During such a challenging year, we couldn’t be more proud to be part of such a strong and resilient community dedicated to supporting others.
What can be said of 2020 that hasn’t been said already? All of us are obviously ready for it to be over, and the urge to turn the page without looking back is strong.
But I still think this is an important time of year to reflect, and I personally don’t want to let 2020 slip into the rearview mirror without taking time to acknowledge two things that make me incredibly humble and appreciative:
- Our company was extraordinarily fortunate to be in the business we’re in. Many others were not so fortunate, and
- All of us are surrounded by people who respond to difficult situations by rising up to meet them with determination and selflessness, and those people deserve to be celebrated.
That is why, when I think about the story of 2020 for Ninja, I really think the spotlight belongs on our partners. Because, honestly, no growth statistic is nearly as impressive or inspiring as this:
Our MSP partners kept 100,000+ businesses up and running throughout the pandemic.
Healthcare providers. Schools. Manufacturers. Senior care facilities. Small businesses in communities far and wide. When lockdowns began rolling out in March, our partners worked around the clock to ensure these organizations’ critical systems stayed accessible and operational. They migrated infrastructure, performed essential on-sites, and when the alternative may have been for organizations to consider layoffs or even closing down altogether, our partners helped make working from home a real, sustainable option.
The impact of these actions can’t be fully measured. It’s massive, and I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that MSPs and IT professionals were among the unsung heroes of 2020.
To our partners: I do have other highlights and updates that I want to share with you in this post, but above all else, the primary message I want to deliver is how extremely proud and privileged we are to support you.
Thank you for all the hard hours you spent and everything you’ve done for others this year. I hope you hear from them how deeply you are appreciated. Whatever 2021 brings, with your support, they’ll be ready to meet it.
2020 End-of-Year Status
✓ Deeply appreciative
✓ Highly motivated by continued growth
✓ Heading into 2021 with momentum and big ambitions
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This year we passed a major milestone with the Ninja family growing to more than 5,000 partners. What’s even more exciting is how truly global that family is. Our EMEA operations, led by Andre Schindler and based out of Berlin, have achieved tremendous growth, and we’ve extended our global presence to have team members based in Oceania, as well.
Overall, the Ninja team has grown to 200, with a continued focus on making strategic additions to the engineering team. Those new hiring efforts were conducted alongside a restructuring of the engineering team that has already resulted in major efficiencies and improvements to our release cadence. These changes are going to enable us to accomplish some very big and exciting lifts in 2021.
As we scale, another area we continue to be laser-focused on is maintaining the incredibly high bar we’ve set for our support. From day 1, we knew we had an opportunity to make superior support a key differentiator, and the support team has continued to outperform and excel, even as our partner count grows. This year, they solved nearly 30,000 tickets with a median first response time of 32 minutes and an average CSAT score of 97%
Few things are more validating than seeing these ongoing investments in support and the platform pay off in the form of positive partner reviews, and thanks to those, NinjaOne has defended its title as the #1-rated RMM on G2, with the highest satisfaction score and ratings across multiple categories, including easiest to use, ease of setup, product direction, quality of support, and more.
Look Back at New 2020 Features
We introduced over 30 major new features and quality improvements this year, including seven of our partners’ 10 most-requested features (with the remaining three slotted for 2021).
Below are some of the highlights:
Backup
One of our biggest releases, of course, was the launch of Ninja Data Protection, a cloud-based file and folder backup solution, built from the ground up to be fast, reliable, secure, and fully integrated with our flagship RMM platform.
This marked a truly important moment for Ninja. We are now officially a multi-product company, and we are even more firmly committed to relentless innovation and product-led growth.
Over the next year, we will be making consistent improvements to Ninja Data Protection and extending its capabilities — starting with image backup.
Linux OS support
This was one of the most-requested items on our roadmap. With our 5.0 release, our partners are able to utilize Ninja to monitor and manage their Linux endpoints, too.
BitLocker and FileVault encryption management
By automating the identification of encryption status, collecting recovery keys, and automating ticket creation, Ninja now provides a powerful tool for MSPs to offer managed disk encryption services to their clients.
Maintenance mode
A powerful tool partners can use to minimize alert fatigue, keep their RMM environment clean, and avoid complications from automations running on devices they’re actively working on.
New alerts, activities, and threats dashboards
Brand new built-in dashboards designed to provide partners with even greater and more actionable visibility.
Improved reports and out-of-the-box tools for Mac
Including Mac OS patching automation, a remote live task manager, file explorer, and more.
Scripting enhancements
Partners can now monitor the output of scripts and trigger alerts, tickets, or other scripts based on the output. These enhancements were key to unlocking script-chaining capabilities along with greater monitoring capabilities and more granular, data-rich automated ticketing.
New API
We significantly expanded the number of data-types our API can be connected to, allowing partners to run custom reports on things like rate controllers and patches, run scripts on devices, create new organizations, update organizations and devices, and perform a host of other actions.
New / improved integrations
- Connectwise ScreenConnect
- BrightGauge (Beta)
- Enhanced security options for TeamViewer
And a host of additional new features and quality-of-life improvements
For more details, see the individual blog posts for our four major releases:
Looking Ahead to 2021
For as excited as we are about what we were able to accomplish in 2020, we’re even more excited about what we have set ourselves up to do in 2021.
We have a slew of new features on the roadmap, many of which are already in active development or queuing up for release.
Things on the immediate horizon include:
- Image backup
- Hyper-V monitoring
- Active Directory management
- SAML integration
- New iPad app
- Custom device fields
- Autotask integration enhancements
And following those will be:
- Custom fields for devices and orgs
- Clickable dashboards
- New and improved user roles and permissions
- Auto-deployment and network discovery
- Mac file and folder backup
- And more
We will also be moving forward with some major new announcements that have to stay under wraps for now, but that will result in significant upside for Ninja partners. It’s truly exciting, but for now, I want to close on a note from last year’s retro post:
Our mantra of “relentless innovation” has driven us to deliver a world-class product, supported by a world-class organization staffed with people who genuinely care.
Heading into 2021, we want all of our partners to know that we’re here, we’re listening, and we’re devoted to your success. Because when you succeed your clients succeed; and so do we.
