Podcasts about distil networks

In this week's episode we welcome cybersecurity sales leader Robert Freeman as we talk about sales, revenue growth and leadership in a hypergrowth cybersecurity startup. KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE Effective leadership involves uniting and motivating individuals towards a shared goal, understanding their motivations, and fostering good communication and positive culture. Leaders in startup environments need to be resourceful, adaptable, and able to wear multiple hats to navigate challenges and accommodate customer requests. Hiring individuals with startup experience is crucial, as they bring valuable skills and independence to thrive in a less structured environment. Identifying gaps and taking initiative to develop ideas or programs are key traits in startup leaders, who must constantly innovate and seize opportunities. The interview process for hiring salespeople is challenging, requiring a balance of assessing qualities like energy, enthusiasm, resilience, and adaptability to succeed in a demanding sales career. Robert Freeman Senior VP of Worldwide Sales at SafeBreach, is a highly experienced and results-oriented IT sales management professional. With over 20 years of expertise in managing high-growth environments, Robert has made significant contributions to renowned global vendors like Cisco, Imperva, and FireEye, as well as startups including Distil Networks and his current role at SafeBreach. Having graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Robert is responsible for scaling SafeBreach globally, leveraging his extensive sales and leadership career. His profound knowledge in cybersecurity and commitment to innovative solutions make him a valuable asset in the industry. YOUR HOST Simon Lader is the host of The Conference Room, Co-Founder of global executive search firm Salisi Human Capital, and podcast growth consultancy Viva Podcasts. Since 1997, Simon has helped cybersecurity vendors to build highly effective teams, and since 2022 he has helped people make money from podcasting. Get to know more about Simon at: Website: https://simonlader.com/ Make Money from Podcasting: https://www.vivapodcasts.com/podcastpowerups Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonlader LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/headhuntersimonlader The Conference Room is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio and everywhere else you listen to podcasts! #RobertFreeman #CybersecuritySalesManagement #SafeBreach #Cybersecurity #ResultsOriented #GlobalExpansion #SalesLeadership #HighGrowthEnvironments #UniversityofMassachusetts #TechnologyExpertise #Startups #EmergingTechnologies #ScalingOperations #InnovativeSolutions #CybersecurityIndustry

Rami talks about how a financial modeling mistake in his last company cost him millions and lead to the idea to make financial modeling easier and more reliable for startups. About Rami Essaid Rami Essaid is the founder and CEO of Finmark, a YC-backed startup that aims to make financial modeling easy for startups. He was previously Founder and CEO of security startup Distil Networks that he later sold to Imperva Networks. He has an innate passion for startups and helping entrepreneurs bring their own visions to life. Rami is driven by his mission of disrupting industries with technological innovations, from bot detection and mitigation to Excel-based financial modeling. EDGE's Weekly NewsletterJoin over 17,000 others and sign up to receive bonus content. It's free sign up here >>> EPISODE LINKS: Finmark PODCAST INFO: Apple Podcasts: EDGE on Apple Podcasts Spotify: EDGE on Spotify  RSS Feed: EDGE's RSS Feed Website: EDGE Podcast SUPPORT & CONNECT EDGE's Weekly NewsletterJoin over 17,000 others and sign up to receive bonus content. It's free sign up here >>> Please Support this Podcast by checking out our Sponsors: Mad River Botanicals 100% certified organic CBD products. The product is controlled from seed to end product by it's owners. Use code: EDGE22 to get 10% off all your orders. Shop here>>> A top podcast for entrepreneurs!  

Rami Essaid, CEO at Finmark, venture partner at Pioneer Fund and partner at IDEA fund partners and previously the founder of Distil Networks that was acquired for over $100million tells the story of Distil Networks. Absolutely insane similarities between the story of Distil Networks and Silicon Valley show, great advice from Rami to early stage founders and much more in this episode. Rami's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramiessaid/ Pioneer Fund: https://www.pioneerfund.vc/ IDEA fund partners: https://www.ideafundpartners.com/ For those who need to build a financial model for their startup, Finmark: https://finmark.com/ sxsw pitch competition we discussed in the first episode: https://www.startupofyear.com/

