May 14, 2025 • 16 mins
The power of necessity as a driver of innovation shines in this remarkable conversation with a tech entrepreneur who turned childhood hardship into business success.
Growing up in foster care and group homes without parents, he faced challenges most of us can’t imagine—where government assistance covered only the bare essentials and violence and negativity were daily realities.
School became his sanctuary. While many of his peers from similar backgrounds tragically ended up incarcerated, addicted, or lost to suicide, he found refuge in computer labs. Compassionate teachers, who stayed hours after closing time, gave him access to technology he couldn’t afford at home. This opportunity sparked not only technical skills but also an entrepreneurial spirit. By age thirteen, he was coding, repairing computers, and finding ways to generate income—sometimes just enough for a t-shirt he otherwise couldn’t buy.
What began as survival tactics evolved into strategic business moves. From swapping computer repairs for home-cooked meals to creating shareware security tools that helped pay for college, every step led to greater success. He pioneered managed services before "MSP" became standard industry language, built custom VoIP platforms before the technology was mainstream, and eventually expanded into cybersecurity and cloud services.
His journey is a powerful reminder that resilience, talent, and determination can turn adversity into achievement—and that innovation often begins with necessity.
Want more stories of transformation and innovation? Subscribe to our podcast and join the conversation about how entrepreneurs are reshaping the tech landscape through resilience and vision.
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Hi, I’m Marc Thomas, Founder and CEO of Current TEK Solutions and CYBER GUARDIANS. If you or someone you know could benefit from our cutting-edge IT and cybersecurity services, we’d love to help. Reach out to us today to learn how we can secure and elevate your business. https://www.currentTEKsolutions.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was learning how to write software.
At that time, I was doing kids'homework for money so that they
could pass their classes.
I had hustles like that where Iwould use it.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I would get that money, and that was the
difference between me being ableto buy a t-shirt or not.
It was always something likethat to make side money just to
get by, and I did it regularly.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
so now you're putting in perspective that your
children have never got toexperience the hardships sounds
like and going without.
You know they've had everythingthey've needed growing up.
Um you, on the other hand, myunderstanding, is had a little
bit different story of goingmaybe without, and it allows you
(00:50):
to appreciate a lot more.
Can you take me on that journeyand lighten me a little bit on
how appreciative you are of thatand why?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, I mean, when we take a look at my kids, they
have two parents that have beenin their life their entire time
and so that's why they alwayshave whatever they need.
If they need a ride somewhere,they need new clothes, they need
I mean basic, basic things likeyour dinner cooked Like they
had that.
So they don't really have thatexperience.
(01:24):
I grew up without any parents.
I didn't have a mom or a fatherthat did any of those things
for me ever, and so living offof you know government funds
that you get as part of being inthese group homes and foster
homes, it's, it's.
There's nothing there.
It's like bare basics, bare,bare everything.
(01:47):
There's not a lot there.
So even things like going toschool, where they, you know you
could get like pizza daylunches and stuff like that are
all things that I never had whenI was in school, but my kids
have always had.
So the difference for them isthey don't have that really
context, and I'm glad they don't.
(02:09):
I would never want them to.
I wouldn't want anyone's kidsto have that type of context.
So I can't really have theexpectation of them that they're
going to see and appreciatethings in the same way that I
did, my wife did have.
You know her parents were inthe picture for her, so her
experience is even differentthan what mine was.
But you know, still, if youdon't have that experience of
(02:33):
growing up really, really poorand not having anything at all,
it's really hard to have thesame kind of appreciation that
you know when you just haveeverything that you ever need.
So I don't know if I answeredyour question.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
No, no no, no, you're fine that you just have
everything that you ever need.
So I don't know if I answeredyour question or I remember.
No, no, no, no, you're you're,you're fine, that you're fine.
Yes, I mean that does shed somelight a little bit of how and
why you would appreciate it morethan your children.
And, yes, same same with my ownright.
I get it.
