer that the SaaS solution is cheaper. Plus you're also contributing to a project and company that you like.
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
How many users do you have? Seems like a good investment to pay the $3 a month to support Rocket.Chat.
Hundreds of users.
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
Edit2: Sorry missed the hundreds. You have hundreds of employees?
No, users. Rocket isn't our internal messaging system. That's Zoho Cliq.
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
Rocket is no longer going to do notifications for free,
It shows you get 5 thousand for free per month?
Yeah, doesn't seem like nearly enough for us. We've hundreds of users and constant chatter. Seems like we could go through that in a few days.
How many users do you have? Seems like a good investment to pay the $3 a month to support Rocket.Chat.
Edit: Or go SaaS with them and pay $2 a month and have no limit for notifications at all (and not have to manage anything). That seems like a crazy deal.
Edit2: Sorry missed the hundreds. You have hundreds of employees?
Hundreds of NTG employees? No -
But NTG client employees number in the hundreds - and they use it as a point of contact other than phone or mail
Then it's a no brainer. The $2 should be built into the support cost. The employee cost for it should be minimal.
That's not viable MSP math. You start doing that and suddenly every tool costs you tens of thousands of dollars and you spend so much supporting a person that no one can afford you.
There is a reason why $3/mo RMM tools don't make sense, it's too costly on an end point / person basis. Individual endpoints or people should be cheap. If the ENTIRE cost was $2 well heck, yeah. But once you start down this path you pay $2 here, $2 there and suddenly you're spending more per user on tooling than most companies charge for support.
The idea that you just bill the customer for you not keeping the cost down sounds great, but in reality, being the company that delivers more value for less money goes a long way.
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
Customer cost doesn't come into this because they should be billed for the service. They should be currently billed for this because the maintenance of the server isn't zero, so they should be paying for some aspect of it.
This is a customer only system. So ONLY they come into it, really.
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
For fun, let's say Scott as the CIO of NTG makes a base salary of $100,000. Pretty low, but an even number to work with. That's $80 per hour the company is paying to employ him. Let's also say it takes two days of work to set up a new solution. Actual setup, testing, etc. Over however long it's probably 16 hours of work, even if it's more than that in days. We'll be generous and say NTG has 40 employees.
Just to make it clear how impactful this is. We had a product in use by a portion of our customer base. It was only $3. Which yes, is 50% more than we are talking about here, but the same logic.
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost. The entire engineering budget for it was covered in the elimination of the $3/mo/end point cost. All of it. With lots of profit overhead. Lots.
Now that's having a full time engineer for something complex. Imagine how little engineering time is needed for something like Rocket, Mattermost, etc. That $2/mo is a cripplying expense that we'd be insane to even entertain. Even at $.50/user we can do it way cheaper in house. More like $.005/user.
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@scottalanmiller what's your time worth?
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@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
Rocket is no longer going to do notifications for free,
It shows you get 5 thousand for free per month?
Yeah, doesn't seem like nearly enough for us. We've hundreds of users and constant chatter. Seems like we could go through that in a few days.
How many users do you have? Seems like a good investment to pay the $3 a month to support Rocket.Chat.
Edit: Or go SaaS with them and pay $2 a month and have no limit for notifications at all (and not have to manage anything). That seems like a crazy deal.
Edit2: Sorry missed the hundreds. You have hundreds of employees?
Hundreds of NTG employees? No -
But NTG client employees number in the hundreds - and they use it as a point of contact other than phone or mail
Then it's a no brainer. The $2 should be built into the support cost. The employee cost for it should be minimal.
That's not viable MSP math. You start doing that and suddenly every tool costs you tens of thousands of dollars and you spend so much supporting a person that no one can afford you.
There is a reason why $3/mo RMM tools don't make sense, it's too costly on an end point / person basis. Individual endpoints or people should be cheap. If the ENTIRE cost was $2 well heck, yeah. But once you start down this path you pay $2 here, $2 there and suddenly you're spending more per user on tooling than most companies charge for support.
The idea that you just bill the customer for you not keeping the cost down sounds great, but in reality, being the company that delivers more value for less money goes a long way.
Wait so instead of a support portal you create a user for anyone from the customer who wants to talk to you guys?
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@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
While it’s been two or so years since I was an active NTG staffer, one client would have had 200 employees in just one state, and they where in all 50.
Rocket was a good process as it allowed for whole company separation and still include notifications like down time. But also allowed for the personalization of direct contact that wasn’t a flood to NTG
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@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
While it’s been two or so years since I was an active NTG staffer, one client would have had 200 employees in just one state, and they where in all 50.
Rocket was a good process as it allowed for whole company separation and still include notifications like down time. But also allowed for the personalization of direct contact that wasn’t a flood to NTG
Wait a minute. So NTG is offering Rocket.Chat as a service to customers for internal communication along with using it as a means of notifications for SLOs?
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
While it’s been two or so years since I was an active NTG staffer, one client would have had 200 employees in just one state, and they where in all 50.
Rocket was a good process as it allowed for whole company separation and still include notifications like down time. But also allowed for the personalization of direct contact that wasn’t a flood to NTG
Wait a minute. So NTG is offering Rocket.Chat as a service to customers for internal communication along with using it as a means of notifications for SLOs?
And at no cost to the customer?
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
While it’s been two or so years since I was an active NTG staffer, one client would have had 200 employees in just one state, and they where in all 50.
