A $15.5M MSP in rural Nebraska. No major market. No shortcuts.

Most MSP owners assume scale requires geography, talent density, or luck. This conversation challenges that.

Brian Hoppe sits down with Ed Knott, who built Applied Connective Technologies from 2 people to 68 employees, to unpack what actually drives growth beyond $10M.

This is not a conversation about tactics. It’s about the shift most owners struggle to make.

In this episode:

- What really changes between a $5M and $10M MSP owner

- How to build and retain a team in a constrained market

- Why client experience and retention become the primary growth engine

- The transition from founder-led hustle to leadership-driven scale

- What “financial maturity” actually looks like inside an MSP If you’re thinking about what it takes to build a business that scales beyond you, this is the conversation.

If you want to go deeper on the levers behind growth and valuation, you can get the Value Creation Blueprint here: https://brianhoppe.com/blueprint/

Key Moments

1:06 – The real difference between $5M and $10M MSP owners

7:32 – Building in a rural market and why geography didn’t matter

12:24 – Hiring and retaining talent when your market is constrained

19:05 – The moment an owner has to let go

25:11 – How sales evolves as the business scales

32:58 – Retention as a strategic growth driver

36:35 – Using leading indicators to run the business

45:42 – The biggest mistake Ed made as a leader

Connect

Brian Hoppe

https://brianhoppe.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhoppe

Ed Knott

Applied Connective Technologies https://appliedconnective.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ed-knott-a218535/