Full Transcript for Cloud Cost Optimization and FinOps for MSPs with Dan Belkie

--> 00:04:22.959 I was calling help desk or something, and I think in me, I was like, Oh, that's not cool. 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:30.560 So I'm like, you know, dad, we should be an MSP, or not an MSP, sorry, um, an ISP. 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:33.279 And so he's like, I don't know what's involved in that. 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:39.839 And so we started doing the research and like totally out of my league, and we built an internet service provider. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:41.199 Uh that's amazing. 00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:47.040 So, and there's there's so many stories that you hear sometimes where there's this I'll call like blissful ignorance, yeah. 00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:55.439 Where where you, you know, if you talk to a lot of different founders, people that have grown companies, if you ask them, you know, knowing what they know now, would they even take in the leaps that they did? 00:04:55.680 --> 00:05:02.079 A lot of them say no, because like I don't think people understand how hard things would be, um, the roadblocks they would have. 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:08.000 Like when you're talking about launching, you know, probably one of the early stage ISPs. 00:05:09.040 --> 00:05:12.240 Did you, you know, even have a sense of what that would look like? 00:05:12.879 --> 00:05:13.439 Not at all. 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:16.800 I mean, I didn't even know how to use email, like it was it wasn't even a thing. 00:05:16.959 --> 00:05:29.199 Um, and and I love that you say that because I think I think back to that, and and what I tell younger people is that like just do it, just do it, and it will like you'll find a path through that maze. 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:34.240 Because yeah, like if I look back and would I do it again, oh my gosh, I would say yes. 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:36.879 But man, the learning, the learning experiences. 00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:43.759 I had nights when um uh the the place that we were run out of was like I don't know if you know where the back alley is. 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:45.519 Everyone, everyone at Cagrid. 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:58.639 Yeah, so we were just down the street from the back alley in this old house that was built in like 19, you know, early 1900s, tiny, tiny thing, and I'd be down there till like two, three in the morning trying to figure stuff out. 00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:11.759 And we had a guy at a Lethbridge um help us set up a couple servers to get the thing working and authenticating, and uh it worked, and we're happy it launched us, but then that thought goes in your head like what if this thing breaks? 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:13.120 Like, who's gonna fix it? 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:26.959 And so, literally, because my parents built computers, I literally had built a clone and I'm just looking at configurations here, looking here, looking here, looking here, and you know, one space in the wrong spot and stuff didn't work. 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:31.199 So, long story short, yeah, just do it. 00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:34.720 But yeah, well, and I think that that that idea of execution as well. 00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:38.879 I mean, I I talked to a lot of different folks that are in in various stages in their journey. 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:45.519 And I think that there's so many people that have these big bold ideas, yeah. 00:06:45.759 --> 00:06:47.439 And then they talk about them, yeah. 00:06:47.600 --> 00:06:55.839 And they talk about them and they talk about them, and then they they look back five, 10 years um in the future and say, like, holy shit, like I wish I would have done that. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:56.480 Yeah. 00:06:56.879 --> 00:07:01.680 Have you always been a person that just is the gonna run headfirst into the fire and figure it out? 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:03.040 Yeah, for sure, for sure. 00:07:03.199 --> 00:07:08.639 Um, yeah, I was gonna say if you talk to my wife, but you know, my execution is not always it depends on the project. 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:11.439 And and the follow-through is definitely not always there. 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:19.600 But yeah, like I'm definitely a learner of like going in and you know, failing fast and then you know, fixing and reiterating. 00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:21.360 I mean, agile before it was agile. 00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:22.319 Yeah, I love it. 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:23.279 You you quinned it. 00:07:23.600 --> 00:07:28.000 Um so then, so you start this ISP and so what happens next? 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:35.920 Yeah, so doing the ISP, uh, everything's good, and then uh Shaw comes out with cable, right? 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.560 And now this is a game we can't even play play in, right? 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:40.959 Because it's all dial-up back where we were. 00:07:41.199 --> 00:07:57.439 So the market starts to erode, but you know, where I had is we we had a company called Hosting House as well, and we did website hosting, so you know, ISP hosting, it kind of all works, and then um, you know, but that that industry, once it went to cable, it really started to go down. 00:07:57.519 --> 00:07:59.519 And I thought, uh, what's next? 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:06.240 And it's funny enough that my sister, um, she was an SAP consultant and she went and did an interview with the Portsani group. 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:12.000 And so she interviews there, and they say, Oh, you know, we're launching sportcheck.ca, and she's oh, I know, I know a guy. 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:18.160 And uh, so gets me an interview there, and then I joined the team that's that's gonna launch this thing. 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:24.480 And it's kind of funny because we both worked there for a small period of time, and she she was married, so she had a different last name. 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:29.439 And people are like, You guys are way too friendly, like is something going on with you guys? 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:36.399 I'd bring keys from my mom to her, and but I'm sure there's some some awkward stories that came from that one.

00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:37.840 For sure, for sure. 00:08:38.080 --> 00:08:41.440 And and so you you go through and and and what was it like launching this website? 00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:46.320 Because at the time, like sportscheck.ca, like that would have been fairly progressive. 00:08:46.639 --> 00:08:46.960 For sure. 00:08:47.039 --> 00:08:52.080 It was Canada's first um uh like sporting e-commerce site. 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:59.840 Um, and uh you used a product called ATG Dynamo, and it was just like it was big, and TELUS did the hosting for it. 00:08:59.919 --> 00:09:04.240 And where my role was, I came from like being kind of more of an infrastructure type person. 00:09:04.559 --> 00:09:12.159 Um, you know, my my role was to kind of talk to the developers and talk to the you know the the data centers and then put that all together. 00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:13.600 So I I I love it. 00:09:13.679 --> 00:09:16.799 And so and so then so you what happened with that experience then? 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:19.279 So you kind of parlayed that into what? 00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:32.960 Yeah, so so basically I was working with you know the developers a lot, the company called Blash Radius, working with TELUS, made a lot of good friendships, a lot of connections, and then um once that site was launched, a couple years go by, we're doing maintenance. 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:40.240 Um, Forzani decides to take the e-commerce department and roll it right into IT, which is like makes sense. 00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:42.879 It should have been probably like that from the get-go. 00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:50.559 And then Blash Radius reaches out to me and they say, Hey, we're gonna start building a managed services division so people can host the stuff that we build. 00:09:50.960 --> 00:09:53.679 Um, would you be interested in coming out and helping us with that? 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:56.080 And I thought, geez, that's cool, you know. 00:09:56.159 --> 00:10:08.559 So literally hopped on a plane, went out there, and I mean, like that was the greatest experience, and like that was probably like the most learning I I I've ever done in that short period of time. 