You know, um, going withoutmeans going without something
that they really don't needanyways, right, like.
But in your, in your past andyour history, you know raising
with uh, being raised withoutparents.
(03:08):
You said it sounds like fostercare, group homes, um, wow, I
mean, I can't imagine.
Uh, obviously I had parentsgrowing up though maybe divorced
, right, and separate householdsdo these things but I still had
, you know, um, immediate family, um and um wasn't living in a
sense in the system as whatyou're kind of explaining.
(03:29):
Yeah, so you talk about 13 asbeing the age of going into
business and we also talk aboutyour childhood and 13,.
You're still a child, teenage,but you're a child, right, so
you get into that.
Where were you in life that yougoing from these group homes
(03:52):
and foster care in the system to13,?
You got into business.
What was going on?
How did that happen?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I always had some kind of a business hustle of
some sort or another, since asfar back as I can remember, it
would anything that I could doto make any kind of money.
I can remember like havingcandy stands and selling candy
whenever I get access to candy.
But as I got older and Istarted to get into high school,
(04:25):
I always, for some surprisingreason, I did really well in
school.
I always did really well inschool.
I wasn't always the best inevery subject.
I had subjects that I wasreally really great at and I had
subjects that I was terrible at.
I always had a natural abilityto understand technology.
(04:45):
I don't know why it's alwayscome naturally to me.
I don't struggle with it.
I pick up new concepts when itcomes to IT like just second
nature for me.
I don't struggle to do it, Ijust get it, and it's always
been that way for me, which is,you know, I guess, why I ended
up in this field.
But I can remember being in thecomputer classes and being 13.
(05:08):
And I was learning how to writesoftware.
At that time I was doing kids'homework for money so that they
could pass their classes.
Like I had hustles like thatwhere I would use it Literally.
I would get that money, andthat was the difference between
me being able to buy a T-shirtor not.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know like it's so .
Speaker 1 (05:27):
It was always something like that to make side
money just to get by, and I didit regularly.
So once I started to get 13 and14 and get some more coding
experience behind me, I wasstarting to do things like write
batch files, fix people'scomputers for them tutoring.
(05:47):
I did a lot of tutoring too.
Even all the way throughpost-secondary education I did a
lot of tutoring for side money,just to be able to pay the
bills and stuff.
So it's always been somethinglike that and I've always been
business oriented and findingways to make money.
As far back as I can remember13 and probably even earlier
than that, Wow, so would you.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
would you kind of say that in a sense, the side
hustles was part of yoursurvival, right?
Oh yeah, I mean, that's a year,he said, to make an extra money
to buy a shirt or whatever,right, I mean, you were so, you
know, and and that survivalmechanism, those things you did
to survive, obviously pushed youin the direction of of the
business at the age of 13.
(06:30):
And then, you know, in theschool.
I'm wondering too you know youdid so well in the school, which
you know I'm so happy for you.
Right, in that sense that youdid well in school, because I'd
imagine someone else in thatposition might not do so well.
Right, but you did, and I don'tknow if that was.
Was that maybe a copingmechanism for you or an outlet
(06:50):
for you?
The school was something thatyou took pride in or kind of
invested in.
I just trying to grasp thatright like, because I wouldn't
think that if I was in thoseshoes in which I couldn't even
imagine being those shoes, um,that I don't know that I would
care much about anything.
Right like?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
it's interesting that you mentioned that I'm still
actually really good friendswith one of the case workers
that was involved with methrough the program, since I was
, I think, 14 or 13 when I whenI met her.
We're still close friends andyou know, when I do talk to her,
you know she goes through herentire case history of the kids
that I lived with and grew upwith that were in these places
(07:31):
and many of them have takentheir lives.
A lot of them are in jail.
A lot of them are addicted tosome sort of anything that
prevents them from beingproductive.
So I am one of the few, very,very, very few that go through
and actually have something onthe opposite side of it.
