Simple is Hard!

Other times I delve deep into my startup experiences such as LeadScorz in the predictive analytics area. And then there is the philosophical high-level thought leadership still. I’d offer my overview of the SyncroMSP solution is a bit of all three skewing toward the how the product engineering has resulted in a surprisingly simplistic yet effective solution for MSPs.

Defining SyncroMSP

First, what is it? I’m gonna cross the yellow line and call “it” an ERP-like system for MSPs. That’s because it spans several product categories: PSA, RMM, Time and Billing, etc. Officially speaking “…SyncroMSP combines a full-featured PSA, embedded RMM, and built-in Remote Session tool into one platform, so businesses save time (and money) by avoiding the need for multiple software solutions and instead receive a more seamless tools experience. It has a modern and intuitive user interface, a refreshingly transparent pricing model, and is backed by a fast-moving development team shipping new features almost daily.

Simple is Hard

Each and every day I preach that we need to fight complexity in technology. You and I have both been through the bloatware era where more was better. But my time in analytics exposed me to the belief that simple is hard. Think of it this way with a paradigm all MSPs can related to: TIME. With the recurring revenue business model, truly time is money. By analogy, what SyncroMSP does, in my analysts opinion, is simply tell you what time it is like a clock. It does not take you on a journey about how to build a clock (with all due respect – I feel competing MSP solutions do exactly that). How does SyncroMSP do it?

Secret Sauce

Much of my analysis concerning SyncroMSP has been independent of the company itself. This is by design to insure a fresh look. But there is a time and a place to speak with the actually ISV stakeholders to better understand the product. I have chatted a couple of times with Ian Alexander, a co-founder at SyncroMSP, offered two success factors:

Customer feedback. While software necessarily has a dose of engineering evil to it, several SyncroMSP came from engineering powerhouse CalPoly University, and went on to start RepairTech (which merged with Repairshopr. This has evolved into SyncroMSP that, somehow someway  has swam against the technical tide to engage in a customer first approach. “We’re constantly getting feedback from MSPs, and that’s what drives our roadmap. I personally talk to 3-4 MSPs per day, and one of the reasons we’re able to ship features so often is because of all the awesome ideas and feature requests we receive from our customers.”

Syncro is] pounding out code and features week after week… and listening to their clients. As far as my experience has been, they have been far better with customer interaction, support, communication than any of the RMM’s I’ve worked with”

-Steven Grabowski (a Syncro Power User)

Pricing. “…we offer radically simple pricing - just pay-per-tech, with no platform fees, minimums, training fees, contracts, or hoops to jump through. MSPs interested in Syncro can create a free account at syncromsp.com and automatically receive a free full-featured trial for 30 days.” Alexander shared.

There are four pricing levels ranging from PSA Only ($79/month/per tech) to Advanced (Everything) for $129/month/per tech).

Speeds and Feeds

No Harrybbb analyst missive is complete without a few procedure-like screenshots that reflect my own experience carrying the bag and using SyncroMSP. I took poetic license to make myself an MSP and serve a client, Bainbridge Vision (my actual eye doctor). Most importantly I did all of this in one hour without having to read the manual (aka “RTFM”).

Figure 1: After signing up for the trial, I created my client.

Figure 2: I then created an asset at the client site, a PC used for eye testing.

Figure 3: A ticket was created to migrate the workstation off of Windows XP.

Figure 4: Part of my work is to purchase a new Lenovo for the migration project.

Figure 5: Finally, I created invoices and billed for my work.  Again, this was all accomplished within one hour!

Partner Feedback

Nick Lenius, CEO of Oklahoma IT Solutions, shared independent feedback on SyncroMSP. “We looked at the top three MSP solutions in the PSA/RMM segment plus the second tier solutions. SyncroMSP was the only solution that integrated all the ‘parts’ to our satisfaction and felt right-sized.” Lenius said. “It’s real-time capabilities truly allows synchronization between the modules. For example, multiple employees can be working within SyncroMSP, each performing a different task. Our bookkeeper can then see the updates and efficiently bill the customers.  And we’re saving over $1,000 per month as a small MSP using SyncroMSP. We don’t need expensive third-party solutions. For example, the documentation module is a jewel. We have customized the built-in documentation wiki for our customers to document everything. Admittedly that takes some time to set-up but it’s worth it.”

Lenius’ Learnings

1. I found that in the top three Facebook groups (IT & MSP Business Owners, IT Business Owners Group and Computer Technicians Support Group) in our community, SyncroMSP is recommended 4 to 1 (most of the time more). There was a post last week (mid-August) asking which MSP Platform would you recommend for someone doing break/fix and Managed services and the first eight recommendations was for SyncroMSP (over 30 comments) and 20+ were for SyncroMSP. In the IT & MSP Business Owners Facebook group Chris Wiser made the comment in June that SyncroMSP is blowing up!
2. More and more small MSP shops are moving to SyncroMSP from the big three with a good majority coming from Connectwise and Autotask. There is proof of this in both the general Facebook groups and Reddit as well as the number of new members joining the SyncroMSP Users group on Facebook, averaging 5 new members per day.
3. No other PSA/RMM platform can say they are truly built as one from the ground up and offer the pricing that SyncroMSP does.
4. Like I mentioned, we saved more than a thousand dollars switching to SyncroMSP and eliminating multiple platforms to achieve what we do.
5. I predict SyncroMSP will be one of the standard MSP platforms if not the frontrunner by 2020, especially for the small to midsize operations. With their current rate of development and feature releases they will surpass the current big names soon.
6. Most importantly they are involved with their users and active in the communities, they listen to and interact with us on a level the other competitors just don't seem to care about. Features are released almost weekly with any bugs reported by the community being responded to quickly. Ian and Troy are in some of the Facebook groups and take feedback seriously, communicate on features coming, why some things can or can't be done, etc. They ask for ideas, feedback, what users would like to see, etc.
7. With a bit of effort you can make SyncroMSP as powerful as CW/AT PSA, CW Automate, SWRMM, ITGLUE and any other platform available and at a fraction of the cost. With ticket automations, worksheets, PowerShell scripting (with community library), documents wiki feature, and ticketing workflows.

Roadmap

SyncroMSP is all about continuous rollouts. Here are a few recent features rolled out while I conducted this review.

• ·Macintosh Agent (Currently in Beta)
• ·IT Glue Integration
• ·Warranty Master Integration
• ·Event Log Monitoring
• ·ScreenConnect and TeamViewer Integrations
• ·Lots more…

About the Author: Harry Brelsford, CEO and founder of SMB Nation, is a long-time analyst in the small and medium business sector with a focus on MSPs, channel partners and IT consultants. The author of 20-books and several hundred articles, Harry is widely respected in the community and often speaks at industry conferences.