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:14.159 Like, we we did Nintendo of Europe, we did BMW, we did KitchenAid, Jenny Craig. 00:10:14.480 --> 00:10:15.519 It was crazy. 00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:16.879 That's amazing. 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:20.720 And and so like I feel like that would have been also a little bit of trial by fire. 00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:25.440 Oh, yeah, but but some really interesting exposure to to how the world works. 00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:35.279 And so, especially with some of those big global brands, you know, and and I have these conversations a lot with people that have built their whole careers within Canada, yeah, is the world's a really big place. 00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:36.000 Big. 00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:48.559 And I think that you know, even the nuance of how we do business in Calgary or even Toronto is very different than you know, the brand headquarters that's in the UK or the brand headquarters that's in Paris. 00:10:49.039 --> 00:10:55.039 Um how did that kind of shape your your perspective in terms of how how the world actually works? 00:10:55.200 --> 00:11:00.399 Well, I I think it actually opened it up being like there's business everywhere, right? 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:03.039 Um, you know, it's funny you mentioned the UK. 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:07.360 We had a uh Dymo, I don't know if you know who they are, but they make the label makers. 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:09.679 We went out and we're doing work with them. 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.639 And I remember, you know, we're going to their data center and they're like, guys, be careful. 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:16.080 This is not North America. 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:18.000 Like that power will kill you. 00:11:18.399 --> 00:11:18.799 Right. 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:29.360 Um, but yeah, it it totally, totally shaped that that, you know, I would say it's it's it's you know, short-sighted to think that you know business doesn't happen all over the world. 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:35.360 But when you're young and you grow up in one spot, it's it's hard to know that there's anything outside of those walls. 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:37.440 Yeah, and I think that's where where you're going with it. 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:45.840 But um yeah, and and the the difference is is that I find that Canada um is is more reserved, right? 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:48.559 The US is very like, okay, let's go, just do it. 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:53.279 And we find that Europe is also very much like, let's just go, let's just go. 00:11:54.000 --> 00:12:02.000 So do you think, and and this is maybe a little bit of cause and causation, but do you think that comes from um, you know, maybe different density, different competition? 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:04.720 Like what what do you think drives some of those different DNAs? 00:12:04.879 --> 00:12:16.879 Because you're you're not the first person to say that you know decisions get made way quicker in the States, that that we're very conservative in terms of how we the speed we move at and the pace we move at in the Canadian markets. 00:12:17.039 --> 00:12:17.440 Yeah. 00:12:17.919 --> 00:12:21.759 Can you kind of hazard a guess as to what maybe some of those causations are? 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:28.399 I mean, I just I think that the the easiest is just I think it's just cultural, it's just the way the way it is. 00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:39.600 Like even like economy, if you look at like, you know, when the recessions and you know depressions hit, you know, Canada was a little protected because our banking system even is just like a little more reserved, right? 00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:41.440 We're not we're just a little more risk adverse. 00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:53.840 And I we deal with a lot of American companies now, and you know, one guy said to me, and it's kind of true, he

said, you know, Canadians, it's like you guys think that bad news gets better with time, right? 00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:56.559 And because you know, we're very cautious, I think. 00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:00.720 I I'm gonna steal that line from you, um, because I think it's true, right? 00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:06.080 And I, you know, even in terms I was on a call um, you know, a couple days ago with someone from the UAE. 00:13:06.159 --> 00:13:06.559 Yeah. 00:13:06.799 --> 00:13:15.200 And and I think even the communication differences, you know, I and and from a self-awareness standpoint, I know that I I'll usually talk in a little more flowery language, I'll talk in a big picture. 00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:15.679 Yeah. 00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:26.879 Um, and you know, specifics matter, directness really matters, and you know, that's something that even myself, I'm like, oh shit, like I need to probably hone in here for some of these different cultural nuances. 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:28.000 Yeah, 100%. 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:30.159 You know, you talk about cultural nuances. 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:40.399 We were on a I was on a call with someone from like UAE, and we're talking about like optimization and cost savings, and they're talking about people in like Saudi Arabia, and we're gonna pitch this to this company, whatever. 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:44.960 And he's like, But first of all, don't say that you're just gonna save them money because it doesn't matter. 00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:48.960 Yeah, we have enough money, it's not that we want optimization of stuff. 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:54.480 Saving money is not big on our list, and you're like, wow, yeah, like because in the US and Canada, that's like number one. 00:13:54.799 --> 00:13:57.759 Well, and I I think that you know it becomes really eye-opening. 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:17.039 And you know, the the cost of velocity and the cost of being there first and the cost of um not being the person that innovates in some of those really competitive markets, yeah, is is you know, if I want to save half a million bucks, I can you know do something very short term over here, like cash is not the issue. 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:18.159 That's right, that's right. 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:18.559 Yep. 00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:26.159 And and so so then then how does that start to shape kind of your worldview as you're you're going through some of these different experiences? 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:29.600 Um, you know, you're working with some of the biggest global brands in the world. 00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:30.399 Yeah. 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:32.639 How does that set you up for what's next? 00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:36.000 Yeah, and I think the the what it taught me is taught me scale. 00:14:36.080 --> 00:14:40.399 Yeah, everything works really good when it's just like low scale. 00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:40.639 Yeah. 00:14:40.799 --> 00:14:52.320 And then you're like, like, you know, prime example is is you know, Nintendo would release a new video game, and they had this thing where you know, you buy this game and then you could come home, and once a day you go on and play this little game to get stars. 00:14:52.480 --> 00:15:00.879 Yeah, but we saw that that at you know four o'clock in the afternoon in Europe, like the servers just got hammered, right? 00:15:01.039 --> 00:15:07.440 And and I think that helped me because that translated into the world that we live in in Canada. 00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:32.480 We were um working with um uh iHeartRadio, yeah, and uh the same thing would happen to them, but in a totally different way is that you know, nine o'clock, eight o'clock in the morning in Newfoundland, the server started getting busy on that side of the globe because people were signing in, they get to work, turn on the radio through the internet, but then it would just kind of go right across Canada, and then you'd kind of get halfway across Canada, and then the old load was too much and it would fall over. 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:45.759 So everything's translatable and and I think just it taught me to push the scale, know where things break before you launch things. 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:47.679 And and so how do you go about doing that? 00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:48.879 Oh wow. 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:50.240 Um, it it really depends. 