(07:53):
It's not, it's not commonplaceand it's certainly not of common
of anything I ever saw when Iwas growing up.
But to your specific questionof was school an outlet, it
certainly was an outlet.
School was positive for mebecause I was.
I was there doing things that Iliked.
I took every single computercourse that was ever available,
(08:16):
any time and every time, and Ihad some really good teachers
too that would allow me to stayat school late after hours.
I didn't have a computer of myown at that time, so staying in
the computer lab I could writecode, I could do things that I
enjoy, versus being at some ofthese places where I was living,
where it's nothing butnegativity, it's violence, it's
(08:38):
drugs, it's smoking, it'sdrinking, it's it's not, it's
not a nice, fun place to be.
So when I could get away and beat school and actually be in
the computer labs and areasdoing stuff that I like, I
stayed there until they kickedme out Like they would have.
But I had some great teacherslike sometimes they stayed there
seven, eight o'clock at nightand they let me stay there, like
(09:00):
they were way past when theyshould have gone home, and they
let me stay there.
They stayed there with me.
So, yeah, it made a bigdifference, for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Wow, that you know, I tell you.
I know that, um, it wasn't aneasy story necessarily to live,
but you know, um, it's anamazing story to hear, right,
and especially knowing how youcame out of that Right.
I know you today and I see yoursuccesses and obviously you
were succeeding then, right andand for whatever reason even was
(09:29):
staying late at school anddoing those things to get away
from something.
You turn that into somethingpositive and I know it wasn't an
easy road for you to travel andI'm sure it was full of nothing
but struggles, but you overcamethose and you're an amazing
individual.
So at 13, you got into the ITspace and said and said, hey,
(09:54):
I'm going to start doing it as abusiness, so kind of take us
along that.
Um, what did you start doing?
And you know how did how didpeople take you serious at age
of 13 doing computer work youknow they?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I think they took me serious because a lot of the
times I offered to do it forfree.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I think that was a good entry point into that.
And then sometimes the problemsthat people were having me work
on took a lot of time for me toresolve them, and so sometimes
they would make a dinner for mewhile I was there and like can
(10:34):
you imagine having a home cookedmeal?
Versus I was eating Kraftdinner or you know grilled
cheese or something basic thatMr Noodles or you know like.
So if I could have a homecooked meal for fixing someone's
computer, that was paymentenough for me back then.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, I bet.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
But you know, I started to get people would talk
to other people and oh no,daryl fixed my computer, he can
help you with yours.
And people would give me moneyfor doing it.
I wasn't asking for money, theywere just they would give me
money for doing it.
I wasn't asking for money, theywere just they would give me
money.
Some of them knew my livingsituation, some didn't.
But then I would get referredto friends of friends of friends
(11:11):
, and then the question would belike well, how much would you
charge me to come in and do this?
I kind of stumbled into makinga recurring business in that way
Once I started to get it out ofthe immediate people I knew and
was getting referred to friendsand friends and family members
or whatever is the case.
And so I mean I think I wasworking two jobs back then, just
(11:33):
so that I could pay rent andbuy groceries and go to school.
I think minimum wage back thenwas $7 and something an hour,
like it was.
It was really really, reallylow for, you know, living in
Canada, but, um, they wouldoffer me sometimes $10 or $12 an
(11:53):
hour or something.
So for me that was like, yeah,that's, that's great.
Um, so I was able to make someyou know extra money doing that
and side hustles doing that.
And as I got better at mysoftware development skills, I
was able to start writingsoftware that I could sell.
I don't you you'll probablyremember this, but the younger
(12:15):
generation not so much.
There used to be really popularshareware websites where you
could go and you could uploadyour software and people would
get a 30-day evaluation of itthat would time out after 30
days.
They'd have to buy the software, put a code in and it would
unlock the software.
Sure, um, so I had written, uh,four different software
packages that did differentthings.
