Merging Forces: RedStore + Titan HQ = CyberSentriq

Hello and welcome, Paul Kroger here from 18IT with another edition of the Vendor Blender. Today I'm talking to James Griffin, now James actually has been on the show before under a previous guys but we've gotten back because he's doing something a bit different and a bit new so we're quite interested to scratch the surface here James find out what's going on and it's exciting project you're doing. I was going to be back, I'll get a second invite, obviously did something well last time and yeah, a lot's changed since we last spoke but now I'm here as the CEO of Cybersentric which I'm sure we're going to talk about and Cybersentric we announced about 60 days ago in the beginning of June and there's a company we created by bringing RedStore which I was the CEO of and it can be called TitanHQ together to create a new entity. So exciting. Wow okay that's quite a story that's nothing that's no small feat by any any stretch of the imagination. So why why are these two companies sort of merged together to form Cybersentric? Yeah well actually I think the story probably goes back to when I last spoke to you. So when I last spoke to you I was fairly recent as the CEO of RedStore and started thinking about what the future was for that organization of course the most important part of that is speaking to MSPs about what their challenges are and I think what became obvious was there's a convergence in the market not always for good either. So there's you know MSPs have been working with a stack of best-of-breed vendors and we've seen those vendors being acquired some doing well others not so well after the acquisition and we could see that backup and cybersecurity was starting to converge you know there's pretty much not an MSP out there that's not serving SMBs without backup and security and you know new to the job of running RedStore and trying to figure out what the future was clearly an avenue for us was to move towards cybersecurity and expanding our portfolio but the big question was how did you do that because I think what MSPs are really really clear with me is please don't try and build it James it will be a disaster and I think they were right you know traditionally backup companies trying to build cybersecurity is not a great idea because it's different discipline. You can just wake up one morning and change your marketing and say when our cybersecurity company I think it's fundamentally different. So literally two years ago started talking about the possibility of a partnership with a similar-minded organization one that was similar size that would be a good cultural fit with and that led us to Titan and we started having conversations with them about partnership and over time that actually then morphed into could we do something more meaningful and permanent which led to the transaction where you're exactly right it was the transaction was about bringing two equally-sized companies together to create new organization so a merger of equals where we both come in with great MSP experience we come in with a ready-made portfolio it's well-respected and we put it together and we bring it into the space that we think massively underserved. I think it's great it sounds like an interesting concept but I'm sure as you said you dropped a hint there same size organizations I'm sure there's going to be an alignment time there time frame to get that sorted out as well yeah I think I think the good and the bad about a transaction like this is taking a while you know I think we've been actively working to to that June date for close to a year on the actual doing the deal element yeah and Ronan and I there's Ronan and CEO of Titan it had been meaningfully discussing what life would look like for a little bit longer and because of that I think we've had a lot of time as a joint team to think about life post bill and I'm pretty proud of the way the teams approached it because we went quite high and wide in the organization in terms of involving people as we got close to the announcement so we sort of came in day one with some pretty well-formed plans on whether you know where we were going to focus actually more importantly culturally are we similar businesses I genuinely think that's the biggest success factor and we felt not only at the product level but just organizationally you know the Titan team they're quite similar to Red Storting you know very proud of what they've built coming out of Galway punching you know seriously and building a real reputation for being a great business on a global stage and that that's the same spirit flows through in Red Stort so to you know almost from day one I think I think about the first meeting in two teams it actually felt more like a ball meeting so I had a good feeling about it I'm not obviously blind to the risks but I had a good feeling about the cultural alignment of the teams since pretty much the first of the met guys there actually yeah that's an interesting piece because we know sometimes MSPs go through mergers and acquisitions as well and it's an error sometimes that they struggle with so I think we can kind of almost cover off explaining and talking about you guys but also some of the lessons there as well so from a culture perspective for both both organizations obviously there's a risk with staff feeling a bit on edge that they might not be required anymore or they might be you know potentially using their job or something which is obviously quite quite drastic how's that how how is those conversations shaped can we help to help MSPs understand what that could look like if they go through something yeah yeah absolutely and I don't I wouldn't claim to be the global expert on the right way of doing this I think we've done a very good job of this and when we looked at the partnership and it comes back to why wouldn't we do it ourselves yeah well it's expertise and we view the the Titan team as much of an asset as the technology because inside of security you know expertise is everything for me you know so we really understood that what we were sort of going into the individuals