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Want to know how to build market-leading technology products? Want to know how to take a startup from nothing multi-billion dollar exit? In Zero To Exit, we will share deep insights from industry leaders on how they successfully led multiple products and companies to critical success. We will invite guests who have been on the battlefield for many years and can share their unique insights on building products, sales machine, company culture, marketing and others. https://zerotoexit.io/

Ankur Shah & Neelima Rustagi


    • May 13, 2022 LATEST EPISODE
    • monthly NEW EPISODES
    • 47m AVG DURATION
    • 36 EPISODES


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    Latest episodes from Zero To Exit

    Securing the Internet of Things (IOT) - Yaniv Vardi (CEO, Claroty)

    Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2022 38:22


    In today's show, we're excited to have Yaniv Vardi, CEO of Claroty, an industrial cybersecurity startup focused on extended iOT. Prior to Claroty, Yaniv was the CEO of Panoramic Power, a pioneer in the energy management solution. The company was acquired by Centrica where he led their global expansion. In today's show, we will spend a lot of time talking about securing the 13 billion+ little things called the iOT devices.

    Finding your Identity - Heather Gantt-Evans (Chief Information Security Officer, Sailpoint)

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2022 34:51


    Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of ZeroToExit, this is Neelima, your host. Our guest today has a unique background. She was home schooled, finished high school early,  was a single teen mom, went to the military and after many twists and turns built up a stellar resume in the security industry. It is with great pleasure that I'd like to welcome Heather Gantt-Evans, Chief Information Security Officer at Sailpoint. For our listeners, Sailpoint is a leader in Identity and Access Management. Heather has previously held leadership roles at Home Depot, E&Y, Booz Allen and the US Army. She is also a board advisor at NoName security and Cyber Starts.

    Man In The Arena - Hitesh Sheth (CEO, Vectra AI)

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2022 52:28 Transcription Available


    Hitesh is the CEO of Vectra, a leader in the threat detection and response for cloud and data center workloads. Vectra was founded in 2011 to leverage AI/ML to detect network threats and has since seen phenomenal growth in the business.In this episode, we'll talk about security, the state of the public and the private market, the great resignation, and above all product and company building. 

    Winning with Product Led Growth - Dan Adika (Co-founder & CEO, Walkme)

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2021 47:45


    In today's show we are excited to have Dan Adika, co-founder and CEO of WalkMe, a Digital Adoption Platform company. Dan started Walkme in 2011 when product-led adoption and growth wasn't a thing. Dan grew the company from Zero to over $150M in ARR and just recently took the company public. If you want to build great products with product-led growth and bottoms-up sales motion, you don't want to miss this episode.

    Survival To Thrival - Bob Tinker (Founder & CEO of MobileIron)

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 20, 2021 54:56


    In today's show we are excited to have Bob Tinker, former founder and CEO of MobileIron, one of the leaders in mobile security. Bob took the company from 0 to $150M in revenue and the IPO. Under Bob's leadership, MobileIron became one of the fastest growing tech companies in the world from 2010-2014 according to Deloitte's Fast 500 Index. Having experienced hyperscale and growth, Bob shared his pearls of wisdom in the book “Survival to Thrival”. He is now the managing partner of Metamorph, a private equity firm focused on B2B SaaS companies.

    Securing the Human Layer - Tim Sadler (CEO, Co-founder - Tessian)

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 19, 2021 41:16


    Tim Sadler is the co-founder & CEO of Tessian, a human layer security startup. After a career in investment banking, Tim and his co-founders started Tessian creating a solution -  "Email Security for "OH SH*T" Moments". If you want to learn about the future of security, you don't want to miss this episode.

    Lessons from an Entrepreneur turned VC - Aaref Hilaly (Partner, Bain Capital Ventures)

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 6, 2021 42:17


    Aaref Hilaly is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and a proven technology veteran with over 20 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor. Prior to joining BCV, he co-founded two companies and spent seven years as a partner at Sequoia. If you want to know how to instantly get VC's attention, you don't want to miss this episode.

