Two Friends, One Vision: The Birth of Stabilise

Eight years in the making

We spent eight years working together at LeftBrain. Alan Avins as CTO, Dustin Rhodes as Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships. The kind of partnership where one of us could sketch a network diagram on a napkin and the other would immediately spot both the clever bits and the broken ones.

That's the foundation Stabilise is built on.

The LeftBrain years

Most of what we learned about working together came from the projects that looked impossible on paper.

The two-building network

One client had two adjacent buildings to connect. Three floors in the first, with the ISP termination on a single floor. A high-rise next door that needed connectivity months before its own line was due to be installed. The client was large and downtime wasn't an option.

Dustin designed the solution: a daisy-chain across the three floors, fibre through the basement and up into the high-rise. The clever part was the failover. Once the second building's internet finally arrived, we'd configure redundancy on opposite WAN ports so either building could lose connectivity and operations would keep running.

Ambitious for the time pressure. Workable because we'd already pressure-tested every assumption before installation day.

What made it work

The design wasn't what made it work. The communication around the design was.

We kept the client informed at every stage, in plain English, without burying them in technical detail they didn't need. When the structured cabling company hit a snag mid-install, we were on-site the same day, working through it with them rather than pointing fingers.

Alan executed the plan on Meraki kit. Dustin worked alongside the cabling team to make sure every metre of fibre was to spec before installation day. The network shipped on time and ran with the redundancy we'd promised.

That's been our pattern since: one of us designs, the other executes, both of us pressure-test before the client ever sees it.

Different paths, same job

After eight years at LeftBrain, we both wanted to build something of our own. But we tried something together first.

BlankState

BlankState was our first business as co-founders. Certified data wiping and secure hardware disposal for businesses with old laptops, desktops, and servers to retire. Physical destruction when necessary, every component properly recycled. Niche, technically unglamorous, and exactly the kind of work nobody thinks about until they need it.

It proved we could run a company together, not just deliver projects inside someone else's.

CustomConfig and CmdShift

In early 2025 we each launched our own thing.

Alan launched CustomConfig in February 2025: consultative Apple IT, strategic technology leadership, systems architecture. The work that needs deep technical expertise plus the ability to translate it into business decisions.

Dustin launched CmdShift in June 2025: infrastructure delivery, client relationships, vendor partnerships. The execution side of the same coin.

Different names. Different angles. Same underlying job: making Apple in business work properly.

Building a team

At LeftBrain we did a lot of mentoring. Junior engineers learning to think architecturally, getting real responsibility on real client work. Watching someone go from hesitant troubleshooter to confident systems architect is one of the most rewarding parts of this job.

That's still how we work at Stabilise. We don't manage people, we build them up. Proper training. Opportunities to lead projects. Trust to make real decisions.

When you work with Stabilise, you're not just getting Alan and Dustin. You're getting the team we've put together around us.

Why merge two four-month-old businesses?

CustomConfig and CmdShift weren't struggling. The opposite. But four months in, we both kept hitting the same realisation: most clients didn't need just implementation or just strategy. They needed both, from one team that was already talking to itself.

What clients actually need

Apple devices aren't islands. They sit inside an ecosystem: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, identity management, MDM, security frameworks, backup. Every piece has to fit together, and the pieces change every quarter.

Clients told us they wanted partners who thought five years ahead, not five months. Networks that could scale from 300 to 2,000 employees without ripping everything out. Security that felt invisible but worked. Someone monitoring the environment continuously and refining it as the business grew. And vendor relationships that meant better support, better pricing, and earlier access when something new shipped.

That's not work you can do well as a part-time strategist or as a pure implementer. You need both, and they need to be the same team.

The merger

So we merged. CustomConfig and CmdShift became Stabilise in October 2025, eight months after CustomConfig launched and four months after CmdShift. Quick by most measures. Slow if you count the eight years that came before.

What Stabilise is

Stabilise isn't a rebranded MSP. It's the formal version of how we've already been working together for eight years.

Alan does the technical depth and systems thinking. Dustin does the strategy and the client relationships. What we both care about is whether your team feels supported, whether you understand what we're doing and why, and whether your technology is moving the business forward rather than holding it back.

Built for the long term

We're building for the long-term relationships we want with clients, and we're building responsibly. Every device we deploy is planned for its full lifecycle. Every piece of retired equipment is certified wiped and properly recycled. We minimise unnecessary on-sites and offset travel where we can. Environmental responsibility isn't bolted on as a values statement; it's how we already did the BlankState work, and it carries through.

What we do

The foundation:

• Apple ecosystem management (MDM, identity, security)
• Networks, storage, and infrastructure designed to scale
• UK-based support that understands Mac workflows

The bigger picture:

• Fractional CTO services for strategic technology leadership
• Business systems integration (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, identity)
• Security and compliance (Cyber Essentials Plus, NIS2, network security)
• Roadmap planning that runs three years ahead

Most of what we do is invisible when it works. That's the point.

Where we fit

If you're running on Apple in the UK, you've probably hit one of two problems.

The first: your MSP treats Macs like awkward PCs and quietly suggests you'd be better off on Windows. Tickets take days. Simple things become complicated because nobody on the support side really understands the Apple ecosystem.

The second: you found an Apple specialist, but they're either too small to give strategic guidance or too consumer-focused to handle business complexity.

Stabilise sits in the gap between those two. Deep Apple expertise plus strategic planning, in one team, with vendor partnerships that make the supplier side easier too.

In practice that means someone who can architect a multi-building network with redundant failover, and someone who can sit in a board meeting and explain why the architecture matters. UK-based support, Mac-fluent. Fractional CTO when you need a three-year view. One team for the whole estate, not three vendors blaming each other.

What's next

We're not trying to be the UK's biggest Apple MSP. We're trying to be the best one for the clients we work with.

That means staying small enough to care, big enough to deliver, and honest about which problems we're the right team to solve. Some clients are a better fit elsewhere. We'd rather tell them that than over-promise.

The name Stabilise isn't about standing still. It's about giving businesses the solid foundation they need to move quickly without breaking things.

Timeline

• 2017–2025: Alan and Dustin work together at LeftBrain (eight years)
• 2022: BlankState launches, proves we can build a company together
• February 2025: CustomConfig launches
• June 2025: CmdShift launches
• October 2025: Stabilise launches as the merger of CustomConfig and CmdShift

Where this lands

BlankState taught us we could run a business together. CustomConfig and CmdShift taught us where our individual strengths landed. Stabilise is what we built once we had both answers.

We're not finished building it.