Enterprise Masters

Yaniv Bar-Dayan, Co-founder and CEO at Vulcan, shares a remarkable story of how incorporating the voice of the customer in the early days of the product proved to be a game-changer. Taking cue from the feedback of CISOs, Vulcan pivoted from building a product that identified security vulnerabilities to a risk-based remediation platform, thereby transforming the business model. In this conversation with Biplab, he talks about managing risks effectively and creating a resilient cyber defense stance. He shares his thoughts on how the culture and ecosystem in Israel foster innovation. “I ask myself, where is my attention going to be invested in the most effective way to take the glass ceiling, one step further from the company? If it means hiring the right executive, then I'm going to do that. If it means improving onboarding, I'm going to do that. I'll do whatever it takes to help the company scale more effectively.” - YanivKey Takeaways:  First-time founders feel the pressure of proving themselves to their investors and employees. They likely do not have all the answers but having a willingness to learn goes a long way in establishing trust. The term growth is often misinterpreted to mean hiring more. Throwing more money on a problem may steer the company away from other effective ways of solving the problem. When it comes to hiring, there is a delicate balance between hiring fast and hiring the right person. For enterprise businesses trying to navigate their cyber defence, it's important to build a structure and set a process that allows the organization to embed the security requirements of a task within the regular workflow of the business process. Once the process and structure are aligned, communication is more effective and there is less noise. Competition is healthy. It means someone else is passionate about solving the problem and is taking ownership along with you to evangelize it. 

“When it comes to investors, the profile of the person that's going to join the board or have observer rights is incredibly important. Virtues and values become important. As an entrepreneur, I ask myself, would I take these folks into battle? Are these folks the people I need when we hit downtime? Are they going to lift us up?” - Matt CarrollKey Takeaways:  Every decision around data requires legal oversight - its method of collection, who is using it and why, and is there consent to use this data? The transformational part of this data movement is to detect sensitive data and automatically build rules around it to ensure audit and compliance. Being deliberate about the virtues that define the company and its mission reflects a company's culture. Values are aspirational; it's what you want your company to be. Virtues are intrinsic to who you are. Sustaining the culture requires a strong focus on hiring around virtues. Demand generation in a post-Covid world requires every employee and stakeholder to become a champion. Itis about building the four horsemen - inbound, outbound, referral, and partner and establishing supporting programs. Growth by expansion is realized by building a world-class customer success organization. When it comes to deciding on features of a global product, talking to your customers and having a structured process to include the voice of the customer into the product is the key.

Balaji Parimi, Founder and CEO of CloudKnox, shares his experiences building the company from inception to its recent exciting acquisition by Microsoft. CloudKnox is a cybersecurity startup which has essentially defined its tech category, Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), which involves refining how enterprises protect critical cloud resources from insider threats, whether malicious or accidental. In this conversation with Biplab, Balaji talks through his journey of initially identifying the problem and validating its significance, to then finding the right team as well as investors needed to build and scale a company solving this problem. Throughout the conversation, he shares his thought process and rationale for making key decisions, recruiting a team, and finding investors.“Being fairly technical, I spent a couple of months writing all kinds of scripts… to get answers to my questions, but when I looked at the answers…there was no easy way to address that risk because there are literally thousands and thousands of actions that are possible within these cloud infrastructures” - Balaji describing his research to validate the existence of the market need for a CIEM solution Key Takeaways:  Balaji's experiences at VMware and other SaaS startups led him to identify the security issues that can arise in hybrid cloud environments. He validated the existence of the issue among his peers at other companies and searched the market for an existing solution but found nothing. He knew these issues would only grow larger as time passed, which gave him the confidence to found CloudKnox.    In the early days of CloudKnox, having knowledgeable, experienced investors and mentors helped alleviate many of the initial uncertainties they faced. These investors were able to guide on key milestones the company should hit, and how to approach as well as think about different phases of building the business. Balaji and his team didn't set out to build a new category (CIEM). They were patient in their expectations around educating the market, customers and even investors. They knew they initially didn't have the resources or creditability to tell the world about this new problem, but they were confident high-profile issues would arise and help bring their solution into the spotlight. Founders should figure out the value-add they are looking for in investors. Particularly now, when it's easy to raise money, founders should be thoughtful about what purpose an investor can serve both immediately and as the company matures. For CloudKnox, early investors were helpful in educating the market, while later investors were helpful in go-to-market and acquiring customers.

Topics include Kannan's background & motivation to start Yugabyte (2:40), his experiences at Facebook with database technology (4:00), how he and leadership team have retained some of the culture from his previous companies (7:00), how entrepreneurs should think about and approach challenges when building their businesses (12:05), what it's like to develop open source software as a startup and build a profitable business (15:05), and the thought process around bringing in a professional CEO to run the organization (18:01).

In this episode, we sit down with Kumar Ramachandran, Founder and CEO at CloudGenix, to discuss his experiences as an entrepreneur and advice to founders. Topics include Kumar’s experience founding CloudGenix (0:51); How he created and fostered a successful founding team (4:03); The importance of leveraging early customer relationships to validate and refine products (6:30); Kumar’s advice for founders on achieving consistent growth (10:03); How CloudGenix created a non-linear growth trajectory (15:07); and the key factors to achieving success from startup inception to exit (21:07).

In this episode, we sit down with Rei Carvalho, Co-founder and former CEO at Emailage, to discuss his entrepreneurial experiences, achieving predictable growth and managing competition. Topics include Rei’s background (1:10); His experience founding Emailage (1:35); The importance of building a successful team (3:06); What he looks for when hiring and how to know when to let someone go (5:25); Rei’s advice for CEOs on predicting growth and profitability (10:48); How to minimize internal, partner and competitor conflict (18:47); and Rei’s career plans post-Emailage (27:56).

