I’m Aaron Sherrill, founder of The MSP Operator.

I have spent more than two decades operating, rebuilding, scaling, acquiring, and advising managed service providers—from local businesses to MSP organizations exceeding $100 million in revenue.

The MSP Operator is where I share what those experiences taught me: what works, what doesn’t, and what must change as an MSP grows.

The First MSP Could Have Been Luck

The first MSP I helped lead was a local technology provider facing the effects of the Great Recession. Project revenue disappeared, the company contracted dramatically, and we had to rethink how the business worked.

Over time, we transformed it into a multi-state, multi-location managed-services organization with more than $35 million in annual recurring revenue.

We built services, developed pricing models, introduced greater financial discipline, integrated acquisitions, standardized delivery, and developed leadership beyond the founder.

After the company was acquired, I still wondered whether the result was repeatable—or whether we had simply caught lightning in a bottle.

Years later, I had the opportunity to find out.

I helped lead another MSP transformation inside a business losing approximately $200k per month. It had talented people and loyal customers, but it also had customized agreements, inconsistent processes, limited profitability visibility, and too much dependence on a small number of employees.

Our leadership team rebuilt the operating model while continuing to serve customers and grow the company.

In less than five years, the business moved from substantial monthly losses to profitability and grew by more than 800% to more than $20 million in annual revenue.

The second experience confirmed that the first was not an accident.

Experience From Nearly Every Side of the Industry

Along the way, I have:

• Helped lead multiple MSP turnarounds

• Scaled a local provider into a multi-state organization

• Led operations in a $100 million-plus MSP environment

• Participated in acquisitions as both buyer and seller

• Worked through multiple stages of organizational growth

• Advised MSPs, private equity firms, cloud providers, and technology vendors through my work with S&P Global
   

That combination has allowed me to see the industry from perspectives that do not often exist in one place: operator and analyst, buyer and seller, turnaround leader and growth executive, practitioner and advisor.

Many people understand a particular MSP, technology, or stage of growth. Far fewer have been accountable for margins, payroll, customer escalations, leadership development, service delivery, acquisition integration, and the consequences of operating decisions at multiple levels of scale.

Why I Created The MSP Operator

The same patterns appear repeatedly across the industry.

MSPs mistake revenue growth for business performance. Their best employees compensate for broken processes. Flexibility creates complexity. Tools are purchased before the underlying operating problem is understood. Owners remain at the center of decisions the organization should be capable of making.

The practices that help an MSP reach one stage often become the constraints preventing it from reaching the next.

The MSP Operator exists to challenge those practices and provide independent, practical thinking about:

• Leadership

• Operations

• Profitability

• Strategy

• Growth and scale

• Acquisitions and enterprise value
   

No vendor agenda. No recycled playbooks. No universal formula presented as the answer for every MSP.

Only ideas tested under real operating conditions.