in our organization were as much an asset as anything else so to make sure that we protected that asset was was critical to what we wanted to achieve from the M&A now that doesn't mean that we haven't had to optimize some areas where there's been some overlap but that's been less than 2% of the workforce and you know I think the approach we took whether rightly or wrongly only time will tell but we decided that we would act very swiftly we'd announce on day one and have all those exit conversations day two could really minimize any ongoing turbulence and be able to say let you guys are the team and this is what we now want to achieve as a team and that you know seems to have helped us move forward we've actually achieved a lot in the first 60 days in terms of actual milestones that our customers will see and I don't think that's possible unless you've got a relatively settled clean now I think that's that's the important piece is to say right we just need to kind of get those conversations lined up and had in a in a productive way where people aren't just kind of like hanging around so could us to you and a team for doing that it's always difficult having those types of conversations but sometimes we have to go through those stages to get to the to get to the the outcome that we need to get to so I think those those are important lessons to sort of just to sort of share where we can so thank you for passing that on and listeners MSPs and and tech folk alike if any of these points that we talk about resonate with you I urge you please do reach out talk to James and myself on social media or on LinkedIn or do you see this podcast drop a comment and something we will pick it up and we will get back to you on note those points so we've we've discussed about the how did it come about how how did the name come to fruition because I'm always intrigued hearing how a company name started yeah well I'm going to be up front here um drieden who's our new cmo so drieden runs marketing for titan and there's the cmo of cybersentric came back from his well observed holiday and we we I remember the conversation we said guess what job number one is in three weeks we needed to come up with a new brand a new name go away and work work the team so so kudos to him actually because knitting together management opinions staff opinions investor opinions pretty much in secret in a period of three weeks and coming out with what I think so really compelling brand uh is no mean feat he did um enlist the supports of brilliant agencies that we've worked with um why we like cybersentric from the list of five or six couple of things so obviously cybers pretty self explanatory it's it's the industry that we operate in I'm a big fan of centric and the and the slight riff on that being centricity so we're centric to msp's world they're centric to our world you know it's the team being centric to the mission and then iq is a little play on um at some we use internally called channel iq and um channel iq is all about having the deepest understanding of how msp's operate and our our role in that world so i think a lot of enders understand msp's and how their processes get to an msp we need to be better than that we need to understand how every single decision inside our business it might look great for us but if it doesn't fit in with how the msp wants to operate on news top rates it's the wrong thing to do and that's what we call channel iq so having that in the name for me was really quite essential in terms of setting the value set for the organization is out thinking is as good as that performing because they're they're related and um if you think of what we're doing you know i'm a sports guy i love any sort of team sports i think about this as a team um a team event but competitive you know we are playing if you like against management teams and competitors so it's our team better than the competitors team and part of that comes from how we think about solving the problem having that in the name for me really helps we all organize the organization around that concept i think it's i really like it um i like the fact that you've taken the time to go quite deep on this and and really think about it um it sounds like you really have got your clients your partners the msp's um iq so as providers wherever we're calling them news days because it seems to change um for minutes the next um but to have them front of mind and center of it is is really pleasing to hear because that's not always the case with with some some of the vendors out there um and i think they can you know it's it's their transaction auto to hear that you guys are setting it up very differently and this culture please we we talk about it quite a lot but i generally think get a vibe here that you guys actually are thinking it doing it and talking about it which i think's fantastic yeah i mean we got a long way to go i think i think both organizations have got really strong pedigree in that space for sure uh wait this is you know putting the two organizations together was never about putting two good businesses together to be as good was always to take it to the next level uh yes and uh you know i used like to use really practical examples but but i think msb focused businesses forgets too often that actually what we're here to do is protect the smb economy now there's smb's out there we've got all sorts of challenges they turn to msp's for help and those msp's are clearly the trusted devised the smb's we think the smb's are safest secures when their msp has the right partner and that the processes operate in the right way and this margin to be made is no point in them selling services they can't make money and they won't be able to trade so thinking about the impact all the way through to that end user is is how we start the problem that that's for us is key that's really interesting so again just picking up on some of the points you've mentioned there that the the features and the functions are we are you saying that they're going to be sort of shaped up from a business perspective to help the msp sort of align them to to