00:15:50.320 --> 00:16:05.120 I mean, I think like it's just adding load, it depends on what you're doing, but um, you know, right now I'd say our world is a bit different from from from that, because now we're maybe purposely stepped away from like being responsible for uptime. 00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:07.919 Because that's a that's a young man's game. 00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:12.720 I mean, being tied to the pager, it was never a fun a fun thing. 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:23.039 So um, so you know, today obviously there's way more tools and AI can just hammer the websites, and you know, we got yeah, all these models that can do it for us. 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:39.039 There was a really interesting paper I read the other day that talked about even some of the, and this is me gonna be I'll put on my nerd hat for 10 seconds here, but in terms of just the actual infrastructure load and and networking load that's starting to happen with AI, yeah, a lot of those legacy patterns are actually going out the window. 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:48.720 Yeah, because it's just a constant kind of nine out of 10, 10 out of 10 because of the way that people are interacting with AI and just even kind of um upload versus download. 00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:49.120 Yep. 00:16:49.279 --> 00:16:53.679 Um, all of those patterns in the last three years like have completely gone out the window. 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.080 I know, and it's it's such a cool world that we live in. 00:16:56.159 --> 00:17:02.320 Like even after the dot com, it's like it's great because you can jump in the industry at any time. 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:08.799 You know, if I said, Oh, I got

well, I do, but you know, you say, you know, I got 20 years experience in does that help me in AI? 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:10.160 Because it sure doesn't, right? 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:16.400 I mean, like literally, if someone's telling you I got like 20 years of AI experience, you know, you're probably a professor or something like that. 00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:22.480 But like if you really want rubber to hit the road, you probably want someone that's been really keen on it for like 12 months, right? 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:31.200 You know, and and what I found even in the AI space, that like the the superpower isn't necessarily the technical skill anymore, it's the the domain expertise. 00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:51.200 And and so I think that the you know the the trick isn't, you know, I I really understand the inner workings of of how this code is developed and um you know how it all fits together, but rather I I understand the role that AI and technology can play in terms of the information output, yeah, but I really need to be able to validate is it uh true or is it BS. 00:17:51.519 --> 00:18:07.599 I really need to be able to wrap context around it from a very business specific lens, and I need to be able to translate in a way that it actually makes sense and moves the needle forward and isn't like a make-work project where you just have 400 agents that just are pushing the same paperclip back and forth. 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:10.720 Yeah, and I mean you talk about creative, right? 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:13.599 I think there I think there's two ways to look at that. 00:18:13.680 --> 00:18:22.000 You can say, well, being you can be more creative because you don't need to be technical, you can actually just use it to shape what you want in natural language and say, do this. 00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:28.240 But then the other argument is like AI is using data sets, so it's kind of backwards looking. 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:34.400 So is it really being creative, or are you just just kind of rehashing the same thing over and over? 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:47.680 Yeah, and and so I'm gonna be really far outside of my depth when I make some of these statements, but that there's also some really interesting research on the AI side of things that talks about um learning, and it's essentially learning in the same way that a toddler learns. 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:48.480 Yeah. 00:18:48.799 --> 00:18:54.079 And you know, at what point are is our creativity just the exact same thing? 00:18:55.039 --> 00:19:00.319 And and we're just finding patterns from things in the past and and creating and kind of forcing new connections together. 00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:02.559 And how far away is AI from actually doing that? 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:06.240 Like I'm one of the people that advocate as well that you know AI is not creative. 00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:08.559 Um, AI is a synthesizer of past information. 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:08.799 Yeah. 00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:15.440 But from a really theoretical level, you know, it it is a fascinating debate around what actually is creativity. 00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:16.160 100%. 00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:21.039 And I'm just happy that we're here and we get to we get to have this opportunity just to sit down together. 00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:23.759 I I bet you didn't have that on the bingo card for this chat. 00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:27.200 Is the what is creativity? 00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:28.160 Yeah, exactly. 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:28.720 Exactly. 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:33.839 Um so and and so so you work with, you know, you have this really interesting global exposure. 00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:39.039 And then so do you jump right into everything, Cloud, at this point, or kind of are are there a couple more steps in the journey? 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:41.920 There's a couple more steps, and I'll I'll rip through them pretty quick for you. 00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:49.680 So um I worked remotely for Blast Radius and uh in Calgary and you know, spent a couple of years doing that. 00:19:49.839 --> 00:19:51.839 And then uh I I was young, right? 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:53.839 You know, you're buying a house, you're doing things. 00:19:54.000 --> 00:20:02.160 So money was was a big thing, and yeah, I was paid well, but my fear was is that if there's ever downsizing on the team, who's the first person to go? 00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:04.480 Not the guy who it's the guy who's not in the office. 00:20:04.559 --> 00:20:08.000 And remember, this is before working from home was even a thing, right? 00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:12.720 So I thought, you know, I should probably go get a job uh locally in Calgary. 00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:18.559 So um I got a job at a company called Centra, which was a uh a VAR, like a value audited reseller. 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:20.079 We sold a whole lot of storage. 00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:22.160 Um, you know, obviously, you know Vosberg. 00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:24.720 Yeah, so like that's Did you guys work together there? 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:28.079 Oh, yeah, when he no, uh not as that well, yes, because he was at NetApp. 00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:46.720 Yeah, and uh so we uh I did that um for for a long time and was uh VP of uh services, so all the technical implementations of NetApp um was my team, and then um that company was sold to the Herjivak group. 00:20:46.880 --> 00:21:07.920 So if you know Robert Herjive, so um we did that, did that for a couple of years, was uh director of data center there, and then um decided to leave and start uh my own company called Shelter Six, and Shelter Six was doing cloud migrations, and this was about 15 to 17 years ago, 15 years ago. 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:10.640 So you were before the big like cloud migration boom. 00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:12.000 Yeah, it was totally premature. 00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:14.000 Yeah, like it hurt. 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:22.720 So, and especially in Calgary, you know how we're talking about, you know, Toronto was