    Demystifying the Federal Market - Tim Junio (Co-founder & CEO, Expanse)

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 18, 2021 38:26


    In this episode of ZeroToExit, we are pleased to have Tim Junio, co-founder & CEO of Expanse, an Attack Surface Management company that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks not too long ago. He has over a decade of experience in cyber operations and large-scale distributed sensing. Prior to co-founding Expanse, he worked at DARPA, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the CIA. Dr. Junio holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and Master's and Bachelor's degrees from Johns Hopkins University.In today's show, we'll get Tim to share his perspective on how our government thinks about cyber defense and in the process provide insights to future entrepreneurs who want to tap into the lucrative federal market.

    Academia To Entrepreneurship - John Viega (Founder & CEO, Capsule8)

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2021 39:28


    In today's show we are pleased to have John Viega, Founder & CEO of Capsule8, a security startup focusing on infrastructure security for VMs and containers in public and private clouds.  Prior to founding Capsule8, John held leadership roles at BAE Systems, McAfee and many other cybersecurity companies. He has co-authored 6 books on security and is an adjunct professor of Computer Science at NYU. 

    Playing the Long Game - Sumedh Thakar (President & CEO, Qualys)

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2021 53:21


    Sumedh Thakar is President & CEO of Qualys.  Qualys is a cybersecurity company focused on cloud security & compliance.  Sumedh has been instrumental in growing and navigating the company through multiple transformations through his two-decade-long journey in Qualys. In this episode, we discuss how to get from product to platform, what to measure and the importance of wall street growth.

    Securing the Social Media - Rinki Sethi (CISO, Twitter)

    Play Episode Play 30 sec Highlight Listen Later Jun 27, 2021 39:01


    In this cracking episode, we host Rinki Sethi, CISO Twitter. We have a no holds barred conversation on taking stock of your career,  CISO's priorites, how to get CISO's attention and finally importance of health and mental wellbeing in and after COVID times. 

    Innovation is Everywhere: Turning Ideas into Execution - Chet Kapoor (Chairman and CEO DataStax)

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2021 39:47


    Chet Kapoor is the Chairman and CEO of DataStax. He is a proven leader and innovator in the tech industry with more than 20 years in leadership at innovative software and cloud companies, including Apigee, Google, IBM, BEA Systems, NeXT and others. As Chairman and CEO of Apigee, he led company-wide initiatives to build Apigee into a leading technology provider for digital business. Chet successfully took Apigee public before the company was acquired by Google in 2016. If you're an entrepreneur and technologist who wants to understand how a second time CEO is helping connect developers to the power and scale of open source software and cloud database-as-a-service, you don't want to miss this episode. 

    Building Category Leaders - Kamal Shah (VP Cloud Platforms - RedHat, CEO - StackRox)

    Play Episode Listen Later May 31, 2021 48:30


    Kamal was the CEO of StackRox, recently acquired by RedHat, where he now runs the Cloud platforms. Before StackRox, Kamal ran products and marketing at Skyhigh Networks.Kamal’s got the golden touch; a unique combination of product & marketing skills that’s helped him build category-leading products. In this episode, we discuss category creation, transitioning from an operator role to a CEO, and the future of cloud and container security.

    The Future of Data Privacy and Security - Rehan Jalil (CEO, Securiti.ai)

    Play Episode Listen Later May 25, 2021 52:51


    Rehan is CEO of Securiti.ai and a  serial entrepreneur who’s had two very successful exits with WiChorus and Elastica. In this episode, we discuss his product and company-building philosophies,  the state of data privacy and security, and get into the psyche of a serial entrepreneur. 

    The Billion Dollar PM - Sunil Potti (VP/GM - Google Cloud, CPO - Nutanix)

    Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2021 60:46


    Sunil Potti is the VP & GM for the Cloud security business at Google. Prior to Google, Sunil was the CPO at Nutanix. He also held product leadership roles at Citrix, F5, Cisco and others. Sunil is what I call the Billion $ Product Manager. He has consistently led market leading products and is a master of scale. In this episode, we will talk about how to consistently find the right company to work for, how to land the top role and how to build, scale and sell great products. 