In episode seven of DrinksWithAVC, Vik and Bree share a post-St. Patrick's Day glass with Bessemer Venture Partners' Tess Hatch. From childhood acting to her mission to diversify the startup universe, Tess gives us an intimate look at her stellar journey. They also put Tess's space expertise to the test with quirky challenges that blur the lines between celestial wonders and earthly oddities. Join in for laughs, learning, and a little space trivia!Links:www.bvp.comwww.instagram.com/ada_ride/

Essaid provides tips on how to iteratively grow a startup by focusing on customers, growth, prioritization, and cadencePEOPLEGuest: Rami Essaid, CEO, FinmarkHost: Anil Hemrajani, Founder of Startup SidekickTAKEAWAYSTry to break down your steps into as small time increments as possible. A lot of people think annual and quarterly, then realize they have missed the mark. Break it down into monthly and weekly -- that’ll let you get feedback more quickly to avoid big course corrections. Nothing you dream up will hit the mark the first time; the less distance you have to go to adjust, the better. Make sure you have a solid team you’re working with. Early on, it’s all about the core team. It helped us accomplish things at a much faster rate.NOTES01:15 – Can you provide us an overview of Finmark? Finmark is financial modeling software for startups; we want to make it really easy for companies to manage their runway, hiring cash, understanding unit economics...just like Carta moved cap tables out of Excel -- we want to do the same for financial modeling. Most people outsource financial modeling and eventually they bring it in-house by hiring someone but even though it’s very easy to make mistakes. We made a painful mistake at Distil Networks when we thought we had more money coming in -- because of that mistake, we had to lay off 57 people. After selling Distil, I realized the problem still existed, so I decided to fix it.03:00 - So, how do you go about building a startup, one step a time? Essentially, you build something a small amount of people love, then iterate quickly. Start with the big picture, then boil it down to as small of a piece as you can cut off, then get going on it. Think of SpaceX, their mission is to get to Mars but they started with satellites, now they are carrying people to the space station and eventually will get to Mars. At Finmark, we spent two months building the MVP to get the product into the hands of people. Then we iterated on a monthly cadence since then, with milestones then measure and iterate.04:10 - Did you interview other startups before or after building the MVP? Yes, I wanted to have conviction in my head that this was as big of a problem as I thought it was. Before the MVP, I spent two months interviewing founders and investors. I spent a lot of time talking to founders of small and growth companies, CFOs, and investors, to get their perspective on this problem, before bringing a team of people in.05:05 - After raising money, how do you resist the push from investors to scale quickly? Depends on your measure of success. I set expectations with investors that early on we won’t make a lot of money since I’m focused on user growth. As a YC Alum, we’re indoctrinated with startup=growth, so you do want to create a North Star KPI/metric -- for us, that’s user adoption, not revenues, so that helps investors think of scale in a slightly different way.06:08 - What should founders focus on, very early on (e.g. MVP, growth)? The nice thing about focusing on growth as the North Star, it unlocks certain behavior that ties back into the customer’s problem. If the growth isn’t there, then your product might not be meeting customer’s demands or it’s not a big market. You could build a product just for a big market or build a great product for a small set of customers but then you don’t have a great opportunity. Using growth metric as your guiding star, you optimize for that and you solve all the other issues along the way.07:40 - How do you get started from ground zero? First step is to believe in the product then build a vision and thesis around it -- that’s when the customer interv

Rami Essaid started Distil Networks in 2011 and after a navigating through a very turbulent start, they started seeing 3x growth. Rami covers the journey of bringing a company full circle - from idea and initiation to hiring for growth mindset, and selling with a successful outcome in 2019. Recorded May 7, 2020

In the last episode, we started a conversation about transformation and turnaround, specifically regarding what you can do when you're thrust into a new role, you're in a tight spot, and you need to create a plan to dig yourself out. Joining us again for part two of this conversation is Tiffany Kleemann, former CEO of Distil Networks (which was acquired) and current Senior Vice President at Imperva. While episode 158 focused on how Tiffany made plans for transformation after she was brought into Distil, this episode focuses on creating a go-to-market strategy, why what got you here won't get you there, and what it's like to go through a significant transformation on a personal level. We will be continuing this Transformation Turnaround series next week with new episodes and new guests, so stay tuned!    Resources: www.imperva.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-olson-kleemann-cissp-cipp-8b7315/ What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith   Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