Rocket was a good process as it allowed for whole company separation and still include notifications like down time. But also allowed for the personalization of direct contact that wasn’t a flood to NTG
Wait a minute. So NTG is offering Rocket.Chat as a service to customers for internal communication along with using it as a means of notifications for SLOs?
Client to NTG Only - IIRC
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@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
While it’s been two or so years since I was an active NTG staffer, one client would have had 200 employees in just one state, and they where in all 50.
Rocket was a good process as it allowed for whole company separation and still include notifications like down time. But also allowed for the personalization of direct contact that wasn’t a flood to NTG
Wait a minute. So NTG is offering Rocket.Chat as a service to customers for internal communication along with using it as a means of notifications for SLOs?
And at no cost to the customer?
Yeah I'm not understanding this line of reasoning either. I get they want to be cheap to get business, but at some point it's not going to work as well as clients need as they often need hand-holding.
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@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
For fun, let's say Scott as the CIO of NTG makes a base salary of $100,000. Pretty low, but an even number to work with. That's $80 per hour the company is paying to employ him. Let's also say it takes two days of work to set up a new solution. Actual setup, testing, etc. Over however long it's probably 16 hours of work, even if it's more than that in days. We'll be generous and say NTG has 40 employees.
Just to make it clear how impactful this is. We had a product in use by a portion of our customer base. It was only $3. Which yes, is 50% more than we are talking about here, but the same logic.
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost. The entire engineering budget for it was covered in the elimination of the $3/mo/end point cost. All of it. With lots of profit overhead. Lots.
Now that's having a full time engineer for something complex. Imagine how little engineering time is needed for something like Rocket, Mattermost, etc. That $2/mo is a cripplying expense that we'd be insane to even entertain. Even at $.50/user we can do it way cheaper in house. More like $.005/user.
how is the same thing not said about hosted email?
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@jmoore said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
While it’s been two or so years since I was an active NTG staffer, one client would have had 200 employees in just one state, and they where in all 50.
Rocket was a good process as it allowed for whole company separation and still include notifications like down time. But also allowed for the personalization of direct contact that wasn’t a flood to NTG
Wait a minute. So NTG is offering Rocket.Chat as a service to customers for internal communication along with using it as a means of notifications for SLOs?
And at no cost to the customer?
Yeah I'm not understanding this line of reasoning either. I get they want to be cheap to get business, but at some point it's not going to work as well as clients need as they often need hand-holding.
I'm sure it's not at no cost - but it's at like 5 cents/user/m or even less - it's most likely just baked into their monthly per user/device support fee.
I'm with the others pushing back on Scott though - are you saying any MSP worth it's salt is going to these lengths that NTG is to give awesome benefits at nearly no cost? Doesn't seem like making money is a goal here at all. Heck, even staying operating seems challenging at times. But really that would depend on your profits on the existing fees, perhaps you're already making 100% met margins, so this expense of labor would be worthwhile.
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@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
While it’s been two or so years since I was an active NTG staffer, one client would have had 200 employees in just one state, and they where in all 50.
Rocket was a good process as it allowed for whole company separation and still include notifications like down time. But also allowed for the personalization of direct contact that wasn’t a flood to NTG
Wait a minute. So NTG is offering Rocket.Chat as a service to customers for internal communication along with using it as a means of notifications for SLOs?
Client to NTG Only - IIRC
How does that work? You'd have to do private groups or something if you're using a singular instance. Unless there's multiple Rocket.Chat servers running, one for each client?
How would you keep people at company A from talking to people at company B?
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@Dashrender said in Testing Zulip:
@jmoore said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@gjacobse said in Testing Zulip:
@stacksofplates said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller said in Testing Zulip:
At that price, we were able to afford to hire a full time engineer just to build and support a solution to replace it and were able to provide a vastly superior solution to the customers, at lower cost
You hired an engineer for $600 a month?
I'm guessing because "hundreds" doesn't tell me anything. So I'm going with 200 people.
While it’s been two or so years since I was an active NTG staffer, one client would have had 200 employees in just one state, and they where in all 50.
Rocket was a good process as it allowed for whole company separation and still include notifications like down time. But also allowed for the personalization of direct contact that wasn’t a flood to NTG
Wait a minute. So NTG is offering Rocket.Chat as a service to customers for internal communication along with using it as a means of notifications for SLOs?
And at no cost to the customer?
Yeah I'm not understanding this line of reasoning either. I get they want to be cheap to get business, but at some point it's not going to work as well as clients need as they often need hand-holding.
I'm sure it's not at no cost - but it's at like 5 cents/user/m or even less - it's most likely just baked into their monthly per user/device support fee.
I'm with the others pushing back on Scott though - are you saying any MSP worth it's salt is going to these lengths that NTG is to give awesome benefits at nearly no cost? Doesn't seem like making money is a goal here at all. Heck, even staying operating seems challenging at times. But really that would depend on your profits on the existing fees, perhaps you're already making 100% met margins, so this expense of labor would be worthwhile.
Yeah not even the free part. How do you track any of this? Tickets come in on a system built for internal chat (and external through public channels obv). How do you keep track of any of that? Unless you set webhooks or something to create tickets in a ticketing system, which at that point, just have them submit tickets? I don't understand this workflow at all.
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@VoIP_n00b said in Testing Zulip:
@scottalanmiller what's your time worth?
MY time? What does MY time have to do with it?
I think you intend to as how much the time of my staff is worth. And we've already established that I can save a lot by hiring someone to run this system rather than paying $2/mo.
I covered that, so there should be no question that the savings from building, rather than buying, is huge no matter how it is worded.
