Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success

A Mission to Protect: John McCoy’s Path to MSP Ownership

• N-able • Season 3 • Episode 3

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When John McCoy walked away from a high-paying corporate job, he wasn’t chasing freedom—he was answering a calling. In this episode, John shares how his commitment to helping others led him to launch MidSolv, an MSP rooted in community and built on trust. But it wasn’t until he caught a ransomware attack in real time that his purpose fully crystallized: protecting clients from the threats they didn’t see coming.

From mandating a security upgrade for every customer—before they even asked—to shifting his entire client base to fully managed services, John’s story is one of bold leadership, cybersecurity-first thinking, and values-driven growth.

Whether you're an MSP owner rethinking your tech stack or an IT leader navigating risk and resilience, this episode offers a masterclass in leading with conviction—and securing what matters most.

Learn more about Manage My Security.

N-able also produces Beyond the Horizon. Hosted by industry veterans, this podcast delves deep into the findings of the annual MSP Horizons Report, providing actionable insights to transform your IT business. Listen & Subscribe Wherever You Get Your Podcasts.

'Now that's it: Stories of MSP Success,' dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.

Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew….. Now, that's it.

This podcast provides educational information about issues that may be relevant to information technology service providers.

Nothing in the podcast should be construed as any recommendation or endorsement by N-able, or as legal or any other advice.

The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.

Views and opinions expressed by N-able employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of N-able or its officers and directors.

The podcast may also contain forward-looking statements regarding future product plans, functionality, or development efforts that should not be interpreted as a commitment from N-able related to any deliverables or timeframe.

All content is based on information available at the time of recording, and N-able has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Speaker 1:

One, two, three, four. I either had to sacrifice my family or sacrifice this big check and paycheck. And I just said I really can't do that. Called my company I was on contract to them called my account manager and he said well, if you don't take this opportunity, we'll consider that a voluntary termination. So by lunch I was unemployed and heading home to start my MSP. I was logging into one of my customers' servers to do some maintenance on their server on a Saturday morning and I noticed that there were some files being encrypted. So I had caught a ransomware issue in the act. And at that moment I just you know, I saw that, as I can't let this happen to my customers, this changes the landscape of what ransomware is and, just you know, sent an email out to all my customers and said this is what we need to do and here's what it's going to cost. And it's happening January 1. Let me know if you have questions.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Now that's it Stories of MSP Success, where we dive into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn managed services into the thriving sector it is today. Welcome, john McCoy, owner of MidSolve, an MSP that I'd love for you to tell me a little bit about. Welcome to the Now that's it podcast.

Speaker 1:

Well, thanks, chris. I've been in business I don't know going on 23 years now. I service a small community in northeast Indiana. We do all different kinds of customers, no specialty. We kind of work with anybody that needs service. Got lots of I don't. I got probably a hundred customers, 120 customers that we take care of that's great, but you didn't always start off as an entrepreneur, did you?

Speaker 2:

you were. You had a successful corporate career early on, right?

Speaker 1:

I did. What was that all?

Speaker 1:

about so I actually lived here in Phoenix for a long time and worked for a large software development firm.

Speaker 1:

You know the software project engineer or a software project manager working for companies like Visa and American Express, doing you know big software development stuff, ended up having our first son and moved to Indiana to raise our kids, which is where my wife's from Lived in the community we're in now in Angola, indiana, and I stayed with the company I just transferred to their Lansing branch, lansing Michigan. They put me on a contract in Grand Rapids for a large grocery chain that's in Grand Rapids, great company, led a team of developers to help redo their warehousing software. Great time, made great money. Got to work there two days a week, work at home two days a week. It was phenomenal, just a phenomenal job or career at the time. Job or career at the time. But I, while I was doing that, I was living and working two hours from you know, from where I was working, and I had kind of two sets of friends, two sets of you know people that I was interacting with.

Speaker 1:

My wife and I were getting involved at church, we were meeting people in our community and and I just really felt that that separation of where I was living and where I was working uh was not good like I just couldn't have the uh couldn't build the relationships that I needed to being that far away. I did that for five years, um and uh and came to a came to a pretty interesting decision at the end of that five years.