what their clients and and um SMEs as you say are going to be needing a replacement? Absolutely 100% you know you sort of look at our mission is to protect the smb economy by giving the best possible cybersecurity data platform to msp's so that means the features have got to solve smb challenges the way the platform and the business operate has to solve msp challenges because I actually think that's where those basics are really important the price points no goodness trying to convince msp's to sell something at seven equate a month that smb's only going to pay a pound for for example so the price point has got to be deliverable at smb level and we we strongly believe that you know if you get that price point and quality mix correct you'll be able to solve more of those smb challenges which I know msp's really want to do I think when we talk to msp's they know when they're selling parts of the stack and the customer's got gaps they know who's going to be picking up the phone when there's problems the msp so collectively can we effectively help them deliver more services that are profitable at the right price points that solve those problems that's that's the equation we need to collectively solve and that's what we're obsessed with and again it's great to hear here you guys say that because I know from the communities that I'm in the msp's that I talked to you and listen to it's it's the age old old or question sometimes of we know they need this but they don't think they need it and it's difficult to have those conversations so to have someone on their side that gets these challenges rather than just selling you know trans we call it like transactional selling selling another license it's really really helpful because it's going to help it's just going to help everybody we're going to sell more do more protect more I just see that there's only been a good thing really I think it's good in so many ways and and don't get me wrong we're all here to make money as well and and what I love about msp is quite often they just give us feedback you're in a very simple way I met an msp in the US recently and and and his articulation was pretty clear James your channel business you got 3000 msp's now three times more than red store had that means you've got 3000 companies selling for you every hour of friction you add in is 3000 hours great way of looking it yeah on the flip of it you take 3000 hours out you've got 3000 more selling hours and why wouldn't you think of the problem that way if you're running a channel business absolutely which I love I love that love the clarity because it keeps us on our toes no it's great how how can your partners or how's the best way for partners if they've got these kind of thoughts and mindsets or ideas they want to sort of feed back into is there a way that they can do yeah absolutely so what I would say is if they are a current titan or red store partner just bringing your camera manager a message drop me a note I'm out and about seeing as many msp is I possibly can yeah I've been since the announcement and you know I've got various trips abroad coming up back to the US twice in the next six weeks so the more people I can meet the better you know if you want to come and talk to us about what what we're doing find me on LinkedIn find any of the exact team or any of the team and you'll find your way to me but more people I can engage with the better perfect no that's great that's really good um next question I've got lined up for you here because I've been scribbling away some as we've sort of been building up to this uh that this catch-up chat is what why why now what what's what's pinpointed this is the right time now to to converge these to well-known businesses together to form this new entity yeah well um some of it is luck I'd like to say all judgment but um as I said we've been sort of red stores and entity been looking at how we move in this direction and after ruling out sort of building new technology you know just exploring partnerships and transactions really it led us to this point actually I'd have liked to have delivered it earlier but a transaction of this sort of complexity just took a little longer um but it's really that that we've seen the challenges magnified in the space so MSPs effectively two business models re-selling or embedding and selling their services those are the two predominant models and both are becoming harder because of the vendor consolidation out there you've got um we take the model where MSPs are embedding services there's been so much consolidation there you know they might have spent 12 months moving off of vendor onto another one to now be back with the same vendor just through acquisition and yeah you know that that's meant some really well-respected brands that that people have placed bets on have gone backwards so conversely even there's lots of vendors in this space we felt that right now those MSPs are underserved there's this choice but there's not much choice if you want that quality that you get from best of breed but you actually want the breadth of all the services you need to trade where do you go yeah it's quite a difficult question to answer um or the alternative you start stitching together best of breed vendors like red store and and and title more but I think those MSPs I've got a bit of fatigue here is what I'm hearing of having to stitch multiple vendors together and we just saw this gap where okay if you can't answer the question of who is the go to MSP platform that delivers amazing service great science security great better protection commercial innovation and keeps materially investing in product development and service quality can answer that question then and she isn't that an opportunity yeah no I think you're right it's a great it's a great opportunity and I said I think I personally quite like the approach you guys are taking it seems different and a breath of fresh air so I'm sure that's going to go down well with lots of listeners and MSPs ITSP's out there um who who want something a bit different than the standard offering or being forced as you say down