In our eighth episode, we sit down with Matthew Halliday, Co-founder and SVP of Product Strategy at Incorta, to discuss product management, decision-making and advice for founders during this unprecedented time. Topics include Matthew’s experience founding Incorta (1:35); How to acquire a strong customer base via product-market fit (4:07); How to build a product for a variety of use cases and Matthew’s advice to product managers (8:56); The importance of knowing when to say yes and when to say no (14:55); How to make sense of the crowded BI and Analytics landscape (17:19); and the opportunities Matthew sees for a post-COVID-19 world (24:19).

In our seventh episode, we sit down with Manish Lachwani, CEO and co-founder of HeadSpin to discuss the enterprise SaaS market, managing profitable growth and navigating the uncharted waters we find ourselves in today. Topics include Manish’s experience founding HeadSpin (1:35); How to find a product-market sales fit (5:45); The benefits of maintaining profitable growth (8:49); The biggest challenges of scaling a global SaaS company and Manish’s advice to founders (13:35); HeadSpin’s journey to a billion-dollar valuation (18:54); and how Manish and HeadSpin are approaching the new normal of a post-COVID-19 world (22:30).

In our sixth episode, we sit down with T.M. Ravi, Managing Director and Founder of The Hive to discuss developments in the Artificial Intelligence landscape and his experiences successfully co-creating over 25 startups. Topics include The Hive’s mission (1:09); The philosophy behind their co-creation model (3:50); How they’ve remained competitive against Silicon Valley’s traditional venture firms (6:10); The motivation behind T.M.’s focus on AI (7:00); Recent trends in AI development (10:17); How enterprises are integrating AI operations (11:20); The movement from AI frameworks to full optimization (13:56); T.M.’s perspective on the ‘black box’ risks of AI decision making (14:44); The importance of AI explainability (17:15); Changes in the fundraising landscape (18:53); The consequences of VC consolidation (21:08); The value of culture-building in startups (22:45); and T.M.’s advice for founders (24:39).

In our fifth episode, we’re joined by Kathi Rawnsley, Managing Partner of Lowenstein Sandler to discuss the legal framework of fundraising and her successes partnering with startups in Silicon Valley. Topics include Kathi’s background as a lawyer in Silicon Valley (1:28); her role at Lowenstein Sandler (1:48); legal trends in venture capital (3:45); the challenges of an excess of stakeholders (6:10); why unpriced rounds have gained popularity (10:03); the importance of investor mentorship (12:36); Kathi’s term sheet advice (13:54); how to best approach investment terms (15:34); leveraging strong investor relationships (16:50); the difference between corporate vs. traditional VCs (18:30); and Kathi’s advice for startups considering Mergers & Acquisition and/or Liquidity (24:02).

Venu is joined by Jay Leek of ClearSky to discuss his successes as a cybersecurity investor in companies including Demisto, Verodin and BigID. Topics include Jay's background (0:23); how his experiences running security at big corporations prepared him for his role as a VC (1:03); how the life of a CISO has changed in recent years (2:43); what CISO's can do to keep track of the growing security market (4:28); what Jay looks for when making a new investment (8:07); the difference between best-of-breed and all-in-one from a customer adoption and product vendor perspective (9:20); the movement towards DevOps in data security (14:00); ClearSky's investment thesis (18:45); Jay's view on the role people will play in future cybersecurity delivery models (23:30); his anti-portfolio and investments he's passed on and regretted (25:53); and Jay's advice to founders in the cybersecurity space (27:55).

In our third episode, Venu is joined by Shuly Galili of UpWest to discuss her successes building Israeli startups, breaking into the U.S. market and the intricacies of early stage investment. Topics include UpWest's mission (0:50); Shuly’s founding of the California Israel Chamber of Commerce (1:20); changes in the early seed funding investment (2:45); Shuly’s investment decision criteria (7:03); Israel’s diverse startup landscape (10:26); distinguishing successful companies at an early stage (13:45); the growing demand for healthcare investment (17:35); Shuly’s advice to founders based outside the U.S. (19:45); and the future of UpWest (24:50).

In our second episode, Biplab sits down with Jake Flomenberg of Wing to discuss the AI investment thesis that helped him build companies like Demisto, Oasis Labs and Radar. Topics include Wing’s mission (1:00); how to distinguish good investments from bad investments (1:54); approaching AI investment in a crowded marketplace (3:20); asking founders ‘why’ over ‘how’ (6:27); the importance of a strong vision (12:00); the difference between revolutionary vs. evolutionary AI (13:03); Jake’s investment decision criteria (16:37); prioritizing transparency when a partnership doesn’t go as planned (18:20); differentiating optimism from misrepresentation (20:00); what investment has surprised Jake most (20:50); and his biggest investment regrets (21:56).

In our first episode, Venu interviews Ed Sim from Boldstart to learn about the investment strategies that helped him build companies like Kustomer, SecurityScorecard and Big ID. Topics include what entrepreneurs should know about Boldstart (1:14); how Ed makes investment decisions (3:30); how to inspire passion, conviction and flexibility in entrepreneurs (6:17); first time entrepreneurs vs. those with experience (11:30); do’s and don’ts of a first time founder (15:06); how to approach advising a Founder to hire a CEO (17:12); when an early stage company should hire their first salesperson (26:49); the importance of culture at software startups (30:21).