Speaker 2:

So obviously not an easy thing to do, right, leave something pretty stable to something that you're not really sure what it's going to look like, but that inspiration there was that fuel. That said, what's important to me is being part of something local, right, a community, definitely, definitely Awesome. And so you leave as a project manager, or you're a project manager there for a while, and now you're selling backup and cybersecurity, help sort of connect those dots. What did that new entrepreneurship look like?

Speaker 1:

Well, it was kind of interesting. So, as I was working in Grand Rapids, I just really felt this call to work in the community I was living in, and so I started kind of working on how do I do that? This community was small, they didn't really have, didn't have a need for a software project manager, didn't have a need for my skills, and so I just kind of looked at what might be something I could do. Lots of companies, lots of small businesses. I thought I can service these guys. I can make a business of this.

Speaker 1:

Did lots of prep work. I figured out what I had to charge an hour, what I had to do, all the things to get ready for it. But pulling that trigger just to let go of that six-figure income and kind of make the leap was pretty difficult, and so I kind of needed a little more of a push to get there, which came at the end of that five years. I got invited to be on the next big software development project. The leader of the project called me in her office, said hey, I want you to be on this team, I want you to. You know this is going to be multi-years. Actually I think it was a 10 year project. We'd love to have you on here, but you need to be here five days a week.

Speaker 1:

And you know I it was clear to me that I couldn't. I either had to sacrifice my family or sacrifice this big check and paycheck. And I just said I really can't do that. I've called my company I was on contract to them, called my account manager and he said well, if you don't take this, don't take this opportunity, we'll consider that a voluntary termination. So by lunch I was unemployed and heading home to start my MSP.

Speaker 2:

Wow, so obviously stressful. But in the end you had to know I mean, it was on your mind for a while. You had to know you're making the right decision. I'm not saying that there aren't people that would sacrifice their families for their careers, but as long as I've known you, you've always been a family man and I couldn't see that ever seriously coming across your mind. Right yeah.

Speaker 1:

I spent a lot of time. I'm a man of faith and I spent a lot of time in prayer over those years just trying to decide what to do, and I had a really clear sense from the Lord that this was he was going to prosper a business that I built and I didn't know what that was going to look like.

Speaker 1:

But I just started doing it. I went to some companies, really thought I'd do great with manufacturing firms, but I found out quickly that the manufacturers in my area either couldn't afford me or had IT in Detroit or Chicago or somewhere else. So I actually got my first break from a good friend of mine from church that had a very successful HR business in town and he said hey I need your help and we kind of worked together I helped him build his business, he helped me build mine and kind of got MidSolve launched.

Speaker 2:

Wow, so you did something early on. That, I think, is pretty fantastic. It's not uncommon today, but you led with security and backup. I think every MSP hopes to lead with security and backup today, but you were doing that early on. Why?

Speaker 1:

to lead with security and backup today, but you were doing that early on. Why so? As I approached companies, small businesses in my community, I really got this theme of what they were all missing. So all of them either had no security, no antivirus, or what they had was outdated. They had no idea what was going on with their backups. They either had no backups or they had backups but had no idea whether they actually worked or not, just with a theme, you know. And they weren't doing patching, they weren't doing you know any, any basic maintenance and and anybody that was working for them any IT companies, computer companies were doing a really poor job of it at the time, and so I just led with that. I said you know, these are the things you need and we'll help you figure out the rest.

Speaker 2:

What were some of those early challenges when you started MintSolve?

Speaker 1:

Finding customers was a big one. I've never advertised, I've always grown via word of mouth and, you know, really stood on my reputation and in my community and so just getting those referrals and bringing people on, bringing the right, getting the right software stack, getting the right tool stack, was huge and I've actually been with Enable for 18 years probably. You know, I started long, long ago, found it to be a great product and you guys just keep adding great stuff, so I keep my. Almost my entire stack is enabled Awesome.

Speaker 2:

So early days, mid-solve I think it's probably 30, 70, time and materials, project work, break-fix type stuff what sort of prompted a shift towards true managed services?

Speaker 1:

Well, that's kind of interesting. I actually tried doing true managed services quite a few years ago, probably 15 years ago, and it just didn't sell well in my community. So I kind of did a bit of a hybrid of that. I kind of made a base, you know kind of service stack that everybody gets. I have one product, everybody gets it, and then would do time and materials on top of that. And quite honestly I've done that up until January of this year. I took the leap and moved all of my customers to full managed services two months ago.