so one route or another route through acquisitions or cells and all that M&A piece as well which seems to be mudding the waters it almost reminds me of the old um you know you see lots of toothpaste but actually there's only really two companies out there that make it right and it's it sometimes feels the same way with there with the MSP SaaS platform arena 100% and and it's really interesting narrative out there and and you know my end up stepping on a landline here but but I know some of the MSPs have been a little bit nervous of the involvement of you know private equity in the space this deal has been enabled by private equity and both organizations have been feedback for many many years and we built fantastic MSP focus businesses and I understand why the narrative is there because of some of the behaviors you've seen in the market so I almost want to give a bit of a shout out there um you know this this transaction this creation this entity you know in terms of the timing you know our investors you know have not needed dragging to this they they've been real promoters at this deal and and they see it as well as we do they're very passionate about it I think we're quite lucky to have an investor like that um who wants to build the opian champion in this space and it's prepared to invest in it so so that's been great um the MSPs I think I think that have been talking to me post transaction their concern that's been are we going to repeat the behavior that they've seen with other vendors which is effectively degradation of service how the price is going up and and they're attributing that perhaps to private equity but I I don't believe that's the the calls I believe that's actually that there's a lot of vendors that effectively been underpricing their software for such a long time the impact of PE is that they're professional as in the organization and you know where did they think the money was going to come from yeah that's that impact but we've been running a good business and sort of tighter and we've been running a good profitable business we continue to be that's not our intent our intent is really simple we want to go win the share from other vendors who are doing a poor job that's it simple sounds sounds nice and straightforward but it's you know we there's there are people out there um the naysayers etc who who are negative with with with vendors with distributors with MSPs private equity would have to unfortunately the the world we live in needs all of it we can't operate with that with one of those things missing of the of the of the shopping list it's like ingredients we need all those ingredients to do the good stuff that we're doing so I think it's just about doing you know individually listeners would do their due diligence do their checks work out what they're happy with who they're happy with doing doing the business with and I think that's where where they need to just kind of align themselves to to the to the offering that you guys are presenting there um it's the I actually have to be honest I haven't had a chance to look yet it's the website yeah website was up but again cute us to the to the marketing team beginning this all done and the in the ages who work with that was uh live the night before we announced very good and almost weekly now we're adding new new pages to that so it's it's gone from effectively home for the press release to starting to become more of a landing site um and it will emerge over time right now we've got the tight website and the red store website are really strong well-indexed websites and they will continue to be over time they will sort of ascend into the cybercentric website perfect now that's fine so I don't really want to sort of dive into the technicalities of the different features and what's there and what's not there and and prices and the rest of it so I'm I okay to say to listeners to go off and visit the website to get a full lowdown on those areas and cybercentric.com or you can launch into it from the tiny HQ site or the red store site fabulous excellent that's great so if you're looking to find out more about what the features are what's under the bonnet so to speak uh with cybercentric dive over to the website have a look see what's going on there you'll be able to find out all the different features and functions that the exciting new platform is uh is offering us and I'll be going extra afterwards because I said I haven't had a chance to look at the website yet so I'll be doing that straight after this recording um I think one of the things I do need to sort of ask James because I can hear this ringing around in my head as I go to run the community events I go to soon is what's this mean for the the individual clients and and product product houses for red store and for Titan is is that the end is it's all getting flipped across into into the new company what's it? Yeah so so again really importantly um looking after people have already been on the journey with us was absolutely critical to the plan so to the goal for people who've joined us through Titan join us through um red store is absolute so not only service continuity but service improvement so if they're a Titan customer today they will continue to enjoy the same service the badge will change over time and it will change by they'll see Titan on their their login and then it will be Titan a cybercentric company and then at some point in the future it will just be cybercentric it will be blue not green the same for the red store side but they will still get an absolute adamant on this they cannot be any service degradation and I actually don't think that's good enough they need to see improvements um we're already live with a single support desk so 60 days after close we have now got one support desk one knowledge base one support team yeah and on the product side you know we have got a continuation of the roadmap commitments that we had both both teams have been bought together under one leadership group but they are effectively still operating as two specialist teams so you still have a whole team on Titan products and you still