a little more progressive, so that's where you know I talk about iHeartRadio and things like that. 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:26.240 So that's where we were able to to kind of stay afloat doing that. 00:21:26.319 --> 00:21:36.000 Um, then we were acquired, and um, we were acquired and by a company that that uh liked to sell that app and because they they knew who we were. 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:43.680 Me and the the VP from from HergeVec actually also left, and um, they knew we had the ability to sell that app, and so we did that for a little while. 00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:53.440 And then um when we were done there, we that got shut down, or the office in Calgary got shut down, and then I started um everything cloud. 00:21:53.599 --> 00:21:57.279 And the reason I called it everything cloud was because I didn't want to go back to selling hardware. 00:21:57.519 --> 00:21:58.240 So that was like that was. 00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:00.160 Now. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:03.519 Yeah, I'm I'm on the island, I'm burning the boats, but we're never going back to selling hardware. 00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:04.880 So that was when that started. 00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:06.720 It it sounds like we have a little bit of a similar story. 00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:14.640 Like obviously, you have uh you know different paths to get there, but you know, we had a little bit of inflection point where we're both in kind of that var MSP space. 00:22:14.720 --> 00:22:14.960 Yeah. 00:22:15.200 --> 00:22:25.039 And I had that, you know, after I left um where I was previously, you know, I had that same realization, which is like I'm gonna draw the line in the sand and here's some of the things that I don't want to get back into. 00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:25.759 Totally. 00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:30.799 And and it really formed, I'd say, the initial narrative of what we were building with Deliver Digital. 00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:31.519 Yep. 00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:37.200 And and so, you know, obviously you you've matured in the same way the the narrative of everything cloud. 00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:39.599 Um I haven't matured. 00:22:40.480 --> 00:22:42.319 Yeah, you haven't, but maybe the narrative is mature. 00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:43.839 For sure. 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:47.039 So if you were to like, so what does everything cloud do today? 00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:47.359 Yeah. 00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:53.440 So everything cloud does uh cloud cost optimization, and I like to maybe sometimes drop the cost. 00:22:53.599 --> 00:22:55.440 We do cloud optimization. 00:22:55.599 --> 00:23:04.799 Um and uh why that's so important is because I go back, you know, 15 years ago, 12 years ago, doing cloud migrations, and cost wasn't a KPI. 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:12.559 The KPI that we had was uh this better be as good or better than it was on-prem because I'm putting my my job on the line. 00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:19.839 So we would move people there, and and you know, people would move from a you know capital expense to an operational expense, and they thought, oh, this is great. 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:22.160 And I'll be quite honest, I've been in the cloud like a long time. 00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:24.880 Yeah, I still don't understand that, right? 00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:32.720 Is that like I get it, money's money, but I think at larger scale, um, operational expenses or expenditures are just easier, yeah. 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:34.799 But regardless, not not my concern. 00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:41.599 Um, and then what happened is part of our engineering is that three years later, people are like, whoa, this is expensive. 00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:44.319 Um, and then cost quickly became a KPI for us. 00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:54.799 So what we did is we started building our own internal tools to um help our team manage our customers and reduce their costs and do things more efficiently. 00:23:55.200 --> 00:23:59.519 Uh, and then so we ran that for probably a good seven years. 00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:04.160 And then about three years ago, we decided, hey, let's shine this thing up, make it into a SaaS offering. 00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:06.480 And uh and so we did. 00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:14.079 And so then we compete with the likes of you know the Aptios and those guys of the world and um Canada-based companies. 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:18.319 There's not a whole lot of FinOps uh SaaS platforms in in Canada. 00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:20.160 So incredible. 00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:28.880 So I I have infinity questions uh about that in general, but you know, I I think that that I don't say the the rush for everyone to move to the cloud, right? 00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:31.200 Um was a really interesting one. 00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:34.559 So I was on the service provider side during we'll call it that boom. 00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:35.519 Yep, cool. 00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:44.160 And and you saw so many people that just essentially tried to replicate what they'd built in the past, yeah, and and tr essentially treated as a different server. 00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:45.119 Yep, exactly. 00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:53.200 And so, you know, I I know that the the listeners of the show aren't overly technical, so I'm not gonna get too much into the weeds, and I feel like you and I can have a beer and share a whole bunch of war stories, yep. 00:24:53.359 --> 00:24:55.839 Um, you know, about what that world looked like. 00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:02.480 But but for the customers that are coming across your desk right now, what are the main problems that they're having? 00:25:02.799 --> 00:25:03.519 Visibility. 00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:03.839 Yeah. 00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:06.079 So number one, it's visibility. 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:06.799 There's two things. 00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:15.359 It's it's visibility and execution is actually the problem because you can go out and you can get a tool to to monitor your cloud. 00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:15.759 Great. 00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:25.119 So that tool is telling you

that these servers are over provisioned, these servers are under provisioned, you've got disks that aren't attached to things, you have load balancers with no compute behind them. 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:26.559 I know I'm getting super nervous. 00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:27.119 Okay. 00:25:27.359 --> 00:25:30.400 Well, how about Vesaurus just bottom of the screen here? 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:34.640 Yeah, all these things are wasting money is basically basically the number one thing. 00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:46.480 But but the problem is we've taken the responsibility of that cost and we've moved it down to like the developers because they're like, hold on, my job is to make these things fast and up all the time. 00:25:46.799 --> 00:25:50.720 Now I have to worry about fast, up, but balanced with cost. 00:25:51.119 --> 00:25:52.240 Not really my job. 00:25:52.480 --> 00:26:02.400 So what we find is a lot of these tools came out, and the visibility is great, but it's like having a fitness watch to say, hey, you haven't got enough steps today. 00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:03.279 Okay. 00:26:03.839 --> 00:26:07.119 So so am I am I gonna do something about it or I am I not? 00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:08.720 And that's what makes us a little bit different. 00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:12.799 I know that sounds a little bit salesy, but you know, number one, we show you what's wrong. 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:18.720 But number two, we're actually spawning like tickets to say, like, here are the things that you have to execute on. 00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:21.359 And if you're not gonna execute on them, we can do it for you. 00:26:21.599 --> 00:26:25.359 So so do you still have that services back end kind of built into the business then? 00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:25.839 Yeah. 00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:27.039 Okay, so so perfect. 00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:40.880 So just to kind of make sure I fully distill this properly, you're you're kind of the lighthouse within um their cloud infrastructure to be able to say, you know, here's all the things that are going on, here's the five alarm fires, here's the um burning brush fire over here, here's something not to worry about. 00:26:41.039 --> 00:26:41.440 Oh yeah. 00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:45.200 Um, and then you're kind of doing air traffic control to say here's where the planes are gonna land. 00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:48.000 And if you need someone to hop in the plane, I'm trying to carry this analogy forward. 