Speaker 2:

And what's that process been like? How's that been for your morale?

Speaker 1:

Uh, I haven't had much sleep in the last three months, but I actually went really, really smooth. It was a lot of work. Um, I uh. So far, I've moved probably a hundred customers over and I lost one in the process. Um and again it. One thing I've learned through all of this is is this is a relationship business, and so I spend a lot of time building relationships, and this really taught me. This process taught me just to to trust that relationship. Like you know, it's important there. My customers are counting on me to guide them in the right direction and even if that costs more money, they're still. They still want that service. You know that's what they're counting on me for.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. So you talk a little bit about, you know, one level of service. This is what we offer. You take it or leave it, how's?

Speaker 1:

that worked for you and how's that worked for your customers. So having one product like that really separates the customers that appreciate and understand what IT managed services are and the customers that just want you know backup or just want antivirus or you know that kind of stuff. And for me I just feel like if it's good for one customer, it's good. I don't have different levels of customers. I need to provide a high service, high level service for everybody. So typically once I explain that, talk through that with the customers that are a little less comfortable with it, they come around you.

Speaker 2:

Most MSPs know more than what their customers you know, think they know, and so for you to be able to offer this sort of baseline your MVP um, you know it, it is what's best for them. And I think what you had to do mentally was say there's going to be some clients Thankfully it's only been one to this point but there's going to be some customers that maybe don't want that, and that's okay. Like for me, this is who my ideal client is and they fit into this mold, they're going to take that, and so that had to be a pretty big jump for you guys. That was.

Speaker 1:

that was really hard because, again, I'm a relationship guy so I really no-transcript with us over the next few years as things change and evolve.

Speaker 2:

So I'm sure every MSP goes through their sort of growth and maturity and they come through points in their careers where it's scary. Something scary happens, and for you it was sort of 2020, right. I think there was an incident and I would love to hear what you're willing to share about that. I know you acted very swiftly and I'd love to be able to hear about that.

Speaker 1:

Well, in actually September 2019, about that. Well, in actually September 2019, I was logging into one of my customers' servers to do some maintenance on their server on a Saturday morning and I noticed that there were some files being encrypted. So I had caught a ransomware issue in the act and I was able to act quickly shut the server down, contact the customer you know all of those things. We were able to remediate it, get their server back up and going. Honestly, I think they were down half of the day Monday at most and they were back in business thanks to Cove Data Protect and you know all the great, you know stack that we had in place and being able to act quickly. But the particular ransomware was LockBit and September of 2019, as I was researching how to you know how to handle this, I found that LockBit had kind of changed the game a little bit. They not only were encrypting the data, but they were also exfiltrating that data out of the network and you know, posting it on the dark web.

Speaker 1:

And at that moment I just, you know, I saw that, as I can't let this happen to my customers. This changes the landscape of what ransomware is and in January of 2020, I moved all of my customers to EDR with a 24-7 SOC, so put them into MDR immediately. Just, you know, sent an email out to all my customers and said this is what we need to do and here's what it's gonna cost. And it's happening January 1 let me know if you have questions. And it was a big leap, but it was the, it was the right thing to do at the time and, you know, I just couldn't let that happen to my customers, for sure.

Speaker 2:

So you were obviously lucky, john. You caught this in the act and quickly offer something new that you knew you were going to help your customers and then pass that cost down to the customers Not a significant cost, but again more than what they had signed up for initially with you. Than what they had signed up for initially with you, um, were you prepared to? Um incur that cost your own if they pushed back on you because it was so important, or or how? What was going through your mind? How are you thinking through that?

Speaker 1:

Uh, quite honestly, I implemented it before I told him about it. Um, so, yes, I was a hundred percent ready, ready to incur that cost because it was the right thing to do. Um, and, honestly, after that, finding out about lock bid, I couldn't sleep very well. So, uh, having 24 seven sock in place really allowed me to take a breath and, and you know, kind of look at the situation and push this out the way it needed to be pushed out. But yeah, I was, I was willing to lose some customers over it and I was willing to pay for it for them until they figured out that it was the right thing to do.

