In this From the Trenches episode, Josh Peterson sits down with Alexis Villamizar and Mariana Arrieta, co-founders of My PC Friends, an MSP serving Central Florida. Their story begins in Venezuela, where they ran a break/fix business before immigrating to the United States in search of stability, opportunity, and a new life for their family.
After years of learning a new culture, navigating immigration systems, and rebuilding from scratch, Alexis and Mariana discovered the MSP model at a conference they attended when they were nearly broke. That moment changed everything. They shifted from residential repair to true managed services, began serving primarily Latin American business owners, grew to 25 recurring clients, and now stand right at the threshold of $500k+ in service revenue.
In this conversation, they share the challenges and breakthroughs of entrepreneurship as immigrants, how cultural differences influence IT buying behavior, why bilingual communication became their competitive advantage, and what it takes to move from referral-based growth to intentional sales, account management, and QBR-style engagements.
If you want to hear the real side of building an MSP—family, hardship, language barriers, community support, resilience, and relentless learning—this episode will inspire you.
What We Cover in This Episode
• Moving from Venezuela to the U.S. and restarting their IT business
• Why their “retiree IT support” concept failed and how an MSP event transformed their model
• Serving Latin-owned small businesses that often have no IT or cybersecurity foundation
• Turning Spanish and a strong accent into a business advantage
• Growing to ~25 recurring clients and multiple employees
• Maintaining a profitable family business through personal hardships
• Using appreciation visits and informal conversations as pre-QBR touchpoints
• The mindset shift required to reach $1M+ in revenue
• Building consistency in prospecting, door-knocking, and event-based outreach
• How the MSP community helped accelerate their growth
Guest Links
My PC Friends
Website: https://mypcfriends.com
Location: Kissimmee, Florida
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