The Channel Futures Podcast No. 26: Dataprise's David Eisner, Cytracom's Zane Conkle

Work hard and stay hungry. Understand the economics of your market and hone your business model. And don’t be afraid to take a risk every now and then.

That pretty much sums up the formula that has helped David Eisner, CEO of Dataprise, achieve the success that he has.

In this episode of the Channel Futures podcast, we feature Eisner, along with another entrepreneur, Cytracom CEO Zane Conkle. Here’s a little background on each.

Eisner founded Dataprise just about the time Microsoft unveiled Windows 95 back in August 1995. Since then, Eisner has built the Rockville, Maryland-based company into a regional, mid-Atlantic powerhouse that has customers nationwide. This year, Dataprise ranks No. 34 on the 2018 MSP 501 list.

In recognition of all that Eisner has achieved in business, Chanel Futures named him as the 2018 MSP 501 Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Channel Futures selected Eisner based on his business achievements, community activism and thought leadership. Take his business success, for example. Eisner is an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award recipient and a Tech Council of Maryland’s Executive of the Year award winner, too.

We were thrilled to recognize Eisner and his wife at the recent Channel Partners Evolution show in Philadelphia. (For more on his achievements and insights, please check out a profile of Eisner here.)

In addition to Dataprise, we showcase another company in this edition of the Channel Futures podcast, Cytracom.

If you’re not familiar with Cytracom it’s an Allen, Texas-based company focused on voice. More to the point, Cytracom develops and markets voice continuity technology that gives small business the same voice quality and flexibility that previously were only available to enterprise customers with deep pockets.

Cytracom has been around for roughly a decade and has a big focus on the channel — MSPs, in particular. Cytracom co-founder and CEO Zane Conkle says the company works with approximately 1,500 partners. Increasingly, more and more of the MSPs that the company works with are being asked to manage voice services by customers, in addition to their traditional networks, email systems, backup services and other needs. According to Conkle, voice can be the service differentiator for many MSPs in competitive markets.

If you’re only protecting your customers’ data, then you’re only addressing half their business needs, Conkle says. You must go further, he adds, and address the part of their business that they depend on, which includes their ability to connect with their customers over the phone.

With an eye on keeping things simple, Cytracom tells MSPs to tell their customers that they should think of Cytracom technology as “BDR for voice services.”

Two company founders; two unique perspectives on the market. We have a lot packed into this episode of the Channel Futures podcast. Here’s hoping you enjoy.

If you’d like to be a guest on an upcoming episode or have a comment, drop me a line at [email protected].

For more episodes, subscribe to us on iTunes or check us out on SoundCloud.

As always, thanks for tuning in.