When I welcomed Tobias “Toby” Musser to Sunny Silver Linings, I already knew this was going to be a special conversation. A couple of weeks prior, I had spoken with him privately, and immediately felt such a strong alignment: in mindset, values, leadership philosophy, and how we both view our responsibility as entrepreneurs. His lived experience is powerful, and I wanted others in the MSP community to hear it.
From the moment we began, I could feel his sincerity. Toby is a true go-giver. Everything about the way he shows up is rooted in service, curiosity, humility, and a desire to help others win.
Toby’s Journey: From Teen Entrepreneur to MSP Leader
Toby’s leadership journey started early. As a teenager he was already experimenting with entrepreneurship, launching different companies and working through partnerships long before MNS Group, the MSP he now co-leads with his wife, even existed.
MNS Group began in 1999 as an IT support division inside another company. Toby laughs about those early days: showing up at client sites with an Afro, flip-flops, and shorts, believing that because he was “the IT guy,” it didn’t matter how he appeared. Eventually, he realized it did. Professional presentation matters, even in tech.
The real turning point came in 2005 when he learned a painful lesson that many entrepreneurs discover too late: never share a lawyer with your partners. That mistake dissolved the partnership. Toby bought the IT services business; his partners went off with their graphic design division. It hurt, but it also became a beginning. Those first four or five years were a seed that later sprouted into the MSP they became.
Back then, Toby already had clients and contracts. He loved technology: loved fixing things, figuring things out, inventing solutions. But one thing deeply frustrated him: hourly billing. Every month he found himself going back and forth with clients, arguing over invoices, line items, and hours. It drained him.
So, he did something creative. He looked at the auto insurance and life insurance industries and studied actuarial models. He asked himself:
“Why can’t IT services be treated like claims?”
That question changed everything. He created a flat-rate contract model they called the living contract, based on claims data. That innovation turned him into an MSP almost by accident.
But something else changed too: Toby was no longer just the head engineer. He had a team. Nine engineers depended on him, and so did their families, even their dogs, even the mother-in-law living in their homes. That responsibility woke him up. He realized leadership was not optional; it was a duty.
So, he committed to leadership growth. He immersed himself in Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, leadership blogs, business seminars, and groups like Vistage. He sought out conversations with other CEOs. He learned from channel leaders like Gary Pica. He developed a mindset of endless curiosity: always learning, always asking questions, always serving employees first.
Because he realized something profound:
When employees grow, the company grows. When they thrive, clients thrive. Loyalty, stability, and service excellence start with leadership.
Drive, Grit, Dreaming Big, and the Power of Work Ethic
Listening to Toby share his story, one theme kept repeating: drive.
He hires around values, and drive is one of the most important. It’s not about technical skills; those can still be trained. Drive cannot be added to someone; it must be there already. Drive is tenacity. It’s not giving up. It’s pushing, figuring things out, being relentless.
His journey reflected three powerful themes for me:
- Dream big, and then dream even bigger.
- Support that ambition with grit, discipline, and continuous growth.
- Show up with a go-giver mindset, because real value comes from giving.
Those themes shaped everything that came next.
Choosing Growth and Protecting Culture
When I asked Toby where he is today as a leader and where he’s going, he gave such a thoughtful answer. At a practical level, they serve clients internationally, with most business in the U.S., headquartered on the East Coast. But philosophically, several years ago, he and his wife made a defining choice.
They chose to stop being a lifestyle business and instead pursue growth: the right kind of growth. As they attended events and spoke with MSP employees involved in roll-ups and private equity acquisitions, they kept hearing the same thing: the experience wasn’t great for the employees.
Toby believed there was a better way. Could they grow, acquire, help owners exit well, bring MSPs together, without hurting culture or employees?
Their mission became:
- Build a company where employees are protected and valued.
- Grow and acquire in ways that lift people, not displace them.
- Create a culture that is transferable and strong enough for a future buyer to want to preserve.
- Become something “winsome” that attracts people.
Their culture focuses on drive, humility, and stewardship. And because of that, they’ve consistently grown in double digits. It’s the natural result of clarity, values, and alignment.
Security, CMMC, and an Abundance Mindset
One of the most unique aspects of Toby’s MSP is their depth in CMMC and security. They are:
- CMMC Level 2
- assessed by a C3PAO
- authorized to serve Department of Defense and federal contractors
And MNS Group itself is a C3PAO, meaning they assess other MSPs and contractors.
