Most MSPs Are Trying to Run Before They Can Walk
John Harden has been close to AI longer than most. He sold his last business. Spent three years at Auvik leading work across business, product, strategy, and AI implementation. Took time off. And now he is back, on his fourth startup journey, building again. When I asked him about the biggest gap he sees in how businesses are approaching AI today, […]
AI Does Not Replace Your Best People, It Makes Them Better
AI Is Empowering Tech Teams. Not Replacing Them. I will be honest with you. I did not expect these conversations to land the way they did. I have had some truly enriching conversations with MSP leaders in the channel recently. About AI. About people. About what is actually happening on the ground versus what everyone is talking about […]
Nine Cakes and One Strong Leadership Lesson
This past week Rita and I traveled to our remote offices for a stretch of leadership training. Three cities, 90 leaders, a lot of fun and learning. The trip happened to land right on my birthday, and I figured it would be one of those days that quietly passed while I was in the air […]
What MSP Leaders Took Back to Their Teams After April AI Accelerator
MSP leaders who attended the April AI Accelerator returned with four specific changes: how they ran team meetings, how they priced AI services, how they updated client QBRs, and when they committed to vendor decisions. This post documents what actually shifted operationally, not just what inspired them in the room. Most MSP leaders return from events with […]
The MSP Relationship Just Changed. Most Have Not Noticed Yet
This is a conversation between Sunny and Ahmed Mahmood, a fifteen-year veteran of the managed services industry, exploring how AI has fundamentally shifted not just what MSPs do, but where they sit in the value chain. I had a conversation with Ahmed Mahmood recently that reframed something I have believed for a long time but […]
The Org Chart Is Changing. Are You Ready for What Goes on It?
My org chart has a new column, and honestly, some of the team members don’t have a heartbeat. I’ve been staring at our org chart a lot lately. Not because something’s broken, but because I’m starting to see it differently. As many of you know, we’re fully in it when it comes to AI at ITBD. Every employee in our company is learning to […]
From Refugee to MSP Leader: The Story Behind Ocean Solutions
Some of the most grounded perspectives on business come from people who built everything from nothing. Ahmed Mahmood, founder and CEO of Ocean Solutions, is one of those people. Originally from Iraq, Ahmed ran a small computer business as a college student when the US involvement in Iraq changed everything. He worked with the US […]
The AI Conversation Has Already Changed
There is a moment in every major technology shift when the conversation stops being about whether and starts being about how. We are in that moment right now with AI. I have spent the last several months in rooms, on calls, and in deep working sessions with MSP leaders across every stage of growth. What […]
If AI Can Do Your Job, What’s Your Edge?
Mark Said It Out Loud. Now We All Have to Deal with It. We were recently in our quarterly session with our EOS facilitator, Mark O’Donnell, CEO of EOS Worldwide. I always walk away from time with Mark with something worth chewing on, and this last session was no different. He dropped something that’s been sitting with me ever […]
What Happens to Your AI Strategy Between Strategic Decisions
MSP AI strategy accountability is the structured practice of maintaining, pressure-testing, and calibrating AI decisions between major planning moments. Most MSP leaders make solid AI decisions at events or offsites, then watch those decisions quietly dissolve under daily operational pressure. The gap between decisions is where strategy drift happens, and without a peer-level accountability environment, […]