(12:36):
One of them was a securityapplication that locked windows
95 again, I'm dating here, butif you think back to Windows 95,
you could make it, put apassword screen up, but all you
had to do to get around thatpassword screen was press escape
, right, and then you're rightinto the Windows profile.
So I wrote software that loadedwith Windows that locked it
(12:57):
when it was booted up and youhad to have a username and
password or this screen wouldn'tgo away and you couldn't get
into windows.
Very cool, I started writingsoftware like that and selling
it and, you know, making moneyand I started getting.
That was my first exposure tous currency as well, because the
currency came in in us and ohmy god, I love converting us
(13:17):
currency to canadian becauseit's so much more.
So every time I would make asale on the, on the software, I
was like, yes, because it'smoney and it's more money
because they convert it tocanadian.
So you know, that was kind offun.
But I did a lot of that stuffand then side programming jobs
for people that would need aprinter, auto mapped when the
(13:39):
computer loaded and stuff likethat.
Um, so I kind of justprogressed out of that into my
post-secondary education.
Uh, I was able to finance a lotof my post-secondary education
through the software sales thatthat I had made.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
No doubt.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
That I was doing Um wow, so I was able to graduate
without debt and that I thinkthat's what gave me the
confidence to start doing thisas a full time business.
And I think back then I startedlooking at ways to make
recurring revenue.
So I was doing MSP before itwas even called MSP.
(14:18):
I would go on site, sit atcustomers computers, do updates,
renew their antivirus, do thescans.
I'd sit at every computer oneby one.
I would sit there Because therewas no way to automate it.
Back then we didn't have thetools that we have now, so I
could only ever service a smallhandful of people, versus now we
(14:38):
can do hundreds, thousands at atime because of you know how
far technology has come in ourtools and so forth.
But you know, web hosting wasanother one, making websites,
anything that was recurring.
And then in early 2000, I gotinto VoIP Back before VoIP was
even popular and being usedeverywhere.
I built our own VoIP platform,built the portals the customer
(15:03):
portal, reseller portal, the 911system, the fax, like I coded
all of it and it was a way tomake money recurring.
And then, as I was doing that,I was also growing out the IT
portion of the company to youknow, it portion of the company
to do all of this IT repairservice be the IT department for
(15:26):
companies.
Before it was even called MSPand then gradually, as that grew
and developed, I started topivot the company into what we
are doing now, which iscybersecurity and cloud.
But that's kind of the journeyto get there.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Hi, I'm Mark Thomas, founder and CEO of Current Tech
Solutions and CyberGuardians.
We know business owners likeyou want to focus on growing
your company, not worrying aboutIT problems or security threats
.
That's where we come in.
Our team uses AI to protectyour business from cyber risks
and keep everything runningsmoothly.
If you're ready for peace ofmind and a stronger future,
(16:08):
reach out to us today.
Let's secure and elevate yourbusiness together.
Oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh.
I was learning how to write software.
At that time, I was doing kids'homework for money so that they
could pass their classes.
I had hustles like that where Iwould use it.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I would get that money, and that was the
difference between me being ableto buy a t-shirt or not.
It was always something likethat to make side money just to
get by, and I did it regularly.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
so now you're putting in perspective that your
children have never got toexperience the hardships sounds
like and going without.
You know they've had everythingthey've needed growing up.
Um you, on the other hand, myunderstanding, is had a little
bit different story of goingmaybe without, and it allows you
(00:50):
to appreciate a lot more.
Can you take me on that journeyand lighten me a little bit on
how appreciative you are of thatand why?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, I mean, when we take a look at my kids, they
have two parents that have beenin their life their entire time
and so that's why they alwayshave whatever they need.
If they need a ride somewhere,they need new clothes, they need
I mean basic, basic things likeyour dinner cooked Like they
had that.
So they don't really have thatexperience.
(01:24):
I grew up without any parents.
I didn't have a mom or a fatherthat did any of those things
for me ever, and so living offof you know government funds
that you get as part of being inthese group homes and foster
homes, it's, it's.