00:26:48.160 --> 00:26:48.559 No, I love it. 00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:48.880 I love it. 00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:56.640 If you need someone to hop in the plane and and land it like the the celly guy that landed in the Hudson River, um you know, that's where you step in as well. 00:26:56.799 --> 00:26:57.279 Absolutely. 00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:04.319 And then one step further, because we're talking about MSPs and CSPs, because I came from that var world, yeah, I love it. 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:05.839 Like I honestly I love that. 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:12.240 So, what we did is we changed um our model from from an enterprise model, where we're actually doing this for MSPs. 00:27:12.319 --> 00:27:14.079 So basically, they use our search. 00:27:14.160 --> 00:27:16.319 So our customers are actually MSPs and CSPs. 00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:18.480 We're like FinOps in a box for them. 00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:22.559 And when I talk about like creating those tickets, like here's what's happening in your customer's environment. 00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:26.160 Here are 15 tickets that are gonna save your customer$10,000. 00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:28.559 Like, go execute on those. 00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:40.079 And and so I I I love that and I think that it's much needed in the space, but but uh you know, there is a little bit of friction there sometimes, especially if these MSPs are the ones that are billing some of those cloud things. 00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:40.559 Yeah. 00:27:40.799 --> 00:27:46.079 And so is there a specific type of MSP that's using your your platform or product? 00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:52.400 Um, or kind of what's the driving force for them to want to um create that change for their customers? 00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:54.400 Well, sometimes they're they're pulled into it. 00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:59.839 Yeah, uh, so they're pulled into it because uh I understand 100% what you're saying. 00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:06.640 It's like as an MSP, I make you know my my 15 points or whatever offselling Azure to my customer. 00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:10.240 So if their bull bill is lower, then I'm making less money. 00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:13.920 The truth of the matter is that only works for like 12 months. 00:28:14.319 --> 00:28:18.559 And then the someone else reaches into that customer and says, Hey, listen, Mr. 00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:22.079 Customer, I can save you a bunch of money, blah, blah, blah. 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:27.759 And so um, we're seeing that our customers are MSPs that are a little bit more progressive. 00:28:28.079 --> 00:28:33.680 They're saying, Yeah, we have to get ahead of this because our customers are going to ask for it or they are asking for it. 00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:45.200 But then um also we see people that are just more like I want to add another revenue stream or another thing into the the working. 00:28:45.279 --> 00:28:51.680 And I I'm trying to think through this, but but um if you're familiar with like managed sock, right? 00:28:51.839 --> 00:28:55.920 So that there was uh a lot of MSPs will sell that service, right? 00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:57.039 It's a managed sock. 00:28:57.359 --> 00:29:00.559 We're a man managed financial operations. 00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:04.160 So I gotta think of a better name, but that would be a managed sock. 00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:04.960 There we go. 00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:07.039 Yeah, I feel like we're gonna have to bleep that one out. 00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:24.559 But um no, so so that makes sense though, because I I think that you know,

sometimes the misconception, especially with the MSPs, is that they're all things to everyone, and they just you know, especially with some of the kind of smaller mid-market ones, you just don't have the bandwidth to be able to pull in the that expertise, that knowledge. 00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:30.079 Um so it sounds like you can fill a really interesting gap for them to add value to their customers. 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:37.200 Yeah, and you know, jumping ahead, what the next thing that's happening is AI spend. 00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:37.599 Yeah. 00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:38.000 Right. 00:29:38.079 --> 00:29:41.359 And and let's be honest, like in our world, AI spend is just cloud spend. 00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:43.920 Yeah, we're taking payroll costs and we're moving them to tokens. 00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:44.319 Yeah. 00:29:44.559 --> 00:29:45.759 But that's cloud. 00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:50.400 So that's that's the next thing that that that's coming that these MSPs got to get ahead of. 00:29:50.640 --> 00:30:11.359 Well, and that was one of the things that I was really curious about because like for for all intents and purposes, there's some you know, specific stories where um someone building their own um kingdom internally makes sense, but I would say for the most part, people want to consume the services that they um they purchase, um, and that they're mostly by de facto on the cloud now. 00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:11.759 Yeah. 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:20.880 Um, you see a lot of organizations that are at varying levels of maturity starting to deploy some of these AI workloads, some of these AI platforms and tools. 00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:47.119 But even when you start to get to a scenario where you start to talk about augmenting those developers with AI uh development, if you start to think about some of those purchase decisions um starting to go even further down downstream away from a human, yeah, you know, and I'm sure you see this as well, but that whole ecosystem really becomes in the cloud, and that whole ecosystem needs line of sight in a way that probably becomes more important, not less. 00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:47.920 Yeah. 00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:50.640 100% agree with you. 00:30:50.799 --> 00:31:01.359 And even even with our own stuff, we talk about you know, our engineering team that you know creates these tickets and all that, you know, very AI handled now, right? 00:31:01.519 --> 00:31:09.440 So now we're we're really doing a lot of that review and fine-tuning the you know, the the the AI agents that are actually doing all this work, you know. 00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:13.920 So now, and we know full circle, yeah, is like can it be done at scale? 00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:14.799 Heck yeah. 00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:16.480 Now scale is a lot easier. 00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:18.240 So is this a pattern? 00:31:18.319 --> 00:31:20.640 Like, I'm always the person that likes to find patterns and things. 00:31:20.799 --> 00:31:38.319 And so if we think about

the the you know, and I'm sure we can take it back a you know, variety of different iterations where you know the internet was was one thing, but if we think about you know the the cloud boom where everyone moves their workloads to the cloud, you have a whole bunch of uh you know CIOs, boards, CFOs saying we need we need to move to the cloud. 00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:43.680 Yeah um, you know, there there's probably some humorous stories in there in terms of do they understand what they're getting into? 00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:50.319 Um but so they they move all the stuff to the cloud, they have this like holy crap moment, we're spending a ton of money, we don't really know what's going on. 00:31:50.480 --> 00:31:52.000 You start to see a little bit of a pullback. 00:31:52.160 --> 00:31:52.480 For sure. 00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:55.599 And and then it starts to mature kind of five, 10 years down the line. 00:31:55.759 --> 00:31:56.319 Yeah. 00:31:56.559 --> 00:32:09.680 Is that the stage we're at with AI right now where we're still in the um excitement, everyone kind of you know, run uh full steam into the burning building and just like let's deploy uh AI everywhere and then we'll figure it out later, phase? 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:10.559 I think so. 00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:13.200 I think I think there's a lot of like let's AI everything. 00:32:13.359 --> 00:32:18.640 And the I don't want to say it's a correction, like we we will see uh a maturing of it, right? 