    Reclaiming Our Security Narrative - Rohit Ghai (CEO, RSA)

    Play Episode Listen Later May 1, 2021 44:57


    Rohit Ghai is the CEO of RSA, a leader in cybersecurity and risk management. Also known for RSA Conference, the biggest security conference in the world. Previously, Rohit served as the president of Dell EMC’s Enterprise Content Division (ECD) where he was responsible for all aspects of the ECD business, including Product Development, Go-to-Market, Finance and others. He also held leadership roles at Symantec, Computer Associates and various other enterprise security companies. In today’s show, we’re going to talk about the cybersecurity landscape in the cloud & AI-era. If you have aspirations to become a CEO, we’ll also try to get Rohit to share his secrets to land the top job. 

    MasterClass on Story telling, Security and Company building - Stuart McClure (Best Selling Author, CEO Cylance)

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2021 56:54


    Stuart McClure is the founder and CEO of Cylance, the first endpoint cybersecurity company that revolutionized the way the industry detects and protects endpoints using machine learning. He is also the co-authored the most successful security book series of all time, Hacking Exposed.If you’re remotely interested in enterprise security in any capacity, you don't want to miss this episode.

    Customer success is your success (Lisa Schreiber, Chief Customer Officer, BlackLine)

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 22, 2021 53:12


    Lisa Schreiber is Chief Customer Officer at BlackLine. Lisa has spent over 2 decades in IT and Customer success roles in start-ups through Fortune 500 companies including Forcepoint, Oracle, GoldenGate, Charles Schwab and Apple. In SaaS business, they say, 100% of your time should be spent on customer retention. In this pod, Lisa shares her valuable insights on why Customer Success is such a critical function in SaaS product companies.

    Launching into the 2nd Orbit - Your Career, Company & Being (Dr Anand Deshpande, Founder & Chairman, Persistent Systems)

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2021 59:10


    Dr Anand Deshpande is the Founder and Chairman of Persistent Systems, a global technology services company headquartered and publicly listed in India. If you want to learn about building and growing an Indian public listed company over 30 years, developing careers and how to live a fulfilling life in an hour, you don't want to miss this episode. You can reach Anand at _at_.

    The Timeless Formula for Market Traction - Sell-Build-Sell - Amitabh Sinha (CEO, Workspot)

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2021 41:33 Transcription Available


    Amitabh Sinha is co-founder and CEO of Workspot, a cloud-native SaaS platform for Virtual Desktops. As an entrepreneur, if you’re unsure whether you’re too early or too late for the market, you don’t want to miss this episode. 

    The ABC of Success - Always Be Closing - Bob Kruse (CEO, Low Rider Security)

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 7, 2021 50:31


    Bob Kruse is the CEO and Cofounder of Low Rider Security, an early-stage cybersecurity startup in stealth mode. Prior to starting Low Rider, Bob was CRO at Obsidian Security, Head of Sales at Demisto. If you’re a founder of a B2B startup and are of the mindset that “if you build, they’ll come”, you definitely don’t want to miss this episode.

    The Art of Picking Winners- Dr. Chenxi Wang (Investor, Board Member)

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2021 48:35


    Dr Chenxi Wang is the founder and General Partner of Rain Capital, a cybersecurity-focused venture fund. She serves on the board of MDU resources and the open web application security project foundation. She was named by SC magazine, a 2016 women of influence. If you want to learn how to navigate your career and come out as a winner in each of these milestones, you don't want to miss your episode. You can read the transcript here.

    The New Privacy Paradigm - Anshu Sharma (CEO, Skyflow)

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2021 57:10


    Anshu Sharma is Co-founder & CEO of Skyflow, a privacy-focused API platform. He also co-founded Suki AI for health and ClearedIn which is in the cybersecurity space. If you’re an entrepreneur and product builder and want to know how to take a multi-disciplinary approach to product building, you don’t want to miss this episode. The transcript is available here.

    The Accidental VC - Mark Fernandes (General Partner, Sierra Ventures)

    Play Episode Play 19 sec Highlight Listen Later Jan 12, 2021 46:02


    Mark Fernandes is Managing Partner at Sierra Ventures, an early-stage VC firm that specializes in Enterprise & Emerging Tech Companies. Mark hit a homer in his first at-bat when his first-ever investment in Sourcefire paid off big time when it was acquired by Cisco for $2.7B in 2013. If you want to understand what separates a good entrepreneur from a great one and how the high stakes venture business works, you don't want to miss this episode.

