Ingram Micro Cloud veteran Jason Bystrak is joining eFolder as VP of worldwide channels and distribution, the business continuity company confirmed today. Bystrak joins eFolder as the company accelerates its MSP-centric R&D, partner, education and sales initiatives -- all of which will lead to a push beyond U.S. boarders into the global marketplace.
Bystrak will develop and oversee strategic alliances and routes to market for eFolder, reporting to Chief Revenue Officer Adam Slutskin. The job description aligns well with Bystrak's experience. During his two decades at Ingram, he played a key role in the company's transformation from traditional distributor into a cloud marketplace provider and MSP enabler. Bystrak's journey at Ingram included various ISV- and partner-centric engagements -- key requirements for eFolder's own evolution.
eFolder's Business Evolution
eFolder has spent the past decade building a successful backup and recovery business focused on MSPs. But several major inflection points arrived in 2016 and 2017. Among the key moves:
- Acquiring Replibit -- a next-generation provider of backup and disaster recovery software.
- Relocating much of the executive team to a central office in Denver, which also triggered some staff departures.
- Transitioning the CEO role from founder Kevin Hoffman (now CTO) to ConnectWise veteran Matt Nachtrab.
- Merging with Axcient, a cloud-centric data protection specialist that fell short of its IPO aspirations but had solid technology nonetheless.
- Hiring ConnectWise veteran Slutskin to drive sales, and MSP veteran Tom Watson to drive Ignition, a new partner-oriented education program.
Roll all the moves together, and eFolder is attempting to position itself as the top MSP-centric alternative to Datto in the SMB backup and data protection market.
Instead of throwing punches at Datto, the eFolder team speaks highly of the rival. Generally speaking, Datto is much larger than eFolder and the company is gearing up for competition against the likes of Cisco Meraki and ConnectWise. Still, Datto is aware of eFolder and has also spoken respectfully of the company -- even while questioning the eFolder-Axcient merger.
Still, eFolder's evolution will need to push beyond single-vendor showdowns. The overall backup and disaster recovery (BDR) market landscape is evolving rapidly. While Datto is widely perceived as the MSP-centric market leader, giants like Veeam (approaching $1 billion in revenues) and upstarts like Druva are gaining momentum with a long-term eye towards MSPs.
Potential eFolder Next Moves
I believe Bystrak is wrapping up work at Ingram and will officially start at eFolder in the next couple of weeks. He and Slutskin will "work together to develop an aligned vision for distributing eFolder’s high-performance suite of Data Protection solutions to Channel Partners domestically and around the globe," according to the company.
Read between the lines and I think Bystrak will explore a range of potential partner models. All roads, no doubt, still lead to MSPs. But eFolder likely wants to build more highways and pipelines to those MSPs -- perhaps through distributors, OEM relationships, ISVs, and a range of product integrations. The long-term efforts, ChannelE2E believes, could eventually stretch from Denver to Seattle (home of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure) to major cloud and distributor companies that work with MSPs in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and Asia. But near term, the efforts will likely focus on new routes to MSPs in the U.S. market, ChannelE2E believes.
In a prepared statement, Slutskin said:
“I am extremely excited about Jason Bystrak joining our team. eFolder is 100% committed to working in the Channel and for the Channel. Our aspirations are to be the best Channel Partner possible for the MSP community, making Jason the right person to best represent eFolder in our Alliance and Channel Partner relationships. He brings a wealth of experience from his time at Ingram Micro where his accomplishments were truly amazing.”
As for Bystrak, he praised and thanked Ingram Micro for the career experience while looking ahead to the eFolder opportunity, stating:
“Ingram Micro is a strategic, go-to-market partner for the IT channel and a visionary when it comes to the consumption of cloud services. It’s been a privilege to serve as part of Ingram Micro’s executive team and play a role in the execution and ongoing development of its cloud platforms, marketplace and growing partner community and alliances. eFolder has an innovative product suite, outstanding partners, and an incredible team of technology experts – I look forward to helping them take the business to the next level.”
We'll be watching for eFolder's next partner-centric milestones.