There's nothing there.
It's like bare basics, bare,bare everything.
(01:47):
There's not a lot there.
So even things like going toschool, where they, you know you
could get like pizza daylunches and stuff like that are
all things that I never had whenI was in school, but my kids
have always had.
So the difference for them isthey don't have that really
context, and I'm glad they don't.
(02:09):
I would never want them to.
I wouldn't want anyone's kidsto have that type of context.
So I can't really have theexpectation of them that they're
going to see and appreciatethings in the same way that I
did, my wife did have.
You know her parents were inthe picture for her, so her
experience is even differentthan what mine was.
But you know, still, if youdon't have that experience of
(02:33):
growing up really, really poorand not having anything at all,
it's really hard to have thesame kind of appreciation that
you know when you just haveeverything that you ever need.
So I don't know if I answeredyour question.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
No, no no, no, you're fine that you just have
everything that you ever need.
So I don't know if I answeredyour question or I remember.
No, no, no, no, you're you're,you're fine, that you're fine.
Yes, I mean that does shed somelight a little bit of how and
why you would appreciate it morethan your children.
And, yes, same same with my ownright.
I get it.
You know, um, going withoutmeans going without something
that they really don't needanyways, right, like.
But in your, in your past andyour history, you know raising
with uh, being raised withoutparents.
(03:08):
You said it sounds like fostercare, group homes, um, wow, I
mean, I can't imagine.
Uh, obviously I had parentsgrowing up though maybe divorced
, right, and separate householdsdo these things but I still had
, you know, um, immediate family, um and um wasn't living in a
sense in the system as whatyou're kind of explaining.
(03:29):
Yeah, so you talk about 13 asbeing the age of going into
business and we also talk aboutyour childhood and 13,.
You're still a child, teenage,but you're a child, right, so
you get into that.
Where were you in life that yougoing from these group homes
(03:52):
and foster care in the system to13,?
You got into business.
What was going on?
How did that happen?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I always had some kind of a business hustle of
some sort or another, since asfar back as I can remember, it
would anything that I could doto make any kind of money.
I can remember like havingcandy stands and selling candy
whenever I get access to candy.
But as I got older and Istarted to get into high school,
(04:25):
I always, for some surprisingreason, I did really well in
school.
I always did really well inschool.
I wasn't always the best inevery subject.
I had subjects that I wasreally really great at and I had
subjects that I was terrible at.
I always had a natural abilityto understand technology.
(04:45):
I don't know why it's alwayscome naturally to me.
I don't struggle with it.
I pick up new concepts when itcomes to IT like just second
nature for me.
I don't struggle to do it, Ijust get it, and it's always
been that way for me, which is,you know, I guess, why I ended
up in this field.
But I can remember being in thecomputer classes and being 13.
(05:08):
And I was learning how to writesoftware.
At that time I was doing kids'homework for money so that they
could pass their classes.
Like I had hustles like thatwhere I would use it Literally.
I would get that money, andthat was the difference between
me being able to buy a T-shirtor not.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know like it's so .
Speaker 1 (05:27):
It was always something like that to make side
money just to get by, and I didit regularly.
So once I started to get 13 and14 and get some more coding
experience behind me, I wasstarting to do things like write
batch files, fix people'scomputers for them tutoring.
(05:47):
I did a lot of tutoring too.
Even all the way throughpost-secondary education I did a
lot of tutoring for side money,just to be able to pay the
bills and stuff.
So it's always been somethinglike that and I've always been
business oriented and findingways to make money.
As far back as I can remember13 and probably even earlier
than that, Wow, so would you.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
would you kind of say that in a sense, the side
hustles was part of yoursurvival, right?
Oh yeah, I mean, that's a year,he said, to make an extra money
to buy a shirt or whatever,right, I mean, you were so, you
know, and and that survivalmechanism, those things you did
to survive, obviously pushed youin the direction of of the
business at the age of 13.
(06:30):
And then, you know, in theschool.
