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The people who help you get to one stage of growth are not always the people who can help you scale to the next one.
As MSPs grow, the business changes. The owner can’t be the hero. The best tech can’t be the only person clients call. And the team cannot keep relying on individual effort instead of process, structure, and leadership.
Brian Hoppe sits down with Willis Cantey, founder of Cantey Tech, to unpack how he grew a two-person IT support company into a roughly $27 million MSP with around 120 employees.
This conversation gets into the real work of scaling an MSP, from getting out into the community and building trust, to hiring salespeople, investing in management before the payoff shows up, and moving away from the “Superman cape” model that keeps small MSPs stuck.
Willis also shares what he has learned through acquisitions, organic growth, leadership development, vertical focus, private equity, and the hard people decisions that come with building a more mature company.
In this episode:
- Why MSP owners need to get out from behind the desk to grow
- How Cantey Tech scaled through relationships, sales, and referrals
- Why investing in management can shrink margins before it improves the business
- How to move beyond the “hero tech” model and build a process-driven company
- Why holding onto the wrong people too long can cost clients, culture, and growth
- What Willis learned from acquisitions, integration, and protecting culture
- How to develop leaders without forcing great techs into management roles
If you’re an MSP owner trying to grow beyond founder-led chaos, build a stronger leadership team, and create a company that can scale without depending on superheroes, this is the conversation.
Key Moments
0:00 - Introduction
1:07 - Meet Willis Cantey
1:29 - Growing from $5M to $10M
3:23 - Buying and building Cantey Tech
8:33 - Scaling to $27M and 120 employees
11:25 - Investing in management before the payoff
19:42 - Moving beyond the “Superman cape” model
24:22 - The cost of holding onto the wrong people
27:30 - Decisions that created disproportionate growth
30:39 - Vertical focus, markets, and specialization
39:43 - Acquisitions, culture, and integration
45:14 - Organic growth and sales strategy
48:01 - Developing leaders inside the company
58:03 - The role of the CEO at scale
1:01:52 - Willis’ biggest leadership mistake
1:03:31 - Rapid-fire questions and closing thoughts
1:06:16 - Where to connect with Willis
Connect
Brian Hoppe:
https://brianhoppe.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhoppe/
Willis Cantey:
https://canteytech.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/williscantey/