For the next few episodes, we will be talking about transformation and turnaround with a variety of guests who have gone through a wide range of transformations. So often, we hear about the methodologies and the practices of transformation; what it's like to go from the garage to the fancy building. But I think a lot of people wonder about what happens after you've taken a new role. You're in a rough spot, you've possibly even created the rough spot, so how do you start to dig yourself out of it? Joining us is Tiffany Kleemann, former CEO of Distil Networks (which was acquired) and current Senior Vice President at Imperva. You will learn about the importance of alignment in leadership and throughout the organization, the value of listening both to others and to your gut, and what it takes to ensure transparency along the way from someone who has been there and done that. At the same time, you'll learn a little bit about what it's like to go through a significant transformation on a personal level.   Resources: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-olson-kleemann-cissp-cipp-8b7315/ The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything by Stephen M. R. Covey   Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

This week's episode is entitled "Lessons on ABM from Inside the Trenches: Fine-Tune Your Strategy for 2020". We talk with Edward Roberts, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Distil Networks.  We are really focusing today on ABM, account based marketing and all the things required in terms of elevating the game of the marketing team, but also changing the culture between sales and marketing to make that work. Edward answers these questions below and a lot more: Why ABM? How did ABM became a priority for Distil? How did those conversations get started and where did you make the decision to lean in? What did it take to get the program off the ground? Was your CMO involved? Was the leadership of the company prioritizing this? What were some of the initial expectations and catalysts to making this a priority? How are you looking at evolving and growing the account based work into 2020? What are some of the bigger opportunities you see and what are some of the obstacles you see that might be something you want to keep keep in mind to try to navigate through over the next 12 to 14 months? Listen in now and/or read the full transcript on our blog starting Mon. 11/11 6am PST.

Jonathan Butler, Professional Services & Security Analytics Manager at Distil Networks, discusses his security analyst journey, what someone should like doing if they plan on going into the field, and the future of security analytics as a whole. Join us in the fight against cybercrime: https://www.infosecinstitute.com. Special offer for Cyber Work listeners: https://www.infosecinstitute.com/podcast.

Researchers at Distil Networks have been tracking online bots targeting ecommerce gift card systems of major online retailers. The threat actors show remarkable resourcefulness and adaptability. Jonathan Butler is technical account team manager at Distil Networks, part of Imperva, and he joins to share their findings. The research can be found here: https://resources.distilnetworks.com/all-blog-posts/giftghostbot-attacks-ecommerce-gift-card-systems

Researchers at Distil Networks have been tracking online bots targeting ecommerce gift card systems of major online retailers. The threat actors show remarkable resourcefulness and adaptability. Jonathan Butler is technical account team manager at Distil Networks, part of Imperva, and he joins to share their findings. The research can be found here: https://resources.distilnetworks.com/all-blog-posts/giftghostbot-attacks-ecommerce-gift-card-systems The CyberWire's Research Saturday is presented by Juniper Networks. Thanks to our sponsor Enveil, closing the last gap in data security.