    Leading with Transparency - Candace Worley (CPO, OneLogin)

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2020 58:04


    In this pod, we host Candace Worley. Candace is the chief global product officer at Ping Identity, a leader in Identity Security. She has over 25 years of strategy and product experience with some of the biggest names in the tech industry like AWS and McAfee.Listen to this one for insights on great PMs are built not born, shepherding your career from an Individual Contributor to leading multi-million dollar business and the importance of having #growthmindset in reinventing yourself. This is our last episode of 2020 and to a happier and healthier 2021.

    How to get IT right? Startup Lessons from a CIO - Naveen Zutshi (CIO, Palo Alto Networks)

    Play Episode Play 34 sec Highlight Listen Later Dec 25, 2020 38:27


    So far on the Podcast, we have had builders & sellers but in today’s episode, we’re going to focus on the buyer. We will probe into the mind of a CIO who owns multi-million $ budgets to procure a SaaS and a B2B product. We’ll deep dive into what goes into the product selection, retention and expansion. To talk about that and more, we have Naveen Zutshi, CIO of Palo Alto Networks. Naveen is an industry veteran with decades of experience building and buying technology products. He has a curious mind and loves to experiment with different products and technologies. If there’s a B2B tool out there, chances are that Naveen has either experimented with it or written a check for 100s of 1000s of dollars. He is also an advisor at several startups and large companies including Zoom, Rubrik and Cyberstarts. He is also in the CIO board of advisory at Greylock.If you are an entrepreneur focusing on the $2 Trillion plus IT market, you don’t want to miss this episode. You can read the recap of the pod here: https://zero2exit.podcastpage.io/blog/ankurs-insights-from-naveen-zutshis-session

    From Hacker to CEO - Rahul Kashyap (CEO, Awake Security)

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2020 49:06


    In this episode, we talk to Rahul Kashyap, President and CEO of Awake Security, an AI-driven network security platform for clients and cloud services. Awake had a successful exit just 3 months ago when it was acquired by Arista Networks. Rahul is a frequent keynote speaker at industry events, author of numerous security publications, named one of Silicon Valley’s 40 under 40 and a passionate girl education advocate. Listen to this episode to learn his amazing journey from teaching himself hacking to leading a successful exit as a CEO.

    Optimize for Outcomes, NOT Valuations - Slavik Markovich (CEO, Demisto)

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2020 49:56


    In this episode of “Zero to Exit”, we are going to talk about all things products, company culture, startups with Slavik Markovich, co-founder and CEO of Demisto. Slavik is a serial entrepreneur with a passion to solve hard technology problems. He was the co-founder and CEO of Demisto, a Security Orchestration and Automation startup. He sold the company to Palo Alto Networks for $560 million in one of the largest exits in the security space over the last decade. He is now the SVP of Products for Cortex XSOAR, formerly Demisto.. Prior to co-founding Demisto, he was VP & CTO of database technologies at McAfee. He joined McAfee via the acquisition of Sentrigo, a database security startup, which he co-founded. When he has time left from his entrepreneurial endeavors and raising 4 beautiful children, he loves to play poker, martial arts and read non-fiction.

    Stardust and Building Products - Mohan Atreya (CPO, Rafay Systems)

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 4, 2020 61:21


    In this episode, we start with a new segment called “This week in exits”, and then we have the pleasure of hosting Mohan Atreya. Mohan is VP Products at Rafay systems, a startup that does enterprise-grade Kubernetes management. An avid human psychology practitioner and astronomy enthusiast who has spent serious money chasing stardust. Unlike many B2B Product Managers, Mohan's path to product management has been non-traditional perhaps because of ideal growing years spent in Chennai right next to the beach. He started his journey as a Sales Engineer, sold a lot of enterprise security products at RSA and then pivoted to Product Management. Since then he has launched and grown products at OKTA, Neustar and now at Rafay Systems.

    4 Exits and the Human Factor - Upa Campbell (CMO, Accurics)

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2020 30:58


    In today’s show, we have Upa Campbell. The Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Accurics, an early stage Cloud Security startup. Upa is a serial exiter. The last 4 startups that she was involved in, have all had successful exits. 3 companies ended up getting acquired for 100s of millions of dollars and one ended up going public and is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise. The fact that she was able to have an incredibly successful career while raising two little girls is nothing short of exceptional. Although Upa played multiple roles in the tech industry, she is a marketing extraordinaire. She knows how to build a marketing machine that can help startups and big companies get to critical market traction. If you are an entrepreneur who knows how to build or sell tech products but don’t know how to get your potential buyers to pay attention, you don’t want to miss this episode.

