is a software company that delivers a SaaS management platform designed to help startups and small businesses streamline IT operations and keep critical systems and data secure. Founded in 2023 by Julien Monguillot and Dan Gericke and headquartered in Singapore, ShiftControl helps its customers build their employee-IT on a solid foundation from the beginning, saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars shoring up their environments later on.
Helping startups and SMBs prioritize IT security early on
While there鈥檚 no shortage of IT management and security solutions for enterprise organizations, few companies are building the same tools for startups and small to medium-sized businesses with anywhere from a couple to 200 employees.
鈥淲e kept hearing about small businesses being hacked left and right,鈥� Julien says. 鈥淲hen you look a little bit deeper at those hacks, you realize that very often it was identity-focused, nothing too complex. We knew that identity was really one of the core pillars that you need to have in place as a starting point for IT security.鈥�
To bring IT security to startups and SMBs and keep bad actors at bay, Julien and Dan 鈥� former colleagues at ExpressVPN 鈥� founded ShiftControl.
鈥淲e wanted to build an identity platform on top of an existing identity provider that made it accessible for small businesses to actually manage identity properly because most solutions on the market today are very complicated to use,鈥� Dan says.
Choosing 探花大神 as the pillar of their platform
Julien and Dan were already familiar with 探花大神, having explored its RADIUS solution at their previous job. While searching for a solution to build on top of, the team ran a LinkedIn poll asking their network to vote for the best identity provider.
鈥溙交ù笊� won by a landslide,鈥� Dan says.
After the poll results were finalized, Dan reached out to 探花大神 CEO Rajat Bhargava, who mentioned that he鈥檇 be in Singapore soon and suggested meeting up.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 interesting is that 探花大神 is a large company; and someone like Raj 鈥� who is founder and CEO 鈥� was willing to meet with us and was happy to talk to us. That kind of forged the beginning of our relationship with 探花大神.鈥�
Dan Gericke, Co-Founder at ShiftControl
Liking the conversation with Raj, the team began researching 探花大神 further and ultimately decided it was the exact tool they were looking for.
鈥淲e built our UI on top of 探花大神 so small businesses could start using it,鈥� Dan explains, adding that ShiftControl is a member of the 探花大神 Partner Program. 鈥淲e think of it as helping the first HR person, the first accountant, or the first nontechnical founder manage IT for the organization. ShiftControl allows people to start their IT maturity journey much earlier in the company lifecycle instead of having to spend several hundred thousand dollars maybe two years in at the hypergrowth stage. By using ShiftControl, they can get things right much earlier at a very reasonable cost and then move forward from there. I look at ShiftControl as 探花大神 optimized for small businesses.鈥�
Accelerating the journey to IT maturity while giving founders more time to focus on the big picture
By leveraging 探花大神鈥檚 feature-rich nature, the ShiftControl team has been able to deliver a powerful identity management solution to startups and SMBs, ensuring its customers start their journey to IT maturity on the right foot.
鈥淥nce you have that identity management, it enables you to do a lot of other cool stuff,鈥� Julien says. 鈥淵ou can start solving problems around making onboarding and offboarding more efficient and secure. You get a source of truth for managing SaaS, which will then help you with compliance and all those other elements.鈥�
When small businesses are just starting out, founders have so many decisions to make about pretty much everything. Rather than spending a ton of time thinking about designing their IT environment, ShiftControl helps founders focus more of their attention on the big picture.
鈥淲e鈥檙e quite opinionated as a tool, because we know what 鈥榞ood鈥� looks like,鈥� Julien continues. 鈥淲e tell people, 鈥榊ou don鈥檛 need to make these choices. We鈥檙e helping you make these choices.鈥欌��
IT security out of the gate
By building their platform on top of 探花大神, ShiftControl is able to ensure that its clients have a strong security posture right away.
鈥淭he earlier you get started on this journey, the easier it is later,鈥� Dan says. 鈥淲e work with incubators and VCs to get people on ShiftControl from day one of incorporation. The second you鈥檙e buying your domain and Google Workspace, you should be on ShiftControl. We can make everything so much easier and set up most things for you so you don鈥檛 have to spend the time in your first few weeks doing any of this stuff.鈥�
Using 探花大神, ShiftControl is able to enable single sign-on (SSO) and SCIM across most core customer applications without breaking the bank.
