Brian and Eric Dosal, two well-known entrepreneurs in the IT services market, continue to polish and update their family business plans. The efforts extend across BrightGauge (an MSP business intelligence system) and Compuquip Cybersecurity (a VAR transforming into an MSSP).
Details about their latest moves will surface this week at IT Nation 2017, hosted by ConnectWise. Or... you can get the early scoop below.
To understand where the Dosal family is heading next it's important to look back and understand their personal and business journeys so far.
Eric and Brian worked for their dad at Compuquip, and launched an MSP arm of that business. The MSP practice quickly grew from $800,000 to $8.8 million in annual recurring revenues over a five-year journey. The family sold that managed services practice to launch and build BrightGauge -- a reporting and business intelligence tool that roughly 1,300+ MSPs now use. They also retained the VAR-focused business of Compuquip, and managed an overall strategy as part of their Dosal Capital umbrella.
Brothers Re-Focus Their Efforts
Fast forward to present day and some changes are surfacing. Brian now runs BrightGauge as CEO, so that Eric can shift his full-time focus to building out Compuquip Cybersecurity.
Compuquip's evolution is a familiar story in the IT services market right now. Numerous VARs and MSPs are launching highly focused managed security services provider (MSSP) business practices and/or spinning off standalone companies. Hence ChannelE2E's launch of a sister site, MSSP Alert, in May 2017.
The changing executive roles didn't happen overnight. "We’ve made the transition over the past eight months for the sole reason that we have a unique opportunity to invest/grow our family’s legacy business, Compuquip Technologies," Brian Dosal tells ChannelE2E. "As you remember we sold our MSP portion of Compuquip back in 2012 but what remained was a traditional VAR focused in the cybersecurity market. After five years of solid growth in that VAR space, we see a big opportunity to transition and grow the company into a $100 million CyberSecurity VAR and MSSP... which Eric is now spearheading."
Being brothers, the duo is still very closely involved in both businesses -- but they have decided to divide and conquer daily responsibilities between each entity, they say. Among the key moves: Rebranding Compuquip as Compuquip Cybersecurity, hiring some more sales and technical resources, and moving the team into the same building as BrightGauge.
BrightGauge Updates at ConnectWise IT Nation 2017
Meanwhile, BrightGauge will share several updates at IT Nation 2017 this week in Orlando. Among the moves to watch, Brian Dosal says:
1. BrightGauge Goal Management: This new feature will debut this week. Over the past year BrightGauge's customers have used the platform's Scorecard feature based on Traction EOS and their own use cases, the brothers say. "With that research powering our roadmap, we have beefed up and are re-releasing those features as a full Goal Management feature set," Brian says. "Why Goals? What we have found is that nearly every company has some goals they want to track. But companies currently track and hold themselves accountable either poorly, not at all, and the few that do it well do it through excel spreadsheets and live check in meetings. Now companies, teams, and individuals can easily track their goals and keep everyone accountable within BrightGauge."
The system will handle reminders, check-ins, updating the company of everyone’s goal statuses, tracking the data that powers many of these goals, and more, he says.
2. Peer Group Benchmarks: Catering to MSPs in peer groups companies, BrightGauge this week is launching Peer Group Benchmarks -- where companies and teams can see where they rank within their trusted peer group in real time. Instead of waiting for quarterly meetings they can now use the data already being pumped into BrightGauge to see how they rank daily, weekly, monthly. (Here is an example dashboard that the company shared with HTG Peer Group members last month.)
BrightGauge Momentum
In recent years, multiple MSP software platform companies have considered acquiring BrightGauge, executive sources tell ChannelE2E. Moreover, several of those MSP platform providers have launched reporting tools that potentially encroach on BrightGauge's market.
Amid those realities, I wondered if BrightGauge's own business may be slowing down. But anecdotes from the Dosal brothers suggest the company remains strong. For instance, revenues will grow about 60 percent this year, headcount has grown from 18 to 24 team members, and roughly six to eight additional hires are planned for 2018.
We'll be checking in with the Dosals for more details during IT Nation 2017 later this week.