    Ideas over Ego - Rishi Bhargava (Co-founder, Demisto)

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 14, 2020 48:51


    In this show we talk about technology, how to find co-founders for your startup, evolve feature thinking into platform thinking and using business models to evolve the startup go to market strategy with Rishi Bhargava. Rishi, one of the four co-founders of Demisto, has launched multiple products in his career in risk & compliance, virtualisation, and cloud security space. He is also an avid technology enthusiast, a serial patent holder and one unique thing about him - he can take any Product role and completely own it.

    The Art of Selling - Brandon Conley (CRO, AppOmni)

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 7, 2020 41:56


    In today’s show, we are going to talk about all things sales. In particular, the art of B2B selling, getting the attention of potential business buyers in an incredibly noisy world. We are also going to talk about how to find great companies to work for and how to build great sales teams. To help educate us on this and more, we have Brandon Conley as the guest in today’s show. Brandon is a seasoned sales & GTM leader with over 2 decades in B2B and security experience. Although he has worked in small and large companies, his super power is his ability to get startups to accomplish their business goals at various stages in their journey.

    The Oracle of Security - Nir Zuk (Co-founder, Palo Alto Networks)

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 31, 2020 52:13


    If you are in Cyber Security, you know our superstar guest. Nir Zuk is the co-founder and CTO of Palo Alto Networks. Nir co-founded Palo Alto Networks over a decade ago and changed the landscape of network security forever. He is easily the smartest guy in any room and certainly one of the sharpest minds we have come across. Nir has always challenged the status quo and is relentless in his pursuit of excellence. He is not shy about expressing his opinions on the industry, competition and his vision for the future. We talk about what it was like growing up in Israel, how he got into security, what made him quit his current employer & leave his cushy job to start Palo Alto Networks. If you are a technologist and want people to execute your vision, you don’t want to miss this episode.

    The Go To Market Stoic - Shailesh Rao (SVP Sales, Palo Alto Networks)

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2020 54:17


    In this episode, we have Shailesh Rao, who also goes by “Stylist Brows”, a seasoned sales leader who is building the Cortex business for Palo Alto Networks around arguably the toughest category in the security industry, endpoint security and security orchestration and automation. He is currently the SVP and GM of the Cortex business at Palo Alto Networks. Shailesh is an entrepreneur, and product people’s dreams come true. He is the ultimate hustler who gets the job done. Inspired by him, we would like to change the “If you build, they’ll come” to “If you build, they’ll come if Shailesh is selling”.

    Crushing The Red Ocean - Lee Klarich (CPO, Palo Alto Networks)

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2020 42:26


    In this episode, we have Lee Klarich, Chief Product Officer at Palo Alto Networks, the leader in cybersecurity space. Lee has been with the company since the early days. Suffice it to say that without Lee’s vision and leadership, Palo Alto Networks wouldn’t be the cybersecurity juggernaut that it is today. In the early days of Palo Alto Networks, Lee had two choices. Either get the company to swim the Blue Ocean (go after a new market) or the Red Oceans (existing market with well entrenched incumbents). Lee went after the Red Ocean which most companies avoid. Rest, as they say, is history. If you are interested in learning about how to build market-leading products that go from zero to multi-billion dollar businesses, learn how to create new market categories, learn about creating a company culture that scales from

    Founder Market Fit - Varun Badhwar (CEO, RedLock)

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 11, 2020 46:45


    Hello everyone, Welcome to "The Prodcast" where we share insights from the industry leaders on how to build great tech products and companies. In today’s show, we have Varun Badhwar, founder and CEO of Redlock, a cyber security startup that recently had a successful exit. Varun has had a long history in cyber security in building companies from the ground up. He’s currently the SVP GM at Palo Alto Networks. If there was a 40 under 40 list in cyber security, Varun would be on it.  If you’re an entrepreneur interested in learning about how to go from ground Zero to a successful Exit, you don't want to miss this episode. If you want to enjoy the episode by reading the transcript, it can be found at this link.

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