00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:22.720 Because it's like, okay, maybe this is not a candidate for AI, maybe this is. 00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:29.039 So yeah, I think we'll see it fine-tuned, but uh it's everything, though. 00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:29.599 That's the thing. 00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:30.880 There's very few things in my mind. 00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:35.359 I'm trying to think of an example of something you can't leverage it for today. 00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:37.680 It'll touch every piece, I think. 00:32:38.319 --> 00:32:45.920 It's true, but I I think that the interesting part of that discussion, um, and I was having this with someone the other day, is the actual true cost of AI as well. 00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:51.200 Because AI right now is, you know, um, for lack of a better word, heavily subsidized. 00:32:51.440 --> 00:32:51.839 Yes. 00:32:52.079 --> 00:32:57.119 And it's it's for you know, it's subsidized by VCs right now, hoping to get more and more users. 00:32:57.440 --> 00:32:57.759 100%. 00:32:58.079 --> 00:32:58.319 Yeah. 00:32:58.559 --> 00:33:09.119 And and so you you're starting to hear a little bit, like I don't know if you saw the Uber story where Uber, you know, burned, I think, half a million dollars in a month on AI tokens, and we're like, okay, well, like let's just put pause on this for 13 seconds. 00:33:09.279 --> 00:33:09.920 Yeah, for sure. 00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:16.319 Um, but I think you're starting to see some of the realities of what that cost story actually looks like for these workloads. 00:33:16.480 --> 00:33:22.799 And in some cases, you know, you're hearing the almost humorous narrative of we're gonna bring in junior developers down to support our AI. 00:33:23.200 --> 00:33:23.599 100%. 00:33:23.920 --> 00:33:26.160 And this is and this is exactly you you nailed it. 00:33:26.240 --> 00:33:29.839 This is exactly where when I mentioned like it's a cloud cost to us, right? 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:44.480 So now we're actually, you know, doing reporting on okay, you know, if you take you know, Sally, who's making$70,000,$75,000 a year coding invoices, and we replace that with AI, but if it costs us$200,000 worth of tokens to do it, it doesn't make sense. 00:33:44.799 --> 00:33:49.440 So we have to be able to report on that and give the true cost analysis. 00:33:49.839 --> 00:34:01.440 So going back to that that patterns conversation, are there patterns from your experience through some of those different cloud iterations that that you would kind of offer as words of wisdom, points of context? 00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:10.239 Like what are the similarities that you can draw if you're you're talking to some of these executives to say, here's the the framework and lens to evaluate everything through? 00:34:10.559 --> 00:34:15.360 Oh man, I I I don't know if I can give points of wisdom, but I think I think we've seen this before. 00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:17.920 I think I think we've seen the internet, right? 00:34:18.079 --> 00:34:20.880 Like, like the internet totally changed the way we work. 00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:25.440 And and if I want to jump over the little things that happen in the middle of that, this is that again. 00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:29.519 And this feels also to me very dot-com boomy, right? 00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:32.719 Like it's very funded, no one's making money. 00:34:32.880 --> 00:34:36.719 It's kind of like a snake eating its tail, they're just moving the money around. 00:34:36.960 --> 00:34:40.400 And then, you know, are we gonna see a bit of a bust? 00:34:40.559 --> 00:34:52.159 I mean, probably with some corrections, but I mean, I think we get excited about all these things is that you know, first it was internet changed the way we worked, then it was like virtualization, which was like, wow, this is amazing. 00:34:52.320 --> 00:34:54.239 Then it was cloud, right? 00:34:54.400 --> 00:34:56.880 And I told myself after cloud, I'm done. 00:34:57.679 --> 00:34:58.960 And now we're in AI. 00:34:59.119 --> 00:35:05.119 So I mean, I don't know if you can look at it through a specific lens or a framework to say, hey, this is where you should go. 00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:14.079 But I think you can just look at history and probably that's gonna tell you, you know, it'll mature and there'll be some got guidelines have to put on it. 00:35:14.320 --> 00:35:17.519 And you know, to stop babbling on this, let's go back to the dot-com. 00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:18.559 Same thing. 00:35:18.719 --> 00:35:25.119 Everything

was so exciting, and then there was that bust, and then people are like, Oh, okay, so the business plan has to make money. 00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:26.400 Okay, I get it. 00:35:26.559 --> 00:35:30.480 And so I think we'll probably see that more with AI, is that it'll have to make sense. 00:35:30.639 --> 00:35:31.840 Yeah, well, what's the quote? 00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:34.400 Uh, those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. 00:35:34.639 --> 00:35:36.079 Yeah, and and yeah, exactly. 00:35:36.159 --> 00:35:39.920 And I think you know, AI, um, we'll see it get more cost effective. 00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:40.320 Yeah. 00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:42.400 And then that might help, that may fix everything. 00:35:42.639 --> 00:35:45.679 Yeah, well, and I think, you know, once again, very theoretical. 00:35:45.760 --> 00:35:49.679 And I I feel like we keep getting pulled into the, you know, what is the world conversation? 00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:53.039 But you know, especially as AI starts to develop its own AI. 00:35:53.119 --> 00:36:01.920 Like I think there was a recent um, you know, release that came out from Anthropic, and they said, you know, most of this is now written by AI itself. 00:36:02.079 --> 00:36:02.239 Yeah. 00:36:02.400 --> 00:36:04.960 We're we're just kind of the bumpers in the bowling alley a little bit. 00:36:05.199 --> 00:36:05.440 Yep. 00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:05.920 Yep. 00:36:06.079 --> 00:36:09.519 And and I and I think that we're also, you know, people are like vibe coding things. 00:36:09.599 --> 00:36:15.599 Like, I'm like, I'm vibe coding features and then passing them to our developers to say, hey, what do you think of something like this? 00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:19.440 Which is great because it gives me actually more of a concept, right? 00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:25.440 And so I think that um uh we talk about putting the the bumpers in place. 00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:29.679 Uh we're see seeing people vibe code things and it's acceptable. 00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:33.840 It's like before rebooting your your Windows machine was acceptable. 00:36:34.159 --> 00:36:40.159 Now rebooting your Windows machine is not acceptable, but now having like code with bugs in it, it's acceptable. 00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:44.480 So does this does this change the role of technology teams then? 00:36:44.719 --> 00:36:56.639 Because you know, there used to be this, like I don't even want to say thinly veiled, like it was almost like just a you know four-inch curtain or four-inch thick curtain that just went across and it's like this is IT, please don't touch it. 00:36:56.800 --> 00:36:57.039 Totally. 00:36:57.199 --> 00:37:00.800 Um we'll we'll say yes or no, and then like you'll deal with those consequences. 00:37:01.440 --> 00:37:03.519 You know, I love to tell the story. 00:37:03.599 --> 00:37:13.599 We we have a customer, and you know, we we have done the you know a whole bunch of different projects for them, but their their biggest power user of AI in their organization right now is probably their CFO. 00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:14.880 Yeah, totally, totally. 00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:21.840 And you know, our conversations have evolved from when when him and I first sat down together to okay, well, how do we pick the right service partners? 00:37:21.920 --> 00:37:30.880 How do we you know align some of these fundamental pieces of the organization to you know, we're talking about different cloud releases, we're talking about different tools we're using, how we're integrating workflows. 00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:34.320 You know, he's doing he's doing stuff that I would say far exceeds what I do. 00:37:34.480 --> 00:37:34.880 Yeah. 00:37:35.119 --> 00:37:38.719 And and he's their CFO with with zero technical training. 00:37:38.800 --> 00:37:39.199 Yeah. 00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:45.039 And I think that democratization of what is technology becomes a really interesting conversation. 00:37:45.199 --> 00:37:50.800 And it especially when you think about the role of some of those traditional technology teams, traditional MSPs. 00:37:50.960 --> 00:37:54.400 Yeah like do you have a perspective on kind of how that's how that's shifting? 