Speaker 2:

But I think the interesting thing was that you knew you needed something. You obviously realized very quickly that at your size it was going to be hard to do with your team and you had to find a partner that was going to be able to provide these 24 by 7, 365 resources. And so you were able to do that. That's great. Let's talk a little bit about. You know we're at an event this week business transformation. Right, you've been an early advocate and an early fan of what we've done with business transformation. Can you just talk a little bit about this community and how this has helped you work on the business?

Speaker 1:

just talk a little bit about this community and and how this has helped you work on the business. So the first business transformation that I went to was, I think, um, two octobers ago. It was the getting to two million uh, which not quite there yet getting there, but um, they won. That was. That was a an amazingly great use of my time and resources. So I walked away from that event going. I will go to every one of these. That makes sense because it's a great use of my time, great use of my resources.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I walked away from that with is a peer group. I got put into a peer group which has been game changing for me. I love meeting with my peer group. I love being able to bounce stuff off of them. And just another interesting story about my peer group I had an employee leave middle of last year, pretty short notice, and I happened to have a peer group meeting that Friday that he gave me his resignation and I just threw out a message to all of them as we were like hey, what do you guys do to hire? And you know I got lots of responses back, you know. But the other responses I got back is I had guys in my peer group go. Hey, I've got capacity. If you need help, desk calls answered, let me know, We'll help you out. And I mean, it's just the community. That part of the community is like it's just a game.

Speaker 2:

And I'm sure there's exceptions, but the general majority of folks want to help each other. Ori you know Ori, he always uses this term MSPs helping MSPs, and that's what I like to say. The BT community is as well. Specifically, this group is so tight and you're in a peer group, which is one of the best things you can do to grow your business. Right For you to have this tight knit group, that monthly, and then you still interact in between and something like that. You never expect someone to say, here, help us out in a pinch while you get through this, but that's your family, right. I mean, you guys have built that relationship. That's pretty incredible. That's great. So let's talk a little bit about MidSolve, as you guys have evolved. So you've sort of recently transitioned to user-based pricing, right, which is something that we've talked about in the BT programs for the last few years now, and you've adopted some new tools Halo, EnableMDR. Can you share sort of the rationale behind why you did that and sort of the impact on the business?

Speaker 1:

So a couple of things. I knew I was outgrowing the PSA that I was in and had some changes in my SOC situation that I knew were happening and ended up going to Empower. I was already looking at Halo prior to that a little bit, but I was like, ah, that's a down the road thing. That's a down the road thing had something happen with the current PSA where I, just after being at Enable, I just said I'm pulling the trigger on this. This is going to happen. Same thing with the MDR Enable. Mdr was already using Sentinel-1, loved the product and knew I needed a new full MDR solution and was looking at MDR prior to Empower as well, thanks to my great account rep at Enable. He keeps me pretty well informed and so, at Enable, I took one of my team members there and at the conference we just both were like we got to do this. You know this, this is we got to do it. And so we pulled the trigger.

Speaker 1:

Uh, pretty much as soon as we got back, uh, worked out the numbers and um had a? Uh, a staff transition during that time in June and I did not want my new, another uh, you know, another full God moment. I had a replacement staff person. The Monday after the one that quit put in his resignation, the guy I would have picked out of my community to be on my team sent me an email and said, hey, do you have any positions I might like to work for you. But anyway, I brought him on and really did not want to teach him two PSAs. So I went to Halo and said, hey, can we implement this in 30 days? Like we need to push through this. And uh, they were able to do that. His first day is when we cut over to Halo. It's, needless to say, the last. The second half of last year was exciting, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I bet I remember you going through there and you had you always have this smile on your face and you're such a positive guy, but you had a glimmer in your eye where I could tell there was some ounce of stress that you were hiding deep down. So well done. Way to keep a keep a keep a smile on your face. Talk a little bit about compliance, john. I know that's been a significant focus we're going to talk about it this week, but can you explain why it's important on you know, having sort of a story around compliance to help your clients?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So compliance is. You know, I feel like the way our industry is going, honestly, the way business is going, compliance is going to get more and more necessary and we really need to be leading in that. The area that I'm doing a lot of compliance in right now is WISP for accountants.