We had a total of 304 funding rounds, $5.7 billion total funding, 129 acquisitions recorded, and a transaction of a total acquisition amount of $32.1 billion. Let’s dive right into the highlights now. Modern Fertility raises $15 million to sell its hormone tests — and gather more fertility data from its users A San Francisco-based company, modern fertility, sells fertility tests directly to consumers, but increasingly, those customers will be educating the company, too. Indeed, the two-year-old startup now plans to develop a database of anonymized data about its largely younger demographic. What do they do? They sell a kit from its website that’s sent to women’s doorsteps and allows them to gauge their levels of eight different reproductive hormones by using a finger prick. More specifically, the startup sends off its customers’ panels to CLIA-certified labs, where the tests are conducted, and most prominently, those tests are looking at the women’s level of AMH, or anti-mullerian hormone. Modern Fertility has now raised $22 million to date. Among its other backers are Maveron and Union Square Ventures as investors. That being said, Fertility startups have been on a fundraising gala recently. The global fertility services market is expected to exceed $21 billion by 2020. Colombian point-of-sale lender ADDI nabs $12.5 million from Andreessen Horowitz ADDI picked up $12.5 million in new financing in April of this year as the company looks to expand its lending services online. Like Affirm, ADDI lets its borrowers apply for credit at the moment of purchase. The company likens its service to the layaway and credit plans that already exist in Colombia — but involve pretty onerous requirements to use. Company co-founder and general partner both commented on how, in some cases, Colombian shoppers have to have three people vouch for a borrower before a store will issue credit or agree to a layaway plan. The difference between an ADDI loan — or any loan — and layaway is that an installment payment plan doesn’t charge interest (and even with the fees that installment plans do charge, they are often still cheaper than taking out a loan). Providing supplemental educational videos for healthcare online nets Osmosis $4 million With over one million YouTube subscribers and 500,000 registered users for its supplemental educational videos, Osmosis, which bills itself as the Khan Academy of healthcare, has raised $4 million in new funding. By reimagining medical education, Osmosis is addressing a critical impending global crisis: the need to develop and retrain tens of millions of healthcare professionals over the next decade to meet growing demand. Using a library of over 1,100 videos produced by the former Khan Academy Health and Medicine team — which were poached by Gaglani — students can get supplemental materials providing tutorials on subjects ranging from basic knowledge to the soft skills required on the job. Vectra lands $100M Series E investment for AI-driven network security Vectra, a seven-year-old company that helps customers detect intrusions at the network level, whether in the cloud or on premises, announced a $100 million Series E funding round led by TCV. Existing investors, including Khosla Ventures and Accel, also participated in the round, which brings the total raised to more than $200 million, according to the company. As company CEO Hitesh Sheth explained, there are two primary types of intrusion detection. The first is end point detection and the second is his company’s area of coverage, network detection and response, or NDR. He says that by adding a layer of artificial intelligence, it improves the overall results. Moving on to mergers and acquisitions, we have Google acquiring analytics startup Looker for $2.6 billion Google made a big splash when it announced it’s going to acquire Looker, a hot analytics startup that’s raised more than $280 million. It’s paying $2.6 billion for the privilege and adding the company to Google Cloud. Google Cloud has been mired in third place in the cloud infrastructure market, and grabbing Looker gives it an analytics company with a solid track record. The last time I spoke to Looker, it was announcing a hefty $103 million in funding on a $1.6 billion valuation. Today’s price is a nice even billion over that. What else caught our eyes last week? Based on data we know that this is the season of Healthcare, Cyber Security and Knowledge Sharing startups bagging fundings. Last week four security companies changed hands. Security stays hot as Imperva grabs Distil Networks. The shopping spree continued this week with CDN company Imperva announcing it was buying bot mitigation startup Distil Networks. The companies did not share the acquisition price. Last week was an incredible M&A whirlwind with four security companies getting acquired over just a three-day period On Tuesday, FireEye bought Verodin, a five-year-old startup that helps measure the effectiveness of your cybersecurity defenses for $250 million. On Wednesday, Palo Alto Networks entered the fray, buying not one, but two Israeli security startups. The big prize was container security company Twistlock for $410 million. It also snagged serveless security company PureSec. Reports in Israeli media pegged that deal at between $60 and $70 million. If that wasn’t enough for you, private equity firm Insight Partners bought 10-year old threat intelligence company, Recorded Future for $780 million. If you’re thinking about starting a technology company, you may want to consider focusing on cybersecurity. I’ll leave you with that thought!

Flexera Acquires RISC Networks, Security stays hot as Imperva grabs Distil Networks, EnSilo is raising a series B to monitor and remediate cyber threats, SentinelOne lands $120 mln Series D, Securonix Partner Program Targets MSSPs, Thycotic Expands Enterprise-Grade Privileged Access Management-as-a-Service Solution, SecureAuth Innovates Secure Identity Management with its Intelligent Identity Cloud Service, and much more! Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode140 Visit https://securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

Flexera Acquires RISC Networks, Security stays hot as Imperva grabs Distil Networks, EnSilo is raising a series B to monitor and remediate cyber threats, SentinelOne lands $120 mln Series D, Securonix Partner Program Targets MSSPs, Thycotic Expands Enterprise-Grade Privileged Access Management-as-a-Service Solution, SecureAuth Innovates Secure Identity Management with its Intelligent Identity Cloud Service, and much more! Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode140 Visit https://securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

Last week four security companies changed hands. The shopping spree continued this week with CDN company Imperva announcing it was buying bot mitigation startup Distil Networks. The companies did not share the acquisition price. Imperva CTO Kunal Anand says his company had a narrow bot capability, but was looking to bring a more complete solution to the platform and Distil fit the bill nicely.

