We just got back from ScaleCon 2026 in San Diego, and if you weren’t there, you missed something rare in this industry: a conference built to respect the attendees in the room.
ScaleCon is a Conference Built for the Attendee, not the Vendor
What struck us most this year wasn’t a session or a speaker, it is what has always been true of this conference from the beginning, the attitude in the room. Because organizers Taher Hamid and Nigel Moore work hard to shield attendees from aggressive vendor pitches, ScaleCon has built something unusual, an environment where MSP owners show up open, curious, and genuinely focused on growth, instead of bracing for a sales pitch.
You could feel it in the closing feedback. One attendee called it the best conference they’d ever been to. One person joked they’d pay $1,000 for a ScaleCon 2026 t-shirt just to help keep the conference profitable. People were blown away by the quality of the presentations, and notably, they were fine with a little more vendor involvement, as long as it meant an event this good would happen next year.
That’s a hard thing to build. It says everything about how deliberately Taher and Nigel have protected what makes ScaleCon work.
Why We Showed Up
Red Earth CPA sponsored ScaleCon with a vendor booth for the second consecutive year, and that sponsorship came with a minute on stage. We used it to ask MSPs a question we hear answered the same way, over and over:
“How many of you have a CPA who’s never once called you before you called them?”
A proactive accountant is an anomaly in public accounting. Small accounting mistakes that compound “in the dark” of the year, surprise hourly bills, and a lack of tax planning are where the accounting industry is. It’s not bad luck. It’s break-fix accounting: showing up after something’s already broken, then billing by the hour to fix it.
MSPs know that pattern intimately, because they lived it, and then left it behind. They stopped waiting for servers to die and started monitoring, getting ahead of problems, and charging fixed fees for the value of not having fires to put out.
Our pitch was simple: accounting hasn’t made that same jump yet. We have.
Fixed-fee. MSP-specific.
Accounting that happens before it becomes a crisis, not after.
What We Heard at the Booth
The response afterward told us the message landed, but the conversations that followed revealed something we didn’t fully expect: most MSP owners we talked to aren’t unhappy with their accountant. Many described a loyal, dedicated CPA who’s supported their business for years.
What worries them isn’t the relationship, it’s the risk sitting underneath it. What happens to their business if something happens to that accountant? And beneath that, an even quieter concern: how well does that accountant actually understand the MSP industry and the accounting complexities specific to it?
That’s a different conversation than “switch CPAs.” It’s about resilience and fit, and it’s one we’re glad to be having.
See You in 2027
ScaleCon isn’t built for the software companies and PSA vendors who sell to MSPs. It’s built for the MSPs themselves, a conference dedicated entirely to helping you run a better company. No software pitches, no PSA demos disguised as sessions. Just sales and marketing, focused entirely on MSP growth.
Do yourself a favor and budget the time and the travel for ScaleCon 2027. Come find us at the booth.