Speaker 1:

Accountants at the beginning of this year had to have a written information security policy, which is basically a compliance right. It's of some sort, and the WISP can be based on lots of different frameworks. We tend to use FTC safeguards, but it's a process, it's some documentation, it's some evidence, it's the whole compliance process and they're being required to do it. They don't want to do it, I mean, they don't have the time to do it. So they've come to me as their IT provider and said, hey, can you help us with this? So right now I've got I mean I've got six clients that I'm doing compliance as a service, for One of them is a single accountant that works out of her house, but she sees the value in it and said, hey, can you do this for me?

Speaker 1:

So compliance is going to get to be more and more important. We just felt like this is something we need to get on the front end of the last BT session that we went to, there were a number of speakers talking about hey, we need to be leading in this conversation. I really took that to heart and just started calling my accountants. Hey, we need to do your WISP, let's get on this. Here's the pricing. Let's get this done and it's been great.

Speaker 2:

By the way, I love that about you because you know you guys are not a huge MSP, but you have taken that to heart, to your point, and you've said well, we're not too small Like we should be doing this as well. What advice would you give to other MSPs, maybe a little bit smaller, that are just to really get out, to get started in compliance?

Speaker 1:

So I would say get whatever help you need, get whatever tools you need. I'm going to put in a shameless plug. I work with a guy that does compliance quite a bit, cj. He's been to the business transformation sessions with me. We are in the process of kind of putting together a business to help MSPs with this process of cybersecurity and compliance ManagerSecuritycom. But we just see the value in doing whatever we can to help get there so we can provide tools, we can provide consulting, we can provide the help to do that and as an especially the small MSP anytime that I could bring someone in or bring a product in or a tool in that could help me get where I needed to go without me having to put a ton of effort into it was hugely beneficial. You know I'm going to catch up eventually, but if I need this now, I want, you know, I want something that that's ready, ready to go like plug and play. Give me a plug and play, I'll pay the money for it. Let's, let's get moving so awesome.

Speaker 2:

So just a couple more questions, john. Talk about how. How do you plan to continue providing more value to your clients, right and sort of staying ahead of of the trends that the industry is is facing?

Speaker 1:

That's been an interesting part of moving to user-based pricing and moving to full managed service. I didn't personally didn't see the value in it completely prior to doing this, and at this point I really see that moving to this model one frees my company up to move resources around and do exactly that Be on the front edge of things, get out in front of things, add what I need to add, add staff, add those kinds of things. But also for my customers, it allows them to fully put their trust in us and what we're doing and know that the fees that they're paying are going to cover what they need to be covered. And then we're just going to stay on the front end of it and we're going to let them know what that is and help bring them along as it is. So it's been a huge transition.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. So one last question for you, john. Uh, we call this the now that's it podcast, and so I love to ask every one of my guests when did you know? Now that's it.

Speaker 1:

Uh, I thought about this quite a bit. Honestly, the answer came to me right away and I thought well, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So, as I said, when I transitioned from working in Grand Rapids and moving to Angola, or working in Angola, I really felt the Lord calling me to be an influence in my community. About midway through last year, as I'm kind of in the throes of all of this change in my business, kind of a little overwhelmed by it, right, like, what am I doing? I had a moment where the Lord really said I've got you right where I want you, and made me realize that I'm on our hospital ward. I'm actually the board chair of our hospital, local hospital. I'm on my elder team.

Speaker 1:

At my church I helped bring fiber to our community. On another board, I've been asked to be on our community foundation transition onto our community foundation board. So it really was a that's when I knew. Now, that's it. I'm doing exactly what I need to be, doing right where I need to be. And all of the chaos that's when I knew. No, that's it. I'm doing exactly what I need to be, doing right where I need to be, and all of the chaos that's going on around me is all part of it.

Speaker 2:

Good John, that's amazing. You're a real inspiration. It's always a pleasure having conversation with you. As I mentioned earlier, I always love seeing your smiling face and you're such a positive, optimistic guy. Thank you so very much for being here. I wish you and CJ and the rest of MidSolve the best of luck in the future, and thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Great Thanks, chris, this was fun.