00:37:54.719 --> 00:37:55.519 I well, you know what? 00:37:55.599 --> 00:37:58.719 I would say that everyone's in technology, period. 00:37:58.960 --> 00:38:04.000 Like it's it's like there's no more of that veil to say this is the ID IT department. 00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:09.519 And you know, here's where I think in my mind where everything totally shifted is you know, um, nest. 00:38:09.920 --> 00:38:12.159 Remember like the you know, the thermostats. 00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:26.079 So you got like Honeywell, you know, built thermostats for your house for years, and then all of a sudden someone leaves Apple or Google and they make like a Wi-Fi connected thermostat, and then all of a sudden, like Honeywell's like oh man. 00:38:26.480 --> 00:38:27.920 Now we have to get in technology. 00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:31.280 We have to have a team of developers, we have to build an app, right? 00:38:31.440 --> 00:38:34.079 And they got dragged into this technology world. 00:38:34.159 --> 00:38:38.880 And so I would say there's it's it's table stakes to be in technology now. 00:38:39.039 --> 00:38:40.159 Everyone's in technology. 00:38:40.639 --> 00:38:43.199 So, what does that mean for the technologists then? 00:38:43.280 --> 00:38:45.280 Like, I what what does that role become? 00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:46.320 Oh wow. 00:38:46.480 --> 00:38:49.920 Um, I would say it's it's emerging technology, so it's probably where it is. 00:38:50.000 --> 00:39:00.320 And once again, you're looking at what's happened in the past, maybe applying some of those to the future, but I also think we're gonna see some like real big bold moves to say you can't do that. 00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:03.440 And you can maybe Elon, right? 00:39:03.599 --> 00:39:04.559 Like you can't do that. 00:39:04.800 --> 00:39:11.920 Well, even if

you think about that, uh, you know, that idea of almost you know, we talked about when you you started your first MSP, you know. 00:39:12.079 --> 00:39:17.039 Sometimes when you don't understand the risk of what you're doing, you can make some really incredible leaps. 00:39:17.119 --> 00:39:21.440 You can also expose a ton of risk, which I think is a whole other probably a whole other podcast episode. 00:39:21.679 --> 00:39:22.239 For sure. 00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:35.840 Um but I think what gets unlocked by by not having some of these traditional mindsets and some of these traditional if this then that and then this then that um constraints be becomes a really interesting accelerator. 00:39:36.239 --> 00:39:36.480 100%. 00:39:36.800 --> 00:39:38.079 And I'm I'm gonna screw this up. 00:39:38.159 --> 00:39:38.639 I love the quote. 00:39:38.719 --> 00:39:40.159 I think it was Henry Ford. 00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:43.920 It's you know, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. 00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:44.400 Yeah. 00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:45.840 And that's it. 00:39:46.480 --> 00:39:47.599 Yeah, I like that I like that. 00:39:47.679 --> 00:39:50.639 And like it definitely it definitely makes sense in the in this context. 00:39:51.280 --> 00:40:03.119 So I I feel like we've been cruising through a whole bunch of different topics, and I do want to spend a little bit of time understanding, you know, not necessarily the the business of everything cloud itself, but your your your journey in terms of of building it. 00:40:03.280 --> 00:40:03.840 Yeah. 00:40:04.159 --> 00:40:08.159 And and so it's not an easy journey being an entrepreneur. 00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:08.800 Sure. 00:40:09.039 --> 00:40:13.199 Um, you know, I I think for the right people, it can be the most rewarding and fun journey alive. 00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:13.760 Yeah. 00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:18.400 Tell me a little bit about the story of how you you've been building everything uh cloud. 00:40:18.719 --> 00:40:20.480 Yeah, uh how I built everything cloud. 00:40:20.719 --> 00:40:37.679 Um, well, essentially, I think you know, we're very fortunate to to be able to work with a lot of those brands, build my network, um, and you know, be I think responsible with with the with the finances is probably the number one thing because I never wanted to go out and borrow any money. 00:40:37.760 --> 00:40:39.360 I wanted to to bootstrap it. 00:40:39.679 --> 00:40:46.800 Um, and because I had some, I maybe call them seed customers, that that really helped. 00:40:46.960 --> 00:40:58.239 But um, you know, everything cloud is one of the times that the first time I didn't just get my hands dirty, I decided I'm getting older, I gotta make sure that like the real people, the smart people are doing this. 00:40:58.400 --> 00:41:03.840 So um, you know, what we did is we've been through you know a couple iterations of of development cycles. 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:08.960 Um, and we met uh uh uh an organization out of the Ukraine. 00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:12.320 This is pre-war, um, that helped us get this off the ground. 00:41:12.400 --> 00:41:22.079 And what's crazy is the sales guy that started that um I met him like online in the Ukraine, and now he lives in Toronto and he's our operations manager. 00:41:22.400 --> 00:41:22.719 Amazing. 00:41:23.039 --> 00:41:23.840 Yeah, yeah. 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:32.079 So um, you know, a lot of offshore at first, um, kind of get the proof of concept that MVP off the ground, and then you know, bringing it, you know, internal. 00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:32.400 Yeah. 00:41:32.639 --> 00:41:35.920 But we still have a mix of uh internal now and external. 00:41:36.480 --> 00:41:45.119 What are some of the biggest things that as you were building the company that you didn't, you know, that that came true, but you didn't quite realize they'd be the the mountains you had to climb? 00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:49.760 Um I think I think just like anything, you think everyone's just gonna love this, right? 00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:51.760 Like every oh everyone's just gonna eat this up. 00:41:51.920 --> 00:42:02.320 And I think that would be the number one thing that would tell people is that that um you know, technology aside, um any businesses, I believe, all about sales. 00:42:02.639 --> 00:42:05.760 You need a sales channel because if without sales, there's no company. 00:42:06.239 --> 00:42:06.400 Right. 00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:08.079 And I think Cuban said that one. 00:42:08.320 --> 00:42:10.159 So I like to quote it, I guess. 00:42:10.239 --> 00:42:22.880 But um, yeah, I mean the hurdles for us, um, it's they're not they're not huge because it's it's moving so fast that even if you miss a hurdle, there's always another one to fix, like and I talk about AI, right? 00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:25.760 12 months ago, we weren't thinking about optimizing AI. 00:42:25.920 --> 00:42:28.079 Now we're like, oh my gosh, we have to optimize AI. 00:42:28.239 --> 00:42:32.719 But now we have to go back to our developers and say, listen, our model needs to be able to iterate fast. 00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:32.960 Yeah. 00:42:33.119 --> 00:42:40.000 So now we have to go back and fix all the stuff we did in the past so that when the next cool thing comes along, we can deploy in weeks, not months. 00:42:40.480 --> 00:42:46.400 So do you think some of that that legacy, um, and I'll call it legacy, but some of that legacy learning. 00:42:46.480 --> 00:43:03.679 So if you think about the you know, your your first stories of having to um, you know, have the standby uh Apple clone sitting beside the old one and some of the um, you know, the actual physical elements of starting to pull some of these things together, do you think that's that's kind of shaped your understanding of of how you need to re-architect some of these things? 00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:04.639 Yeah, I think so. 00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:06.159 Because the world's changed also.

