“Show me your app.”
That’s a question Aharon Chernin expects prospects to ask MSPs in the not-so-distant future. It will be just one more way that automation will provide competitive advantage in the industry.
“There’s going to be some MSPs that pull out their phone or open their laptop and show them the app and all the cool things that customer can do automatically, working directly with the MSP,” the founder and CEO of Rewst (pictured above) predicts. “And there’ll be some MSPs that say, ‘Well, we don’t have that, but you can call us.’ It’ll be such a stark difference.”
The development of an application platform is just the latest leg in Rewst’s short journey to deliver an automation platform purpose-built for MSPs. MSPs are already using automation as a way to address operational challenges such as recruiting and retaining technical talent, as well as a rise in competition, Chernin says. An app will be a further differentiator. Envisions Chernin, “When their clients log into their app with the MSP, there’ll be a full suite of self-service functionality available.”
Rewst’s latest round of funding announced today—$45 million, led by Sapphire Ventures, with existing investors Meritech Capital and OpenView—will be used to continue innovation in the automation platform, develop more pre-built automations, and create educational content and documentation for the new application platform, which is in beta now.
This latest funding round brings the total raised in the last 12 months to $76 million. The total capital raised to date is $104 million.
Don’t Say The “A” Word – Focus On Outcomes
Today, Rewst reports more than 900 MSPs using its platform. In total, these MSPs have built more than 274,000 automations with Rewst. The company says in a recent 30-day period, these workflows ran more than 101 million times, with self-reported time savings exceeding 675,000 hours.
Chernin says MSPs are using automation to differentiate themselves from a sea of competitors, but they should be stressing the end result of automation to prospects and clients, not the automation itself. For instance, he says, if a prospect’s current MSP has an SLA of double-digit hours for a new user add and your SLA is two hours because of automation, that’s a value proposition a prospect can understand.
Rewst’s automation platform differs from the automations MSPs can create inside an RMM or PSA, Chernin says. The platform leverages multiple products to create larger automations, he explains, and is less work than building integrations yourself in PowerShell because you don’t have to figure out the complexities of APIs. An MSP can just drag and drop “onto the canvas and connect it to the next step, and you’re off to the races.”
While there is a learning curve for Rewst, the company offers Cluck University for training. “We’ll certify your MSP engineers for automation,” Chernin says. “And since this is super new to the MSP space, it not only helps the engineer learn how to automate, but it also helps the leadership at the MSP know that they have the right people assigned to build automations.”
Rewst offers both pre-built automations and the ability to build custom automations. MSPs’ desire to create custom automations was a bit of a surprise, Chernin says. “It became clear that MSPs wanted to build automations because they had specific needs … that no prebuilt automation could ever know in advance. So what we find MSP’s doing is they install the pre-built ones initially so that they can get to value quicker and then … use them for inspiration.”
He adds, The custom ones give them the most joy, and the most value, because it’s very, very specific to their business and their clients’ business. There’s no product that they can go out and buy that fixes the one problem that one MSP has. And so an automation platform that they can build on allows them to do that.”
Community-led Versus Product-led
From its founding in 2021, Rewst has focused on being a community-led company vs. the product-led culture typical of software startups, Chernin says. “It’s been a big part of our go-to-market.”
MSPs have also been sharing their automations, he says. “We have MSPs helping MSPs build their automations. And if you think about it, it’s no different than how MSPs are making their own business successful [by] joining peer groups. So if you are an MSP and you want to be successful in automation, you have to participate in the community.”
According to Rewst, 92% of customers participate in the company’s Discord server, with more than 2,000 users answering questions, troubleshooting issues, and sharing ideas. Rewst also hosts a weekly Open Mic call, where MSPs demo workflows they’ve built.
Currently, there 90 MSPs helping Rewst beta test the new application platform. “We only want to work on what MSP’s want,” Chernin says. That’s why, when they spotted a trend of MSPs using the automation platform to output web pages from their automations, “we peeled some of the product team off and started building this app platform.”
Rewst expects the new application platform to be available sometime this year.