I'm wondering too you know youdid so well in the school, which
you know I'm so happy for you.
Right, in that sense that youdid well in school, because I'd
imagine someone else in thatposition might not do so well.
Right, but you did, and I don'tknow if that was.
Was that maybe a copingmechanism for you or an outlet
(06:50):
for you?
The school was something thatyou took pride in or kind of
invested in.
I just trying to grasp thatright like, because I wouldn't
think that if I was in thoseshoes in which I couldn't even
imagine being those shoes, um,that I don't know that I would
care much about anything.
Right like?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
it's interesting that you mentioned that I'm still
actually really good friendswith one of the case workers
that was involved with methrough the program, since I was
, I think, 14 or 13 when I whenI met her.
We're still close friends andyou know, when I do talk to her,
you know she goes through herentire case history of the kids
that I lived with and grew upwith that were in these places
(07:31):
and many of them have takentheir lives.
A lot of them are in jail.
A lot of them are addicted tosome sort of anything that
prevents them from beingproductive.
So I am one of the few, very,very, very few that go through
and actually have something onthe opposite side of it.
(07:53):
It's not, it's not commonplaceand it's certainly not of common
of anything I ever saw when Iwas growing up.
But to your specific questionof was school an outlet, it
certainly was an outlet.
School was positive for mebecause I was.
I was there doing things that Iliked.
I took every single computercourse that was ever available,
(08:16):
any time and every time, and Ihad some really good teachers
too that would allow me to stayat school late after hours.
I didn't have a computer of myown at that time, so staying in
the computer lab I could writecode, I could do things that I
enjoy, versus being at some ofthese places where I was living,
where it's nothing butnegativity, it's violence, it's
(08:38):
drugs, it's smoking, it'sdrinking, it's it's not, it's
not a nice, fun place to be.
So when I could get away and beat school and actually be in
the computer labs and areasdoing stuff that I like, I
stayed there until they kickedme out Like they would have.
But I had some great teacherslike sometimes they stayed there
seven, eight o'clock at nightand they let me stay there, like
(09:00):
they were way past when theyshould have gone home, and they
let me stay there.
They stayed there with me.
So, yeah, it made a bigdifference, for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Wow, that you know, I tell you.
I know that, um, it wasn't aneasy story necessarily to live,
but you know, um, it's anamazing story to hear, right,
and especially knowing how youcame out of that Right.
I know you today and I see yoursuccesses and obviously you
were succeeding then, right andand for whatever reason even was
(09:29):
staying late at school anddoing those things to get away
from something.
You turn that into somethingpositive and I know it wasn't an
easy road for you to travel andI'm sure it was full of nothing
but struggles, but you overcamethose and you're an amazing
individual.
So at 13, you got into the ITspace and said and said, hey,
(09:54):
I'm going to start doing it as abusiness, so kind of take us
along that.
Um, what did you start doing?
And you know how did how didpeople take you serious at age
of 13 doing computer work youknow they?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
I think they took me serious because a lot of the
times I offered to do it forfree.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I think that was a good entry point into that.
And then sometimes the problemsthat people were having me work
on took a lot of time for me toresolve them, and so sometimes
they would make a dinner for mewhile I was there and like can
(10:34):
you imagine having a home cookedmeal?
Versus I was eating Kraftdinner or you know grilled
cheese or something basic thatMr Noodles or you know like.
So if I could have a homecooked meal for fixing someone's
computer, that was paymentenough for me back then.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, I bet.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
But you know, I started to get people would talk
to other people and oh no,daryl fixed my computer, he can
help you with yours.
And people would give me moneyfor doing it.
I wasn't asking for money, theywere just they would give me
money for doing it.
I wasn't asking for money, theywere just they would give me
money.
Some of them knew my livingsituation, some didn't.
But then I would get referredto friends of friends of friends
(11:11):
, and then the question would belike well, how much would you
charge me to come in and do this?