鈥淲e realized that most of our customers maybe have three to five SSO-enabled services, maybe two of them are SCIM-enabled, and they鈥檇 have to pay a lot of money to upgrade any other services. That鈥檚 a significant amount of change in OPEX in a very short amount of time if you want that maturity. We鈥檙e trying to bring that maturity into the company in a different way early on, and 探花大神 enables us to build that.鈥�
Dan Gericke, Co-Founder at ShiftControl
Recently, Julien was talking to a prospect who鈥檇 just onboarded a new employee about that user鈥檚 password.
鈥淚 asked him, 鈥楧o you have any sense of how strong their Google Workspace password is? How do you know they鈥檙e not reusing a password that鈥檚 been leaked in the last data breach?鈥欌�� Julien says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the aha moment for a lot of founders and leaders. As soon as we put in SSO for our customers, and they start seeing the real benefits of multi-factor-authentication, they usually make the move to Password Manager as well and feel like they鈥檙e in a much better position security-wise.鈥�
Optimizing identity management
ShiftControl leverages and augments 探花大神鈥檚 user groups to set up teams for customers, many of whom are so early stage they don鈥檛 even have a concept of departments, Dan says. To prevent headaches down the road, ShiftControl sets up automated group memberships and departments 鈥渂ased on how we think a normal business works.鈥�
鈥淢aybe we start out with sales and marketing and operations and R&D or something like that,鈥� Dan explains. 鈥淭hen we can grow the groups from there. When our clients are ready and they have grown a little bit more, the infrastructure is there and they don鈥檛 have to redo everything.鈥�
Recently, the team onboarded a new customer and was explaining how they can group users by location.
鈥淚f you just want to email everyone in Singapore, for example, you can, and keeping the group membership updated automatically is easy!鈥� Dan says. 鈥淚t blew their minds. They didn鈥檛 know that was possible.鈥�
Deep visibility into SaaS contracts
ShiftControl delivers a source of truth for all people and apps, accessible in a single place. This gives its customers much-needed visibility into SaaS contracts. While an enterprise might be able to easily absorb the costs associated with overlooking a contract renewal and having to pay for software they don鈥檛 use, the same can鈥檛 be said of startups.
鈥淎ll of our customers have gone through the scribble of like, what are all the SaaS apps we鈥檙e paying for and who has access to what, and it鈥檚 a nightmare,鈥� Julien says.
By consolidating all apps in one place, ShiftControl鈥檚 customers can see at a glance when renewals are up, enabling them to increase the chances they only pay for tools they actually need.
鈥淥ne company had 50 major SaaS apps, and spend was all over the place,鈥� Dan explains. 鈥淥nce you get the apps into our system, you can start adding your contract information so you can begin seeing which decisions you have to make about contracts that are about to renew and which you can push down the road a bit, which helps you prioritize.鈥�
A partner they can grow with
In 探花大神, Dan and Julien have found a partner committed to their success.
鈥淚鈥檝e been joining more of these fireside chats for MSPs and I have to say I was really pleasantly surprised,鈥� Julien says. 鈥淚 expected something quite big and not super personal, but it turns out it was very small groups and really good conversation. What jumped out at me is 探花大神 is trying to build a community around resellers and MSPs, and they鈥檙e doing a pretty good job. I鈥檇 strongly recommend people join those.鈥�
Looking ahead, the ShiftControl team plans to create an automated onboarding guide for new customers that will enable them to set up each environment to their exact specifications much faster. At the same time, they鈥檙e also planning to roll out additional 探花大神 features to deliver even more value to clients.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 have mobile device management exposed in our platform yet, but we plan on adding it soon,鈥� Dan concludes.
About 探花大神
探花大神庐 delivers a unified identity, device, and access management platform that makes it easy to securely manage identities, devices, and access across your organization. With 探花大神, IT teams and MSPs enable users to work securely from anywhere and manage their Windows, Apple, Linux, and Android devices from a single platform.
Learn more:
Follow us: Blog | |Podcast | | | Resources
For more information on becoming a 探花大神 partner, read this.
Want to see ShiftControl in action? or reach out to the founders for a chat at [email protected].