have the whole team on red store products and they are continuing to improve them and so what I would say to existing customers is you should expect your service to get even better and if it doesn't feel like that you should be calling me because that's that's absolute red line for me we have to continue improve the first bit of benefit they will feel is the opportunity to buy the new bundles of products from um you know if you're a Titan customer that means getting a very very compelling price on adding backup and the flip of it if you're a red store customer particularly on email archiving which is a really massively requested feature we've introduced some bundles that mean your first interaction with the organization is here's some commercial benefit thank you for your loyalty thank you for working with us you know look and feel wise yeah over the next say six months red and green is going to turn to blue and white logos are going to change and actually we will we will bring together um sort of an entry page for the application but they will still launch into individual applications but we're trying to bring that feeling together um so actually the improvements they should feel is a better billing experience because we've been told we need to improve that and we will yeah better billing experience single support desk being able to help them with queries across both commercial bundles are already live um and for me that ticks a lot of the boxes that the MSPs have already said of okay this will start to feel real when we get single bill single support desk set of commercials so we're already really focused on delivering that is there a cutoff time for the obviously two entities Titan and red store from the clients existing clients or new clients being able to buy those individual not at all not at all yeah and and that we we recognize that there are so many different business models out there who's interesting you know i2 service provider MSP even within those you've then got multiple different um models from pure resell resell recommend resell and service in bed you know and so the bundles are effectively a we would like to reward you for buying more products at once from us and and effectively give you back some margin by consolidating vendors to us we also recognize that for other people they might not want to you know it might be a simplest contract so therefore buy what particularly component to you yeah um that's that's the plan so it's still sort of uh allocate if you well if you if you wanted that as an option for you you can still go to you guys and decide a centric and just take the traditional red store services back up as you as you've always done absolutely absolutely and um you know as I say the the bundles really are first tranche here and um part of that is getting market feedback perfect no it's great i think it's nice to hear that you've got options on the table because when there's options on the table um you're able to service more people and people are more likely to to resonate with with something that that that links up with them so i think that's a good thing absolutely that's key perfect James well thank you ever so much there's been a really interesting deep dive i can see why you've been busy and um this is no mean feat by by any means of stretch no imagination um um which the teams both well as they sort of move forward um with this new this new entity it sounds fascinating but as all guests that come on our podcast we have to ask for a music track that means something to you and you've had we've had the previous one from yourself which was a Judas Priest track i can't remember that the name of the actual track itself now right number wind was the riding on the wind riding on the wind uh you're absolutely right and i believe the reason i chose it if i recall was that we had just gone through our conference actually um where funnily enough we denounced that we were going to head towards cyber security as uh as a as a business and that was my wall com music which had taken probably more effort in order to choose it so uh yeah you've already had that one yes yeah absolutely so that was that was the that was one that had you when we had you on last on the show but we're you on again so we need a new track from you from you James um what track are you adding and why are you adding it yeah well um right the other end of the spectrum i guess in terms of eclecticness i am going to add Joe smooth promise land which is sort of a gospel house record from the late 80s um cutlery reasons i want to add that is uh it's a very positive song and i think the world needs a bit of positivity right now i think it's got a very positive message yes um you know chisely promise land is kind of what we're building here for msps but um and also you uh first i've ever heard played live in ibifu which i've got too far too late in life actually um so yeah that was that was quite interesting um experience as well so yeah positive song good personal memory tenuous link to what we're doing here love it but hopefully something that once uh when the podcast finishes people can have a little listen to maybe bring a smile to the face absolutely well it's not been used before so it's going on the pod on the uh the playlist now it's your track thank you ever so much James it's always a pleasure catching up with you whether it's in at conferences at shows on this podcast i always enjoy um hearing what you've been up to and stuff and it's great to hear i think it's going from strength to strength there so thank you episode great to you back and i'm sure i'll see you around the event circuit over the next few months we'll do and also with the listeners as i said at the top of the show if anything here you're hearing here resonates with you you've got questions uh please do reach out to james and myself on social media we're really too happy to fill your your questions or your thoughts around it um after we want to make it engaging and interactive as much as possible so without shadow of doubt thank you so much back wraps up this episode james we'll see you soon see you