VoltOps
The managed-print operations platform I wrote because nothing else fit. Opening it to other independent providers in 2026.
I'm Mickey. I run MNMS — a managed-print company in Fort Worth, Texas that has slowly become a house of brands — and I write the software that runs it, on hardware I own, in a building I rent. I am not a content creator, a thought leader, or for hire on retainer. What follows is what I'm actually building, and a few opinions I'm willing to defend.
The managed-print operations platform I wrote because nothing else fit. Opening it to other independent providers in 2026.
A fifteen-year-old Texas LLC that has slowly turned into a holding company. Brands across managed print, parts, rentals, regional service. Each one sellable standalone. Built without a dollar of outside capital.
An "Empire Builder" platform for solo operators who want a serious multi-state legal structure without paying a law firm by the hour. Internal pilot first, public later in 2026.
Owning the building is cheap. Owning the dependency on someone else's building is the expensive part.
— a working note, kept on the wallI started in the copier industry in 1998, as a service technician. Machines other people called broken were, up close, a short list of small failures you could name and fix one at a time. That is still how I look at a business.
In 2002 I stopped fixing machines for somebody else and started my own service company in Fiji. First customers of my own, first payroll, first year of learning that the technical half is the easy half.
In 2006 I migrated to the USA. The company did not come with me. I went back to the tool bag as a service tech, then ran service as a manager. Starting over with nothing but the trade is the reason I do not panic when something breaks.
In 2011 I started MNMS in Fort Worth. Fifteen years later it is a managed-print company that has slowly become a house of brands - parts, rentals, regional service - built without a dollar of outside capital.
In 2026 I started VoltOps, a software company, because the software our trade gets sold does not fit the way our trade actually works. Empire Builder followed the same year - the same discipline pointed at structure instead of service.
Two directions, both deliberate: putting what the platform already knows into robotic workers, and taking the same operating discipline into energy. I will write about them when they are running, not before.
Watched a board die during a firmware upgrade. Bought a CH341A clip for the price of a coffee, lifted the BIOS chip, reflashed it from a dump I had taken weeks earlier, soldered it back. It boots. The lesson is not "learn to flash chips." The lesson is that owning your hardware means you can fix it when nobody is coming to help you.
Most of the SaaS we considered for our trade was priced for a fifty-tech operator chasing mid-market accounts. We are six people serving small business in Fort Worth. The pricing curve does not work. The workflow does not match. So I wrote our own, from scratch. The argument against this is "you should not write your own software." The argument for is that ours actually fits.
Best way: a real email with a real first paragraph. I read everything. I reply to most things — usually within a day or two, sometimes longer when I'm heads-down.