Read the complete transcript on The Sales Game Changers Podcast website. CHARLIE'S FINAL TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Think of yourself as a professional sales athlete. You want the best coaching, you want to train daily, you want to constantly try to get stronger, better, fitter, improve your game every day and you want to work on the details. You want to practice over and over, you want to welcome feedback, you want to seek it out, you want the harshest feedback, you want the toughest competitors and you want to work your butt off as a professional sales athlete. It's a great way to think of yourself." Charlie Minesinger is the VP of Sales at Racktop Systems. Prior to Racktop, he was at Distil Networks and at Siemens Enterprise Communications. Find Charlie on LinkedIn!

It's the Republicans turn to be hacked. Kubernetes had a bad week. So did Quora. It happens. We talk to Rami Essaid from Distil Networks on his battle with bots in our feature interview.

John Bullard is the Vice President of Engineering at Distil Networks. Based in San Francisco, he leads the edge platform and data engineering team. Before joining Distil John confounded two tech startups, both of which are still active. Prior to entering the startup world John was a member of the Office 365 launch team at Microsoft where he focused on cloud security and scalability.   Learn how to scale your engineering team with TalentPath by Treehouse Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Facebook

In this episode, host Steve Ragan talks with Engin Akyol, CTO at Distil Networks at the Black Hat 2018 conference, about bot account takeovers and how they can be detected.

This week, Paul is joined by our very own Keith Hoodlet to review the book The Phoenix Project! In the news, we have updates from Cisco, Distil Networks, BeyondTrust, Cambridge Analytica, and more on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly!   Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode85   Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

This week, Paul is joined by our very own Keith Hoodlet to review the book The Phoenix Project! In the news, we have updates from Cisco, Distil Networks, BeyondTrust, Cambridge Analytica, and more on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly!   Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode85   Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

Founder of Distil Networks, Rami Essaid is a passionate entrepreneur who has been building companies for over a decade. Disrupting industries with technological innovations is a personal mission. He joins Paul and Doug White this week for our feature interview! Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode83 Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes! 

This week, Rami Essaid, Founder of Distil Networks joins us for an interview! In the news, we have updates from CyberArk, Tenable, Fortinet, & Rapid7! Our very own Michael Santarcangelo is joined by Matt Alderman on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly!   Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode83   Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

Founder of Distil Networks, Rami Essaid is a passionate entrepreneur who has been building companies for over a decade. Disrupting industries with technological innovations is a personal mission. He joins Paul and Doug White this week for our feature interview! Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode83 Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes! 

This week, Rami Essaid, Founder of Distil Networks joins us for an interview! In the news, we have updates from CyberArk, Tenable, Fortinet, & Rapid7! Our very own Michael Santarcangelo is joined by Matt Alderman on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly!   Full Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ES_Episode83   Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

With Distil's Director of Product Marketing Edward Roberts. Distil Networks seeks to protect networks from bad online bots, abuse, and fraud. 

Rami Essaid is the CEO and Co-Founder of Distil Networks. With over 15 years of experience in telecommunications, network security, and cloud infrastructure management, Rami advises enterprise companies around the world, focusing on embracing the cloud to improve scalability and reliability. Full Show Notes: http://wiki.securityweekly.com/wiki/index.php/ES_Episode41 Visit http://securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

Rami Essaid is the CEO and Co-Founder of Distil Networks. With over 15 years of experience in telecommunications, network security, and cloud infrastructure management, Rami advises enterprise companies around the world, focusing on embracing the cloud to improve scalability and reliability. Full Show Notes: http://wiki.securityweekly.com/wiki/index.php/ES_Episode41 Visit http://securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

This week Gordon talks to Rami Essaid of Distil Networks about bots, what they are and what damage they can do to your business.

This week Gordon talks to Rami Essaid of Distil Networks about bots, what they are and what damage they can do to your business.

In today's podcast, we hear about brokerages in Taiwan being extorted with threats of DDoS. Polish banks compromised in watering hole campaign. Criminals turn from JavaScript to less obviously suspicious kinds of files. Cyber vigilantes poke at unsecured printers and dark web hosting. China ratchets up its efforts to control its Internet. The US shares classified intelligence on Russian influence operations with European allies, and works on its own information operations capability. Dale Drew from Level 3 Communications takes note of the increase in ransomware. Rami Essaid from Distil Networks describes efforts to combat ticket scalping bots. And a former NSA contractor will probably face espionage charges related to the ShadowBrokers.

