Kaseya Acquires TruMethods, Keeps TruPeer MSP Community Open To All

‘We’d like to earn the right to make sure that the customers there use all Kaseya products. [But] Datto has the same access to them, and SolarWinds, and ConnectWise, and everyone else. There’s not even a requirement for them to use myITprocess. We waived that requirement. ... We want to be super clear on this, and this is in the agreement: There is absolutely no requirement, nor as long as Gary Pica is here will there be a requirement,’ says Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola (left).

MSP-focused platform and software developer Kaseya Tuesday said its IT Glue business has acquired MSP coaching and mentoring firm TruMethods.

With the acquisition, IT Glue plans to integrate TruMethods’ myITprocess, a methodology that helps provide smaller businesses with what the company calls a virtual CIO (chief information officer) to help better manage their businesses, with IT Glue’s secure IT documentation for IT professionals technology.

The acquisition also brings Gary Pica (right, in photo), one of the best-known faces in the MSP market, into the Kaseya fold. Pica, founder and president of TruMethods, is a keynote speaker at the MSP market’s biggest conferences, including conferences sponsored by Kaseya, its competitors including ConnectWise and Datto, and conferences sponsored by The Channel Company, the parent company of CRN.

[Related: Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola On COVID-19, Connect IT And ConnectWise]

TruMethods also brings to Kaseya its TruPeer peer group program.

Financial details about the acquisition, which was unveiled before the opening Tuesday of IT Glue’s GlueX virtual conference, were not released.

TruMethods was too good an opportunity for Kaseya to pass up, said Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola (left in photo), who told CRN that 95 percent of myITprocess users use IT Glue.

“It’s a great fit,” he said. “Every single IT Glue customer literally can use myITprocess. Will they? I don’t know. People adopt different things they want, but it makes sense. And there’s almost zero integration needed because it’s now a part of IT Glue. We spent about five months building that integration at a very deep level and it’s ready to rock. So we’re pumped about it.”

Kaseya decided to make TruMethods part of IT Glue because the synergy between those two organizations technologies was obvious from the first time Pica and Nadir Merchant, general manager of IT Glue, presented myITprocess to Kaseya’s executives, Voccola said.

“Gary and Nadir went on the whiteboard and it was like watching peanut butter and jelly mix,” he said. “There’s so many benefits of all the stuff that comes out of that freaking VCIO product. It’s documentation and it’s processes and it’s workflow. And that’s what IT Glue does. And every one of the IT Glue customers, all nearly 11,000 of them around the world, can implement the myITprocess almost right away and get the value of offering VCIO stuff. And that was really wild. So we went down that path in a lot of detail and said, ‘Hey, let’s get married.’”

Voccola and Pica first met about six years ago when Voccola first took over as CEO of Kaseya.

“Gary explained to me the history between him and Kaseya and Gerald Blackie, Kaseya’s first CEO,” Voccola said. “And I could still barely spell ‘MSP’ at that point, but it was really good, really cool.”

Merchant told CRN that, because everything that TruMethods’ myITprocess does is effectively documentation in some form or another, the company fits well with IT Glue.

“myITprocess provides structure, standard processes and thought leadership to how you deliver a VCIO service, how you become a strategic partner for your business, if you’re an MSP,” he said. “And IT Glue can drive that through the data that we have in our system. ... We integrate with every solution that they already have, 40 plus solutions. We’re launching seven new integrations at GlueX. We’re going to launch another 20 more in the next couple of years. So we have all of this data from all of these integrations that we bring into IT Glue. And all of that is what feeds into the VCIO process. That’s what helps them become a strategic advisor. So by bringing those things together, making myITprocess part of the solution, we can then make it very easy for the MSP to deliver those VCIO services.”

Going forward, development of the myITprocess technology will be handled by Merchant’s IT Glue team working with Pica, Voccola said. More importantly, he said, Pica can focus on his TruPeer MSP peer community, he said.

“Gary can now focus on building his peer community, at being one of the thought leaders of the MSP space, obviously doing it under the IT Glue banner,” he said. “It goes without saying: IT Glue is the Switzerland of the MSP space. We work with everyone, even Kaseya competitors. We work very happily with them, and that hasn’t changed in the five years that we’ve owned IT Glue. And I think we’re going to see a lot more of Gary and Gary’s peer groups working to help MSPs better themselves.”

Pica said TruMethods was growing, but had reached the point where for the software to fulfill its potential, it needed access to improved integration and APIs, as well as the kind of distribution Kaseya can provide.

“We’re going to get it out to thousands and thousands of MSPs,” he said. “Also my reach, in terms of my thought leadership, my peer groups, my online training, will increase. And so in terms of my personal vision and my team being able to help leave this industry different than how we found it, this is really great way to do that. And for me to spend time just focused on the things that I love to do, and I feel like I’m uniquely good at, and not doing a lot of other things like software development that other companies like Kaseya are professionals at.”

Kaseya’s move to bring TruMethods’ MSP peer group into the company is not the first for the industry.

ConnectWise in early 2018 acquired Heartland Technology Group, better known as HTG, giving it an organization that brought together 600 members from 500 MSPs, primarily in the U.S., through a series of meetings to provide them coaching and consulting services and the opportunity to form peer groups.

Voccola said IT Glue’s deal with TruPeer is very much different from how ConnectWise works with HTG.

“There’s no requirements, and please publish this and be as clear as the sky, and I’m putting my word on this, there is no, and there never will be, any effing requirement for any member of a Gary Pica peer group to use, buy, or solicit any Kaseya tech,” he said. “We don’t give a [care]. Unlike the stuff that ConnectWise does, where they make you use their products to be a member, we don’t care. That was a part of the deal Gary and I shook hands on. It’s in the deal. He’s independent.”

Pica said keeping TruPeer independent was a deal-breaker for him.

“One of our core values is we only want to do things that are going to be right for [our peer group],” he said. “Will it be right for them to work with a lot of Kaseya products and will we make it easy for them to do that and cost effective? Absolutely.”

Even so, Voccola said, that will not deter Kaseya from trying to sell the peer group members Kaseya’s offerings.

“We’d like to earn the right to make sure that the customers there use all Kaseya products,” he said. “[But] Datto has the same access to them, and SolarWinds, and ConnectWise, and everyone else. There’s not even a requirement for them to use myITprocess. We waived that requirement. There used to be one. We want to be super clear on this, and this is in the agreement: There is absolutely no requirement, nor as long as Gary Pica is here will there be a requirement.”