There are very few MSPs globally with this credential. Even more remarkable, 20% of all assessment organizations in the world use their platform.
What truly stands out, though, is that Toby shares their entire path freely. If an MSP wants to become Level 2, he’ll show them how. He creates competitors intentionally, because there is so much work that needs to be done the right way.
He illustrated this with a story about two candy shops. One always had a line; the other didn’t. The second shop’s owner learned that the successful owner simply added a few extra pieces of candy to every order. He tried it. And soon had a line too. And the original owner did not lose business. Both grew, because giving created abundance.
I shared that this mirrors my own journey at IT By Design. In 2007, we built our offshore team using U.S. standards because we didn’t want to use Zenith. That capability became our growth engine. When peers asked if they could use it, I said yes. Today, 400 MSPs use our teams. Competitors became collaborators because of abundance.
AI: Practical, Real, and Accessible
Then we shifted into AI. Toby described how, in Vistage, he once learned that if you want to grow, rent an office twice as big as you need. AI is similar. Invest in capability before demand fully materializes.
His view is straightforward:
- Employees must have access to AI tools.
- MSPs must prepare to guide clients.
- Start small: simple AI use cases create big impact.
- Fine-tuning models is not expensive.
- Demand is coming, and MSPs need to be ready.
He shared an example: create an AI that answers HR policy questions instantly. Instead of HR responding to emails about insurance or vacation policies, the AI does it, and HR can focus on strategic work.
Inside MNS Group, employees use open-source models, OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and AIs connected to their support database. Level one engineers become as effective as level two or level three because they’re learning from AI in real time.
Open-Source AI Tools MSPs Can Deploy Today
When I asked for tools, Toby referenced:
- Llama 3 models from Meta.
- LM Studio, which recently adjusted licensing so MSPs and clients can use it freely.
- Hugging Face, hosting millions of models.
He suggests running smaller models (3B–7B) because they perform well on normal hardware with 16GB RAM. He explained how MSPs can turn these into products by running the model in LM Studio, containerizing it with Docker, adding a simple web interface, branding it, and enabling login access for clients.
Security First: Treat AI Like a Database
As a security-first leader, Toby sees AI through a unique lens:
an AI model is an interactive database.
The model itself is static. The moment you add your data through fine-tuning or vector databases, you must secure it like SQL:
- Protect file systems.
- Protect servers.
- Protect network access.
- Control user permissions.
He explained that LoRA files are one way to load certain knowledge for specific users and prevent information from bleeding between groups.
He also warned that AIs can be socially engineered, just like humans. They mimic human patterns, including human weaknesses. He described them as “really knowledgeable five-year-olds.” Powerful, but easy to manipulate without proper controls.
Regulatory Reality: When You Cannot Use Commercial AI
Then Toby described a critical rule from the Department of Defense:
If you are a DoD contractor or subcontractor, you cannot use cloud software (SaaS tools) unless it is listed on FedRAMP.gov.
Important distinction:
Hosting a tool in Azure GovCloud or AWS GovCloud does not make it FedRAMP authorized. The product itself must earn that status.
This forces MSPs serving regulated clients to:
- Self-host tools internally.
- Create boundary diagrams.
- Instruct clients never to send sensitive information.
- Delete and notify if it happens.
He also said a federal CUI rule is coming that will push these requirements down to state levels.
Toby’s Advice to Professionals and Leaders
I ended by asking Toby for advice.
For professionals:
Earn one certification a year. Anything. He personally targets one per quarter. It builds capability, confidence, and tells your employer you invest in yourself.
For leaders:
Two things matter most:
- Read news from multiple regions: U.S., U.K., Asia, Australia, to gain balanced perspective.
- Learn for familiarity, not mastery: read frameworks like CMMC Level 2 for five minutes a day. Enough to understand the environment without becoming a specialist.
I shared how I use RealClear platforms to cultivate perspective and how I teach my kids to be good human beings who see the world through multiple lenses. Toby added that many differences in perspective simply come from having different data, not different morals. Curiosity bridges that gap.
Gratitude for a True Go-Giver
As we wrapped up, I thanked Toby for his openness, leadership, and impact. He said anyone who needs CMMC help should come talk to him, he’ll share everything.
The world needs more leaders like Toby: security-focused, abundance-minded, driven, and committed to lifting others.
What a wonderful conversation it was!
With gratitude,
Sunny Kaila
