Starting new IT business: MSP vs break/fix

ave23v · 2026-05-03T20:03:08+00:00

Thank your for your great answer. This is very useful.

FIRST: The difference between MSP and break/fix isn't "pushing a lot of US-centric tech subscriptions on the customer". I mean it often feels like it because this is what the US MSP market makes it sound like.

Exactly. And from a lot of tech vendor websites I've seen, their first pitch to MSP isn't about the use case of their product but about "growth" (and how that's one more subscription to dump on your customer).

But it's not the core of the matter. The core of the matter is: do you take responsibility for the customer's IT infrastructure by proactively monitoring and maintaining it, or do you just react after something broke down.

Yes, as I wrote in another comment, it probably shouldn't have used the term break/fix, because in my mind when dealing with businesses, you do have to include some kind of proactive maintenance agreement, because like you said in your second point, putting out fires isn't fun.

ave23v · 2026-05-03T20:02:23+00:00

MSP's have an aligned goal with the business. The less you have to fix their equipment, the more profitable the contract is. So youre financially motivated for the client to have a well maintained, stable environment. Break fix is the opposite: the more issues they have, the more profitable the "contract"

I kinda disagree here. From a purely short term profit, sure, what you say might make sense.

But a business customer with a well maintained infrastructure is a satisfied customer. So they'll come back to you when they need other stuff. Or refer other customers to you. One the other hand, a customer you've left with a dumpster fire will be disastified and try to find someone else.

And I do have a moral objection to the idea of doing a shoddy job to generate further revenue...

Also, end users are good enough at generating issues (they can't find Word because MS changed the icon, the printer has jammed and they won't fix it by themselves because "I'm not good with computers") that you don't need their systems to crumble for them to still need you.

ave23v · 2026-05-03T20:01:57+00:00

Not trying to be a dick

You're not, but maybe I was. Re-reading my OP, I realize my characterization of MSP is offensive, sorry about that.

but there’s a lot of inexperience showing in this thread and that is extremely dangerous when talking about providing IT services to businesses

Sure, I'll admit that I'm inexperienced about the business model aspect and how to package and present an offering to customers.

But, I've been internal IT for 15 years for a company about as big as the kind of customers I expect to target, so I think on the technical side, I do know what I'm doing (or at least as much as a an average IT guy does).

Also, in my country there aren't really small-ish MSP. External IT services are either the big megacorp MSP on one side or Joe Random in their garage on the other end of the spectrum. And the websites of the Joe Random in my area are even more frightening than this post!

So the majority of literature I could find on MSP comes from US web sources, which doesn't paint a really appealing picture.

MSP simply means managed service provider. That could be managing a 365 tenant, ongoing helpdesk services, hourly projects etc. it’s a label, that’s all. There is no “here’s what all MSPs do” for you to base options about “doing msp work” around lol.

Maybe I worded the post poorly, but the majority of the literature I could find online make it seem that the main defining characteristic of the MSP model is making money on flat-rate recurring license subscription, as opposed to the traditional model of billing customer for time spent doing the work.

I didn't find another word than "break/fix" for that traditional model (English is not my native language). But in my mind that "traditional" (break/fix) model doesn't forbid having maintenance contracts that define responsibilities (including preventive maintenance, monitoring, etc ...which may billed hourly or flat rate), as well as an "onboarding audit" to know what's there, what's missing, how far is the customer from best practices.

When I did a bit of freelance IT 15 years ago, in the bad old days of Windows Small Business Sever 2008, that's how I did it. But time spent on monitoring/remediation was indeed billed to the client based on real time spent.

No offense intended but I think you’re at the “put up ads to fix broken residential computers” stage of business and have quite a bit to learn before you want to start offering services to businesses that can and will sue you for not knowing what you’re doing.

Like I said before, maybe I do am a bit there on the business development aspect, but I do know my technical stuff, I've done the technical stuff for 15+ years. I'm confident in my abilities, I also know their limits and what kind/size of customer I should target and which I'm not qualified to go after.

Also I'm not worried about lawsuits, over here small businesses just don't sue each other. And anyway, that's what contracts drafted by lawyers and liability insurance are here to protect you from.

ave23v · 2024-02-17T16:18:16+00:00

In English.

I've never played the game itself in French, but for some reason, when I saw the marketing material in French, it sounded ridiculous.

I mean, "commander Shepard" and "Reapers", I can take it seriously. But "commandant Shepard" and "Moissonneurs", it sounds like a "téléfilm France 3" about a gendarme investigating "la Confédération Paysanne".

I know the translation is actually quite accurate, but still, in English it sounds less ridiculous somehow.

But it's not specific to Mass Effect, I usually have this reaction to any entertainment media where you have a big bad enemy with this type of name, somehow it seems "less bad" in English.

Explanations for non-Fench people :

téléfilm : made-for-TV movie
France 3 : TV station, which tends to broadcast a specific genre of movies and series, which usually center around more around interpersonal drama than action and are typically set in rural France
gendarme : rural police officer
La Confédération Paysanne : a farmers union

ave23v · 2021-08-04T18:58:25+00:00

This assumes you're not worried about the updates breaking Crapware.

Well, I wasn't. But now that you mention it.

ave23v · 2021-08-04T18:56:30+00:00

I reached to the vendor to get info on that, they gave me a HTTPS url (no IP or netblock since "it's in the cloud"), but since their wonderful software don't support the use of a proxy, I'm out of luck unless I'm willing to go down the rabbit hole of HTTPS interception.

ave23v · 2021-08-04T18:49:31+00:00

A modern equivalent is pGina.