I kind of stumbled into makinga recurring business in that way
Once I started to get it out ofthe immediate people I knew and
was getting referred to friendsand friends and family members
or whatever is the case.
And so I mean I think I wasworking two jobs back then, just
(11:33):
so that I could pay rent andbuy groceries and go to school.
I think minimum wage back thenwas $7 and something an hour,
like it was.
It was really really, reallylow for, you know, living in
Canada, but, um, they wouldoffer me sometimes $10 or $12 an
(11:53):
hour or something.
So for me that was like, yeah,that's, that's great.
Um, so I was able to make someyou know extra money doing that
and side hustles doing that.
And as I got better at mysoftware development skills, I
was able to start writingsoftware that I could sell.
I don't you you'll probablyremember this, but the younger
(12:15):
generation not so much.
There used to be really popularshareware websites where you
could go and you could uploadyour software and people would
get a 30-day evaluation of itthat would time out after 30
days.
They'd have to buy the software, put a code in and it would
unlock the software.
Sure, um, so I had written, uh,four different software
packages that did differentthings.
(12:36):
One of them was a securityapplication that locked windows
95 again, I'm dating here, butif you think back to Windows 95,
you could make it, put apassword screen up, but all you
had to do to get around thatpassword screen was press escape
, right, and then you're rightinto the Windows profile.
So I wrote software that loadedwith Windows that locked it
(12:57):
when it was booted up and youhad to have a username and
password or this screen wouldn'tgo away and you couldn't get
into windows.
Very cool, I started writingsoftware like that and selling
it and, you know, making moneyand I started getting.
That was my first exposure tous currency as well, because the
currency came in in us and ohmy god, I love converting us
(13:17):
currency to canadian becauseit's so much more.
So every time I would make asale on the, on the software, I
was like, yes, because it'smoney and it's more money
because they convert it tocanadian.
So you know, that was kind offun.
But I did a lot of that stuffand then side programming jobs
for people that would need aprinter, auto mapped when the
(13:39):
computer loaded and stuff likethat.
Um, so I kind of justprogressed out of that into my
post-secondary education.
Uh, I was able to finance a lotof my post-secondary education
through the software sales thatthat I had made.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
No doubt.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
That I was doing Um wow, so I was able to graduate
without debt and that I thinkthat's what gave me the
confidence to start doing thisas a full time business.
And I think back then I startedlooking at ways to make
recurring revenue.
So I was doing MSP before itwas even called MSP.
(14:18):
I would go on site, sit atcustomers computers, do updates,
renew their antivirus, do thescans.
I'd sit at every computer oneby one.
I would sit there Because therewas no way to automate it.
Back then we didn't have thetools that we have now, so I
could only ever service a smallhandful of people, versus now we
(14:38):
can do hundreds, thousands at atime because of you know how
far technology has come in ourtools and so forth.
But you know, web hosting wasanother one, making websites,
anything that was recurring.
And then in early 2000, I gotinto VoIP Back before VoIP was
even popular and being usedeverywhere.
I built our own VoIP platform,built the portals the customer
(15:03):
portal, reseller portal, the 911system, the fax, like I coded
all of it and it was a way tomake money recurring.
And then, as I was doing that,I was also growing out the IT
portion of the company to youknow, it portion of the company
to do all of this IT repairservice be the IT department for
(15:26):
companies.
Before it was even called MSPand then gradually, as that grew
and developed, I started topivot the company into what we
are doing now, which iscybersecurity and cloud.
But that's kind of the journeyto get there.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Hi, I'm Mark Thomas, founder and CEO of Current Tech
Solutions and CyberGuardians.
We know business owners likeyou want to focus on growing
your company, not worrying aboutIT problems or security threats
.
That's where we come in.
Our team uses AI to protectyour business from cyber risks
and keep everything runningsmoothly.
If you're ready for peace ofmind and a stronger future,
(16:08):
reach out to us today.
Let's secure and elevate yourbusiness together.
Oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh.
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