Ep.196 – Inside the Win – Cloud with Chad Muckenfuss and Jason Kaufman

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Chad Muckenfuss and Jason Kaufman from Telarus discuss a successful cloud partnership case study featuring Ancero. The opportunity began with a mid-sized company (50 desktops, 89 Microsoft 365 users across multiple locations) frustrated with multiple MSPs and seeking consolidation. Through an agnostic assessment, they identified the client’s need for simplified management, Microsoft 365 expansion, Azure data center migration, and cybersecurity improvements aligned with CIS framework requirements. The solution involved partnering with Ancero as both an MSP and MSSP to address regulatory compliance needs in the finance sector, including PCI and other frameworks. The engagement started at $6,600 MRR and grew 50% to $9,500 MRR within a couple of months, demonstrating successful land-and-expand methodology. The client achieved comprehensive cybersecurity and MSP services for less than the cost of one or two employees, while eliminating vendor management headaches.

Transcript is auto-generated.

Welcome to Inside the Win. We’ll break down real world wins, showing you exactly how strategic partnership with our experts empowers you to tackle your most ambitious opportunities with confidence. Let’s jump in.

Hi, everyone. My name is Chad Muckenfuss, VP of Cloud here at Telarus. And with me today is Jason Kaufman, our principal architect for North America. And we are going to be going into an Inside the Win, specifically in and around a cloud opportunity. So, Jason, thanks for joining me today.

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Chad.

So on today’s Inside the Win, what we’d like to do is just go into a win that is typical of most partners in the cloud space. And, Jason, can you kinda talk me through this this win here a little bit with one of our cloud suppliers, Ancero?

Yeah. So it started off with an initial assessment where a customer had some frustration with many different MSPs, and they want to consolidate, not have many other throat to hugs. Like they just wanted to simplify. And having many vendors and stuff like that was causing some headaches, and they were starting seeing gaps in the different MSPs. So they wanted something that was more templatized and they wanted something that they had one company to call. They knew they’d get familiar with all the different locations, all the different entities that they grew up into them.

So what they wanted to do is, we had that agnostic conversation with them and learned all these frustration points and everything. And weren’t a small sized company. They weren’t like an enterprise. We’re talking like fifty different desktops, eighty nine users, I think it was in Microsoft 365.

So I mean, it was a good size entity across all these different locations. And after talking to them, we were noticing like, hey, they wanted to build out further into Microsoft 365. They even had a couple of data centers that they wanted to migrate into Azure. They had a lot of things that they wanted to do better, like mitigate controls with cybersecurity aligned with the CIS eighteen framework.

So after determining it, consolidated with a partner and we wanted to see like, hey, how can we land this account? Because there’s many other gaps that they have that they haven’t fully recognized as a priority yet. They have a couple of things that they mentioned were top of mind, but we saw some other things that we could bring to the table as well. So we wanted to bring in an entity that would grow with them.

And it actually scaled a lot quicker than we were expecting. Usually there’s some timeframe like, Hey, let’s have the initial implementation and then let’s bring in the rest of it after that. But actually it moved really quickly after determining that, Hey, this is a really great MSP. They also have an MSSP side for the cybersecurity.

They determined that we have all these different gaps from the CIS framework. Now let’s look at them for the mitigation of controls. And it actually worked out really well to where not only did they figure this out, but they also figured out how can they mitigate whatever risks were coming from aligning with that framework.

Yeah. And to talk numbers on this specific opportunity, it started again, just meeting them where they needed to be and where they wanted to be from an agnostic perspective, and then allowing to respond to that. So it was about a six thousand six thousand five hundred dollars MRR.

I think it was 6,600 exactly. And then it grew about 50% to about 9,500 at the end of the day, which is, I know we’re, you know, that’s a big jump. Fifty percent growth in just a matter of, you know, couple small months because they determine, hey, split everything on one provider here.

Yeah, and I think this is key because this is an SMB solution that makes makes it easy to sell cloud and the cybersecurity blended right on top of it there because these small businesses really need that additional help that that one MSSP, as you said, that managed service and security provider that can do all of it for them. And they have a relationship that will now grow along with this organization. And I think there were some regulatory, correct me if I’m wrong, but there were some regulatory associated with this because were in the finance space, right?

Yeah. Mean, got to look at the PCI, you got to look at a lot of things on protecting the data, not just it means it goes much further in like HIPAA compliance and all the other frameworks. So yeah, there was a lot of due diligence that needed to be done upfront, and that’s where a lot of the gaps came in from the original MSPs. They weren’t taking that into account.

So when we brought in Ancero, they’re like, Oh yes, this is right in our bread and butter. This is the gaps that we normally see. Let’s align you with this framework. And then they did the whole mitigation steps after that.

But yeah, I mean, if you’re looking at that price point, even full scale $9,500 a month, I mean, yeah, I mean, sounds like it’s something that’s a good investment, but heck at fifty desktops and eighty nine users, multiple different locations, that’s a thing near impossible to do with one person, and then that person’s got to take vacations and all that stuff. I mean, for the customer, it was a media ROI because now you have a full cybersecurity team, you have a full MSP, you have all the licensing that goes into all of this for less than one or two employees.

And plus they don’t have the headache of trying to keep those employees. So, I mean, were very happy in the end. We were very happy to see that and help them through it.

Fantastic. Well, thank you for joining me and outlining this today, Jason. Again, you know, just to reiterate the numbers, dollars $6,600 to a $9,500 dollars growth in a matter of of a couple of months. That land and expand methodology is what we’re looking for and what we wanna help the partners gain. And again, we wanna bring actual opportunities to the table in these inside the wins that are easily obtainable for any of the partners across the board. So again, thanks for joining me today. Look forward to the next one.