00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:16.880 Um, the world's changed because, you know, before, you know, even in early in my career, when we'd have a project come down from the organization, you know, you lived in this world too, I'm sure. 00:43:17.039 --> 00:43:18.960 Is that they say, well, what do we need for servers? 00:43:19.039 --> 00:43:20.239 And you'd be like sizing them. 00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:24.079 And so you'd size it like pick as big as we can and then double it. 00:43:24.400 --> 00:43:28.960 And then you know, those servers would be ordered, and then two months later they show up and it'd be this huge thing. 00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:32.559 But now I can go spin up a server in you know 20 minutes. 00:43:32.880 --> 00:43:39.920 And so um, I I think that's that's changed the industry a lot, and it's allowing us to to fail fast. 00:43:40.079 --> 00:43:40.719 Yeah. 00:43:41.360 --> 00:43:50.320 If if you were to kind of look back and maybe talk to Dan from um, you know, we'll say you know, the the weeks and months before you launched everything cloud. 00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:55.760 Is there any specific advice you give to yourself or any words of wisdom or a pat on the back? 00:43:55.840 --> 00:43:59.199 Like what what would you you say to Dan of of that time? 00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:02.239 I'd I'd I'd probably say, Don't worry about it. 00:44:02.320 --> 00:44:04.079 Like it's it's gonna be it's gonna be good. 00:44:04.159 --> 00:44:05.599 Like don't don't fear it. 00:44:05.840 --> 00:44:11.119 And then I would have also told myself, like, you should have done this a couple of years earlier. 00:44:11.280 --> 00:44:11.599 Right. 00:44:11.679 --> 00:44:13.840 Um, because uh you know, I I had to be responsible. 00:44:13.920 --> 00:44:15.920 I wanted to, you know, get into that corporate world. 00:44:16.079 --> 00:44:20.239 And looking back, some of my best successes were not in the corporate world. 00:44:20.320 --> 00:44:21.679 It was when I ventured out. 00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:26.239 So I would have told myself to quit my job earlier and go for it. 00:44:26.480 --> 00:44:30.880 I I you know, I've given myself the same kind of words of uh previous wisdom. 00:44:31.119 --> 00:44:40.480 I I wish I'd done this sooner, but I'm also you know, to your point, really grateful for the experiences like I I get asked by a lot of you know 20-something year old people that are looking at starting their own businesses. 00:44:40.639 --> 00:44:45.679 And and you know, I think you can learn a ton from it, but it is really nice to kind of learn on someone else's time sometimes. 00:44:46.079 --> 00:44:46.719 Absolutely. 00:44:46.880 --> 00:44:48.320 But it makes me wonder, right? 00:44:48.559 --> 00:44:56.559 I know we keep bringing this back to AI, but I mean, when AI is doing the junior's job, what does the junior do? 00:44:56.719 --> 00:44:57.280 Yeah, right. 00:44:57.360 --> 00:44:59.119 How do you how do you get that experience? 00:44:59.519 --> 00:45:22.639 Well, and and you know, once again, I feel like we're we're teetering to the theoretical, but you know, we we compete quite heavily with traditional consulting firms that are built on leverage models, no different than a um accounting firm, no different than a legal firm, and and their whole model is built on I hire MBA with a fancy degree, I I give them a playbook. 00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:43.599 Yeah, and and they execute on the the vision from up above and and you know, by kind of process of promotion and um kind of self-selection, that that hundred juniors turns into you know uh 50 seniors, which turns into four senior partners, which turns into one manager, like and so there's a full arithmetic. 00:45:43.679 --> 00:45:49.519 And so if if you get rid of that lower layer, you know, not only does the economic model just fall in the garbage, yeah. 00:45:49.679 --> 00:45:59.280 But but also that whole I don't want to say the like the whole context model, but your whole delivery model changes. 00:45:59.360 --> 00:46:04.639 And so I I think that the thing that AI really democratizes is that entry-level knowledge. 00:46:05.679 --> 00:46:16.159 Um but you know, to your point, what I get really concerned about is the the context that you earn by having things go really well, by having things like falling on your face. 00:46:16.239 --> 00:46:20.159 And and I think that you can only learn that sometimes through trial and error. 00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:20.639 Yeah. 00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:28.159 And so I I do get a little bit concerned around what happens to the world in 15 years when you don't have anyone that has any practical experience. 00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:29.679 Tell me about it, man. 00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:31.119 Claude was offline this morning. 00:46:31.199 --> 00:46:31.360 Yeah. 00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:34.079 I was like, I almost didn't get my presentation out. 00:46:34.320 --> 00:46:34.639 Right? 00:46:34.880 --> 00:46:36.079 My whole day was almost ruined. 00:46:36.159 --> 00:46:37.280 Yeah, absolutely. 00:46:37.519 --> 00:46:40.400 But uh yeah, I I I I agree with you. 00:46:40.480 --> 00:46:44.639 And I think you know, we're kind of doing the juniors a disservice. 00:46:44.800 --> 00:46:52.000 However, I think that maybe we're also having the same conversations that our parents had and our grandparents had, you know. 00:46:52.079 --> 00:46:56.800 I'm like, oh my gosh, this these can, you know, we're gonna get we're having ATMs now. 00:46:56.880 --> 00:46:59.599 Yeah, all the people the bank are gonna lose their money, right? 00:46:59.679 --> 00:47:02.320 Or all the people at the bank are gonna lose their jobs. 00:47:02.559 --> 00:47:04.239 Um, self-checkout. 00:47:04.400 --> 00:47:06.880 Oh my gosh, self-checkout, what happens to the cashiers? 00:47:07.119 --> 00:47:09.519 We're doing them in a service, but it's just a shift, right? 00:47:09.679 --> 00:47:19.039 Because now self-checkout, well, how someone has to develop the software, someone has to put

in the hardware, someone has to so I think yeah, I think everyone's gonna be okay. 00:47:19.119 --> 00:47:21.840 I they'll just find it, it's gonna be different than we think it'll be, though. 00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:22.320 I think so. 00:47:22.400 --> 00:47:34.320 And and I think that if you were to ask even some of the people, like you know, and I I feel like I've I've used ourselves maybe too many times the reference in this in this episode here, but you know, we we have uh a couple full-time employees on our team, yeah. 00:47:34.559 --> 00:47:36.960 And and they're both in their early 20s. 00:47:37.039 --> 00:47:37.679 Yeah. 00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:42.480 And I we use an incredible amount of AI to run our operations. 00:47:42.559 --> 00:47:42.880 Yeah. 00:47:43.039 --> 00:47:59.119 But I think what that also enables is an incredible acceleration of the work that they're actually doing versus um, you know, I I remember, you know, some of my first jobs where it's like, you know, move widget A from like A to A to B over and over and over again. 00:47:59.280 --> 00:48:01.679 Yeah, and you kind of get rid of some of that mundane. 00:48:01.760 --> 00:48:07.599 And so maybe there's you know, there's less of those opportunities, but they're um accelerated. 00:48:07.679 --> 00:48:08.000 Who knows? 00:48:08.079 --> 00:48:10.320 Like, I think there's there's two sides to every narrative. 00:48:10.559 --> 00:48:13.039 I'm glad you brought that up because I think that's the truth. 00:48:13.199 --> 00:48:21.599 I think that let's imagine this like nothing changes, no one loses their jobs, but just output is insanely fast now. 00:48:21.920 --> 00:48:27.440 And the amount of content and the amount of creation that we make is just exploded. 00:48:27.599 --> 00:48:30.000 And I like to think that's a better way to look at it. 00:48:30.239 --> 00:48:34.559 I'm I'm always the eternal optimist, so I think I think you and I might be wired similarly on that front. 00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:37.840 Um Dan, I I've loved this conversation. 00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:42.960 I feel like there's probably you know another full episode of conversation that we could have. 00:48:43.119 --> 00:48:51.679 But yeah, um, if if you wanted to leave our listeners with any kind of last words of uh of wisdom, of of things that they should think about, is there anything you wanted to leave our listeners with? 00:48:51.920 --> 00:49:05.599 Yeah, I you know, I would just say like you know, you know, if you're in Canada, the and this is one of my decisions, is that you know, when I you know you have this fear of going out and doing your own thing and and like the fear of the unknown. 00:49:05.760 --> 00:49:06.880 But you know what? 00:49:08.639 --> 00:49:12.000 You're born here, you like you're you've already won. 00:49:12.079 --> 00:49:12.559 Yeah, right. 00:49:12.639 --> 00:49:22.559 Like you like your risk to actually go out and do something big is so much like less than if you were born somewhere else in the world that didn't have the opportunities that that you have. 00:49:22.960 --> 00:49:30.159 So number one, I would just say like go out and just go out and do what you want to do and add add your mark on the world. 00:49:30.239 --> 00:49:37.360 That's I know that sounds so fluffy, but I think just as you get older, it's like, man, I just people are doing such cool stuff. 00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:38.559 So I love it. 00:49:38.719 --> 00:49:41.599 Well, I feel like that's a phenomenal way to wrap up the episode. 00:49:42.159 --> 00:49:45.840 Thank you so much for taking the time to to spend uh a few minutes chatting today. 00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:46.639 Anytime. 00:49:46.880 --> 00:49:49.519 And um, I hope you enjoy the rest of your uh Tuesday. 00:49:49.760 --> 00:49:50.480 Yeah, get it. 00:49:51.760 --> 00:49:52.079 There you go. 00:49:52.320 --> 00:49:52.639 Perfect. 00:49:53.280 --> 00:49:54.559 All right, all right, talk to you soon. 00:49:54.639 --> 00:49:54.880 Thanks. 00:49:55.360 --> 00:50:04.000 If you've made it this far, like and subscribe on YouTube or follow and leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform so you don't miss any future episodes.