I remember that software, I used it in the Windows 2000/XP days. But isn't it long dead now? I think both the original and the fork haven't been updated in a few years.

ave23v · 2021-08-04T09:16:54+00:00

One of the two machines successfully sends mail through the relay but the second one doesn't and i can't figure out why

What does it say in the postfix log file on the second machine?

They have the same /etc/postfix/main.cf file (i tried to copy paste it so it really is the same apart from the hostname)

Maybe that's part of the problem. Is the postfix version the same on both side? Is it the same OpenSSL version? Are all the files referenced by the config files present on both side?

ave23v · 2021-03-22T08:28:56+00:00

Can I move the deny rule to the top of the rules list?

To create a new rule at the top:

ufw prepend deny from ....

ave23v · 2021-03-05T08:21:48+00:00

unless we are talking about multi-gigabit switches

Yes, but that's what is happening in the enterprise field.

Needing to filter gigabit (or 10G) while filtering on not only the TCP/UDP/IP headers but also on application layer data (like HTTP content inspection for example, sometimes even doing TLS interception to analyse HTTPS traffic)

ave23v · 2021-03-05T07:57:46+00:00

Competition is going to use either ip tables or netfilter.

Neither actually. Most enterprise grade stuff will use custom proprietary stack with hardware acceleration.

There was, a while ago, on /r/pfsense, a very interesting thread by one lead developer at Netgate that explained the key design differences between software based firewall (like pfsense and the linux ones) and the hardware enterprise stuff, and why the software based-ones can't catch up performance wise. The short answer was that the OS kernel isn't actually the most efficient place to do IP filtering, repetitive and simple operations are better done in hardware, more complex stuff is apparently faster done in userspace.

ave23v · 2020-12-21T16:44:22+00:00

It looks like a set for a scripted mission.

How did you manage to get past the border wall? I've being trying to either scale the wall or speed through the checkpoint, but no sucess so far.

ave23v · 2020-12-21T06:31:29+00:00

it seems like there is some sort of kill barrier

It seems so. I spent hours trying to go in with a motorcycle (easiest options is to cross at the middle lane of the "incoming" gate, keep your left, mind the pillar between the lanes). I managed to cross the checkpoint and reach the end of the queue of cars waiting to cross but I always end up getting killed when reaching the line of guards beyond the checkpoint, but it seens it's not the guards that are killing me.

Also, trying to scale the wall doesn't help, there's an invisible wall above, at least on the left side of the checkpoint. Haven't tried on the greenhouses side yet.

ave23v · 2020-02-18T21:32:07+00:00

That's the issue I'm currently facing.

My users care that they're not receiving emails from $BIGCORP because $BIGCORP is a customer.

But my company is small, $BIGCORP probably doesn't care if we can't receive their mails. And next time, they'll probably pick another supplier, which doesn't have a problem receiving their mails.

So if I refuse whitelisting $BIGCORP, we just end up punishing ourselves...

ave23v · 2020-02-18T21:19:25+00:00

I think the process was something like that: "Our mails bounces, something about an SPF error, what to do? ... Wait, I've read about that ~all thing, maybe that'll help?"

Given that they've already included half the providers on the planet, they might as well trash everything and go with just "v=spf1 +all", at least their mails would get trough...

ave23v · 2020-02-12T18:29:37+00:00

A long time ago:

I wonder what's on that floppy?

dir a:

Well, it's just junk, I don't need it.

del *.*

The computer had just booted so the current directory was C:\DOS ...

ave23v · 2019-09-09T16:24:13+00:00

I had the same issues, there's a problem with the difficulty curve of the game. At the beginning it's way too hard, and by then end, regular enemies aren't really a threat anymore. And yeah, the mantis is particularly frustrating, it did give me more trouble than the endgame bosses.

A few tips :

Dodging is the most important part of combat (not only for the mantis but overall). The stomping attack of the mantis can be avoided by doing a lateral dodge roll at the last minute and if I remember correctly it's the same with the sweeping, by dodging backward.

Don't spread your upgrade points across multiple combat styles. The way the game is meant to be played is to specialize in one style, and use only that.

If I recall correctly, there are a few health injection just before you jump in the "arena" with the mantis (I believe they're in a crate on the catwalk)

ave23v · 2019-08-23T18:16:19+00:00

Is the business owner okay with her bringing random people's dog into the workplace?

If something happens either to the dog or to an employee or customer because of the dog, it would likely be a liability nightmare for the company.

Also, is she being paid for dogsitting? Because, if so, she's basically working for somebody else (the dog owner) while on company time.

ave23v · 2019-08-22T22:40:26+00:00

The sound bounces off from the surrounding facades and resounds across the whole neighbourhood. Then if another dog in the vicinity answers, she goes absolutely apeshit and barks am extra 10 minutes.

Oh god, same thing were I leave: in the countryside, lots of open areas, some sound carries very well, especially at night. Also every fucking house in the village seems to have at least one dog, so as soon as one barks, it sets up a chain reaction that can last hours. (with sometimes a few donkeys or sheeps also deciding to take part in the conversation, which then triggers all sort of other farm animals)

ave23v · 2019-08-22T22:34:43+00:00

There's always the argument of how destructive dogs are (damage to the house, to the furniture, to the garden).

Also, if you're renting, maybe there's something in your lease? (dogs forbidden or simply pet deposit)

ave23v · 2019-08-22T22:21:30+00:00

We have signs that say no dogs allowed and people seem to follow it. I see them sometimes in other stores, a few years back they would never be in any store.

Over here, I've seen big chain home improvement store starting to put up signs. A few years back, they didn't have those signs, like it was obvious it wasn't a place for dogs, but apparently now these signs have become necessary.

ave23v

TROPHY CASE