In this article 5 sections
Starting a company at 20
Marc Sumner sits down with Mit Patel in London for the long version of the Netstar story. Mit left a computer science degree after nine months, ran a dot-com era venture before it folded, then started what became Netstar as a web design shop in 2002. Clients began asking how to share internet connections and set up email, and the MSP was born out of that demand.
The early growth was, in his words, painful. He broke and fixed just about everything an MSP can break on the way up.
The three ceilings every scaling MSP hits
Mit lays out the pattern he sees again and again:
- Around £1MPlanningNo targets, no budget, no clarity on how many new clients are needed.
- £1M to £3MLeadershipThe owner is the bottleneck, churn is high, and progress is slow because there is no leadership layer.
- £3M to £5MSalesTechnical founders treat sales as something dirty, so a real sales function never gets built.
His advice on building a sales team is sequenced: first hire sales support to take the heavy lifting off the owner, then an account manager for existing clients, then hand off new-business sales, usually once past about £3M, because nobody closes new clients better than the owner. From £3M to £5M, the question becomes what sales leadership the function needs.
Mit goes further on planning in Breaking Through Plateaus for Seven-Figure MSP Growth, and on sales teams in MSP growth lessons from 20 years at Netstar.
Stepping back, and a 60-day exit
Letting go of owner-led sales is part of an owner’s own growth. Mit talks openly about missing the chase but learning that his job became supporting the team, not doing the deals. The exit itself was not planned. He had no intention of selling, turned down the approach twice, then took it seriously the third time and completed in 60 days. His reflection: if you actually want to sell, build the business to sell rather than doing what he did.
Mit goes further on the exit decision in To Sell or Not to Sell.
Why he started again, and what Assurix solves
Mit went back in because he saw a problem worth solving and a debt to the community that built his wealth. The trigger was simple: as chairman of a small MSP he watched a new client onboarded with a shared local admin password of welcome123, then saw the same thing nine months later from another provider. Add MSPs buying compliance badges cheaply, and a wave of messages about the incoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, and the idea formed.
Assurix is the live trustmark for MSPs. A failed control opens a 30-day window to fix it, and the Trustmark is suspended publicly if it is not fixed.
Common questions
What are the main ceilings an MSP hits while scaling?
Around £1M it is planning, £1M to £3M it is leadership, and £3M to £5M it is building a real sales function.
In what order should an MSP build a sales team?
Sales support first to take heavy lifting off the owner, then an account manager for existing clients, then hand off new-business sales, usually once past about £3M. From £3M to £5M, work out what sales leadership the function needs.
What triggered Mit to start Assurix?
Seeing a client onboarded with a shared admin password of welcome123, then the same again months later, plus MSPs buying compliance badges cheaply and the incoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill.
What is the Assurix Trustmark?
The live trustmark for MSPs. Assurix independently assesses 59 controls: 40 security controls aligned to NCSC CAF 4.0 and 19 operational controls built for MSPs. Live-measured controls are checked every six hours and the rest on a set cycle. An Assurix assessor signs off. A failure left unfixed for 30 days suspends the Trustmark publicly.
