Insights
Written for MSP owners, about the half of an AI practice nobody sells you: the commercial conversation that happens before the technology is chosen.
Six subjects, and nothing else.
Everything published here sits under one of six headings. That constraint is deliberate: a business that writes about everything is remembered for nothing, and an owner who reads two pieces should recognise the same argument underneath both.
No product announcements, no vendor commentary, no reheated research. If something does not help you lead the commercial conversation at a customer, it does not go up.
Where each piece sits.
The two capabilities
Why an AI practice needs a commercial half as well as a technical one, and what happens to a business that has only built the second.
Winning the business case
What a case has to contain to survive a CFO, how to price a change rather than a deployment, and where most cases fall over.
Getting into the room
Reaching the people who decide — in new accounts and, more often, in the installed base you already serve a floor below.
Building the practice
Position, offers, pipeline, proof and profit — the 5P System, and what each step actually leaves behind in a business.
Capability and capacity
When to build the capability yourself, when to buy it per engagement, and why the bench maths rarely works at this size.
Where the boundary sits
Which half is commercial and which is technical, who owns what in a customer engagement, and why the line matters commercially.
Recent insights.
Ten pieces so far, each one sitting under one of the six subjects above.
Recurring revenue is not the same as predictable revenue
Recurring is treated as the gold standard. It is not automatically predictable.
The shift from technical founder to growth leader
The skills that built the business are not the skills that scale it.
The quiet discount every founder-led MSP carries
Two MSPs with the same revenue can be worth very different amounts.
Strong technology rarely sells itself
Excellent delivery, and still no way into the AI conversation.
Why the best MSPs plan over three years, not one
Annual planning keeps a business reactive.
What actually moved the number inside an MSP
Three things changed at Principle Networks between 2023 and 2025.
Your best AI customer is probably not your biggest one
Most MSPs go after the largest logo in the base.
What a marketing agency can and cannot fix
Good agencies are good at what they do. This is not it.
Most MSPs are competing on price by accident
Nobody sets out to be the cheap option.
Referrals are a growth channel, not a lucky accident
Most MSPs win their best work through referral and treat it as weather.
Tell us where it lands, and where it does not.
These are written from operating experience rather than from research reports, so the most useful replies are the ones that disagree. If a piece does not match what you see in your own business, that is worth an email.
Start here, not with the articles.
Everything here assumes one idea: an AI practice needs two capabilities, and most MSPs have built one. If that is new, the two capabilities page is a better use of ten minutes than any single piece below it.
Reading is cheaper than a bad quarter.
But ninety minutes on your own business beats both. A Growth Review is a structured conversation with you and your leadership team — including an honest answer on whether we are the right people to help.
Win the business case before you win the build.