Understand what bots are and what to do about them. Has your website ever been attacked by nefarious bots? Bots do everything from scrape data to try password combos to hack into websites. Edward Roberts works for Distil Networks, a company that fights back against these bots. Learn more about the types of bad bots, […] Post link: Battling the Bots – DNW Podcast #122 © DomainNameWire.com 2020. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Distil Networks wants to leverage device fingerprints, Exabeam reveals its latest security intelligence program, HPE acquires Niara, and more in this week’s Enterprise News! Full Show Notes: http://wiki.securityweekly.com/wiki/index.php/ES_Episode31 Visit http://securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

Distil Networks wants to leverage device fingerprints, Exabeam reveals its latest security intelligence program, HPE acquires Niara, and more in this week’s Enterprise News! Full Show Notes: http://wiki.securityweekly.com/wiki/index.php/ES_Episode31 Visit http://securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

Matt Alderman of Tenable joins us. In the Enterprise News, Distil Networks wants to leverage device fingerprints, Exabeam reveals its latest security intelligence program, HPE acquires Niara, and more. Stay tuned!

Matt Alderman of Tenable joins us. In the Enterprise News, Distil Networks wants to leverage device fingerprints, Exabeam reveals its latest security intelligence program, HPE acquires Niara, and more. Stay tuned!

John Frankel is the founding partner of ff Venture Capital and has been an early-stage investor since 1999. He has served on the boards of more than 35 companies and has led investments in more than 80 companies, including Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD), Indiegogo, Ionic Security, Unikey, Socure, Skycatch, Plated, 500px, Distil Networks, and Bottlenose. Prior to founding ffVC, John worked at Goldman Sachs for 21 years in a variety of roles that involved technology development, reengineering and capital markets. At Goldman Sachs, he worked closely with some of the world’s leading hedge fund managers and developed a keen understanding of emerging technologies and portfolio risk/return management.  In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did John make the move from Oxford grad to NYC venture capitalist? 2.) How has the massive decrease in startup costs affected the seed funding environment? How does David identify the startups he invests in with the plethora that are now available? 3.) How much of an extent is portfolio a branding tool for VCs? In recent years we have seen the rise of the operational VC model with the likes of Andreesen, will this continue as a prominent model in VC? 4.) How as a seed investor does John advise his founders when chasing a valuation that will only lead to a down round? What is John's views on the dreaded down round? 5.) Many companies pivot in the process? Does John like to see pivots? If pivoting what is it important for founders to remember and focus on? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:  John's Fave Book: The Accidental Superpower John's Most Recent Investment: Wade and Wendy As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and John on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!   The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!  

In this week's episode, you'll hear part 1 of an amazing two part interview with John Frankel, the founder of ff Venture Capital. Dave and John discuss how ff approaches investing, what functions ff provides to it's portfolio companies and why they do it, the label on the back of the honey bottle, and what it means to be living in a world of abundance. John Frankel is the founding partner of ff Venture Capital, and has been an early-stage investor since 1999. John has served as a director of over 35 companies and an investor in more than 76 companies, including Cornerstone OnDemand, Indiegogo, Ionic Security, Klout, SkyCatch, Plated, 500px, Distil Networks, and Bottlenose.

Today we have a great conversation with the co-founder and CEO of Distil networks Rami Essaid. Rami was born in syria to a family known for their engineering talent. He later moved the united states and started working in sales and business. After realizing what a challenge spam and malware bots were posing to corporations rami decided to create a product that would protect against attacks. Rami then took the plunge and founded his company Distil in 2001. After a lot of testing with the beta product Distil networks has now become to go to solution for protecting against bot nets and brute force login attacks. Distil Networks secured $38 million in total funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Foundry Group and TechStars' Bullet Time Ventures, ff Venture Capital, IDEA Fund Partners, and Militello Capital. Rami attended North Carolina State University where he majored in computer engineering.Lets listen into Rami interviewed by Startup Grind’s DC chapter director Brian Park. 

How Distil Networks joined a business accelerator (Techstars) and raised $10 million to fight the bot web threat.