Influential executives from leading vendors took to the stage at ChannelCon 2025 in Nashville this week to share their perspectives on market evolution, external forces shaping the industry, and how MSPs can their position their organizations for sustainable growth.
Featured on the panel were Austin McChord, co-founder and chairman at Slide, Jason Magee, CEO at Cynet, Nick Heddy, president and CCO at Pax8, and Chris Day, CEO at ScalePad; GTIA’s Carolyn April moderated the discussion. Here’s what they had to say about innovation and the future of the channel.
On Keeping Reluctant Customers Secure
“It’s the education factor [with cybersecurity],” said Magee. “It’s educate, educate, educate. At some point, [those reluctant customers] are going to hopefully get on board; if not, you may have to potentially fire customers that are not willing to put the protection measures in place.”
McChord added, “Compliance and best practice help a lot [to convince reluctant customers]—and explaining that cybersecurity tools are not just about throwing money away and hoping bad things don’t happen, but that they should help [customers] across a couple of different dimensions, like connecting [the tools] with their cyber insurance policies.”
On Achieving Sustainable Growth in a Fluctuating Economy
“One of the things that always seems to be true is that the industry generally grows by 15% year-over-year,” said Day. “The average MSP grows by 15%. I’ve never seen anything, including 2008, that has changed that dramatically. From my perspective, the biggest opportunity that MSPs have isn’t necessarily chasing new customers, [but] growing from existing customers. [There’s] a huge opportunity to have a risk conversation and grow. That’s the thing I love about the MSP industry—it’s very insulated against the economy, because it’s so diversified.”
“Building an AI strategy is a great opportunity for growth,” added Heddy. “Whether you believe there is billions of dollars to be made on AI [or not], it is a door opener today. Those that will win in the AI race are well-run businesses, who have their processes documented, who have governance plans in place, who have the right security tools, and the right people to run all of those tools. But [there] is absolutely a huge energy coming in around AI and I would build a strategy around it, whatever that is for you. There are lots of options.”
Additionally, “the total addressable market for MSPs is actually growing,” said McChord. “A lot of big enterprises [like] Microsoft and Amazon are shrinking. [They] have fewer people who work there. Those people who are leaving are going to go do something. It’s clear that AI makes it a little bit easier to start a business, to create a product. Once that business gets to the size where they [realize] it’s more complicated than [their] home network, that’s the moment they’re ready for an MSP. There’s this whole spread of new companies that are starting; I think that’s going to be a huge tailwind for MSPs. Being in that position to pick up that business is going to be really important.”
On Private Equity Money Entering the Channel
“If somebody’s coming, offering to buy your business, and willing to pay an outsized amount of money for it, that’s certainly validating,” said McChord. “I think MSPs should feel good about that. We’ll see how successful the roll-ups will be. A lot of that [depends on whether] they can understand that the MSP business is a people business. I think there’s 50/50 odds [PE] figures that out.”
“[You could say that] this is the MSP’s moment because there’s a ton of money that has entered [the channel], but the more defining aspect of the moment is big tech, i.e. Microsoft, looking at this channel to help solve a lot of the complexity around AI and security,” said Magee. “And that’s just one example of many big tech companies that are looking to [MSPs] to help them solve that. They’re listening more than they ever have.”
“I think they are listening,” said Heddy. “They know what an MSP is; they’re investing in the space. And I do think that the innovation is going to come from this channel.”
