Disrupting the MSP solution market

SaaS solutions are often launched with the goal of disrupting an established market niche. However, truly disruptive solutions are rare and difficult to achieve.

Several years ago, I was involved in creating one in a small vertical. The value proposition was compelling, a telecom technology product that tripled the productivity of employees.

However, there was a catch, a big up-front investment. Still, the technology was so powerful that in about seven years, everyone in the industry was using it.

As an outsider who’s written a lot about MSPs, I’ve been asked to tell the Atera story. I’ll do it in a series of posts written mostly in the words of customers. What they are saying about Atera will get your attention, as it has captured mine.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to share some compelling stories about real people using the Atera’s RMM all-in-one software for managed IT service providers.

It’s a powerful SaaS offering with disruptive, transparent pricing. This is the future of the business.

Manny da silva – “They’re crazy not to do it!”

Manny Da Silva is on his 10th year of running an MSP that services customers with 30 seats or less. Manny likes his demographic enough that he actually turns over larger clients to other MSPs.

“I’m very successful because small businesses pay a premium. You don’t have to renegotiate those contracts every 12 months like with this big one that I just handed over,” he says.

With an expanding client base, Manny knew that he needed to trade in his Excel spreadsheets for RMM software, but which one? He found at least 66 in his searching, and zeroed in on eight.

“I tried all of them. Look, it’s the future of my business. At the end of the day, you’ll only get something good if you do the proper research.”

The all-in-one solution for MSP’s

He compared features and liked Atera’s built-in service-desk ticketing and billing, online backup management, remote monitoring, easy-to-use web portal and simple install.

“Atera’s remote software is so small it is quick to install. In literally 30 seconds, it’s up and running. Whereas the other ones we tested, some of them were 15, 20 minutes.”

“The ticketing system is great. It literally took me 10-15 minutes to set up. The SLA functionality and the contract functionality, awesome.

“And every time a ticket gets generated, you pick the service contract that you want. So no more guessing about what to bill the clients.”

Could you say that again?

Atera is the only all-in-one product that combines RMM, PSA, remote access and cloud services.

With the closest competitor asking five times the monthly cost for less functionality, Manny thought it was too good to be true. He asked the rep to repeat it three times, and then to confirm the price in writing.

With nothing to lose and an attractive upside, Manny signed up for a 30 day free trial.

“The opportunity I saw was growth. If you run on a manual system, a technician can support about 20 clients. With Atera automating a lot of the functions, the same technician can support up to 50 clients.”

“And not only that, a computer will follow instructions every single time. A human sent out on site will do ten of the 15 items on his checklist and forget about five. I wanted to take the human checklist out of the mix.”

More value, more clients, fewer techs

Manny knows that Atera is a newcomer in the market. A Google search yielded nothing negative, but credibility was still a concern.

Then it hit him…

“I did see the fact that Atera is a new player. But, based on the product, I told myself, you know, this is a gamble that I have to take.

“Because at the end of the day, I’m going to continue giving my clients value at a reduced rate, and at the same time, save myself a huge amount of time.

“Because now I can add on more clients without having to incur the cost of more technicians.

“Because immediately, we’ll be saving about $4,180 per month in the physical labor costs of getting the technician to the site.

“The thing is, the more I look at this, the more money I’m seeing. I can immediately, without any [personnel] adjustments, increase my sales by 24%.

“It’s a major, major jump. There’s no product that I can implement right now that can affect my turnover by 24%. I just can’t do it!”

A brilliant start!

Atera exceeds the depth and polish of more mature RMM/PSA solutions.

“I’m shocked, because if this is version 1 of Atera, I can’t wait for version two and three. This is a brilliant start if you compare it to other products that I’ve tested.”

What would Manny say to other MSPs considering Atera IT automation?

“They’re crazy not to do it. A company that’s in the IT support industry and doesn’t do remote management using Atera—they are crazy. They’re absolutely crazy.”