MSPs as a Distribution Wedge

The Framework

If your product serves small businesses but small businesses are painful to sell to one at a time, stop selling to them directly. Find the intermediary who already serves hundreds of them and sell through that one relationship.

For ThreatLocker, that intermediary was the MSP (managed service provider): the outsourced IT department for small businesses. Danny Jenkins realized MSPs are tiny companies that control huge numbers of endpoints. "MSPs are small businesses mostly. They're 20 employee companies, 50 employee companies... but they often represent much more endpoints than they are in size." One MSP relationship could mean a thousand endpoints instead of one.

The Steps

1. Find the aggregator. Identify who already sells to or services your end customer at scale. For SMB security, that was MSPs. The common mistake: assuming you must reach each small customer yourself.

2. Sell the math, not the logo. A 500-person direct customer is 500 endpoints. An MSP with a handful of staff can carry thousands. Danny's first direct deal took "six calls and a lot of work" for 110 endpoints. The MSP channel changed the unit of sale.

3. Let proof spread through the network. MSPs talk to each other. Danny did one webinar for "about 10 people" and those 10 spread it fast through Reddit, Discord, and YouTube. Tight communities compound.

Real Numbers

The channel's power showed up in a crisis. In July 2021 a vulnerability in Kaseya, a tool MSPs use, pushed ransomware to roughly 40,000 businesses. ThreatLocker blocked it.

The MSP community noticed instantly. New business went from "three or $400,000 of ARR a month" to "one and a half million overnight." Danny was literally begging people to slow down: "Our data centers are on fire... Can you please stop installing it?"

That spike happened because the wedge was already in place. The channel that distributed the product also distributed the proof.

When It Fails

This breaks if the intermediary does not actually control the buying decision, or if serving them dilutes your product into a commodity they resell on price. It also fails if you treat the channel as your whole company. Danny is explicit that MSPs became "one vertical" among many (healthcare, banking, airlines), not the entire business. A wedge gets you in. It is not the whole strategy.

Your First Move

Map who already touches your end customer at scale: agencies, resellers, MSPs, platforms, associations. Pick the one intermediary that controls the most end customers per relationship, and book three conversations this week to learn how they buy and what would make them carry you. You are testing whether one relationship can replace fifty.