Welcome back to Command Control Power, Jon Brown, vice President of Technology and Cybersecurity at Interlaced. And listeners may remember Jon as the owner of Grove, which is now Grove powered by Interlaced. So Jon, thanks for joining us on Command Control Power again.

Yeah, happy to be here guys. Thanks for having me back.

Always good to talk with you and thanks again for your support. I think that’s the other place where listeners will remember your name and company from your strong support of command control power for many years now, so we really appreciate that.

And listeners may have noticed the logo change. So you’re now Grove powered by Interlaced. So we’re excited to talk to you a little bit about how that merger has gone and how you make that delineation between Grove and Interlaced and wear those different hats and all. Yeah. Congratulations on the merger by the way.

Yeah, thanks. I think the last time I was here I was still evaluating partnerships and we talked a little bit about merger and acquisitions process, and I think the one thing that was real factor for me and making the decision ultimately to, to join forces Was the key distinction between how much value does my company have and what is the end goal for me and the business and my clients?

I think majority of the situations that I was in when we were on the last call, folks were looking to. Hire me. There wasn’t a lot of value put on the business or on the clients or the client experience . With interlaced, we found a pretty good common ground where they valued the book of business. They valued the clients. We were doing a lot of the same kind of work, just in different geographic areas. They’re a very well known and established Apple, MSP out in the San Diego area. Were pretty well known and established in the DC area, so it was a good fit.

But I just wanna highlight, it wasn’t one that we entered into lightly, right? The last time we talked was about a year ago. Yeah. And. I had started that conversation with Interlaced about a year prior, so the entire process from beginning to end was about a two year process to get to the point where I, made the decision .

It does say a lot about you, Jon, and your skillset and how you’ve been running your business, that you did create the value to, to have these companies looking to merge with you and hopefully add value on both sides. I thought that’s really interesting how you did turn down the companies that seem to be more interested in the acquihire of you personally, because I imagine.

That doesn’t necessarily fit with a longer term plan in that you, if they see the value as really in you, then you have to stay in that role and stay on to keep gaining value on your side. Whereas if they. Value your business higher than necessarily you personally. I think it’s just a little bit easier to decouple those things in the first scenario where they’re hiring you, you’re essentially a glorified employee of your own business in that scenario.

So that’s great that they valued the business side of things so much.