Michael Assraf is building Flamingo, an open-source and AI-powered operating system for managed service providers. After exiting Vicarious in May 2024, he spent seven months on market research before writing a single line of code—conducting 15+ MSP interviews, mapping their complete tool stack economics, and testing distribution channels with a free community product. The research revealed a structural margin crisis: MSPs operate on 10-15% margins with 30% of revenue flowing to vendor payouts and 25-30% to technician labor. Meanwhile, private equity consolidation drives customer pricing down while legacy vendors raise prices. Michael closed a $2.2 million pre-seed in February 2025, built OpenMSP as a lead-gen vehicle that generated 1,000+ waitlist signups, and launched Open Frame with 70% of capital still in the bank. In this launch-day conversation, he breaks down why the $380 billion MSP market remains massively underinvested, how Facebook ads outperformed LinkedIn 5:1, and why he’s giving away the core product while charging for hosted deployment. Topics Discussed: - The seven-month research phase: 15+ MSP interviews, mapping 19 tool categories with pricing data, evaluating open source project maturity through commit frequency and VC backing - MSP margin compression mechanics: 30% vendor payouts, 25-30% labor costs, 10-15% net margins being crushed by PE-driven consolidation and vendor price increases - Building OpenMSP as distribution validation: four months before alpha, generated 1,000 waitlist signups and 200 Slack members while testing paid acquisition channels - Why Facebook delivered 40%+ of leads at $6-8 CPL while outbound completely failed with IT-busy MSPs aged 25-50 in central US markets - Launching with 70% of $2.2M pre-seed still in bank by solving for distribution and product-market fit before scaling headcount - Open Frame’s architecture: unified control plane over open source tools (RMM, SSO, zero trust) with dual AI agents—one for end users, one for technicians - Offering both self-hosted (free, GitHub) and commercial SaaS (per-seat pricing starting January 2026) to build trust in an underserved market - The MSP category opportunity: $380B market, 12% annual growth, 30-40K US MSPs, minimal VC-backed innovation against 20-year-old incumbents // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don’t Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don’t Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM