Extreme Uncertainty

What do you know about face masks?

Chances are, you know a lot. We all do. What most of us don’t know is face masks present a real problem for medical professionals trying to communicate with people, particularly those who are deaf or hard of hearing. When Aaron Hsu and his cofounders launched ClearMask in 2017, it was the result of cofounder Allysa Dittmar’s experiences dealing with this issue firsthand. But what started as a part-time passion project in 2017 turned into something very different in 2020—a year when the world had a very real, very immediate need for masks.

Aaron shares his journey over the last four years and how ClearMask went from filling dozens of orders each month to supplying hundreds of thousands of transparent face masks to hospitals and organizations all around the world. Aaron talks about the hurdles his team faced in launching a medical device company, the importance of preparing for success, how to deal with "champagne problems," and shares his advice for founders who suddenly find themselves with more business than they can handle. 

We hope you enjoy this conversation with an inspiring founder. And we humbly dedicate this episode to all of our listeners who are on the front lines of the Covid crisis. We salute you and offer our sincere gratitude for all your dedication and sacrifice. 

And now, for something completely different. This week, Mike and Mike join Kyle McNulty on the Security Ventures Podcast. The Mikes had a wide-ranging conversation with Kyle about the challenges of raising capital as a cyber startup, how cyber venture fundraising differs from other verticals at the angel and seed stage, and what entrepreneurs should think about when they're prepping for a capital raise, and what can make a pitch really fly--or flop. We hope you enjoy the conversation, and check out the Secure Ventures podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

What do you know about your employer-provided benefits?

Chances are, not much. That's because benefits packages are complex and making an informed decision is challenging for employees. It's also a problem for insurance companies trying to underwrite policies, as well as employers seeking to give their employees the best option for themselves and their families.

Akash Magoon is CTO and Co-Founder of Nayya, a platform providing personalized benefits education that's transforming the employee benefits industry. Akash shares his journey from (temporary) college dropout to CTO of a rapidly scaling technology startup. Akash grew up interested in healthcare and thought he'd become a doctor. But coming from a family of business owners, he also had an entrepreneurial streak. He dove into computer science at the University of Maryland and dropped out to found LIS Labs, a medical software startup. After exiting the company, doing a stint at AWS, and returning to finish his degree, Akash spent some time building software for insurance companies. It was then that he and his co-founder recognized the scope of the problems with employee benefits facing the industry, and they decided to do something about it.

Akash gives his insights on what it takes to build a tech company, the challenges a CTO faces in trying to build scalable products, and his tips for those looking to get into the world of entrepreneurship. You can check out everything they're building at nayya.com.

What do you know about pivoting a tech company in the midst of a global pandemic?

Unfortunately, if you're an entrepreneur, you know a whole lot about this very thing. For Alex Bisignano and his team at Phosphorous, 2020 started off strong. They had a growing business delivering next-generation sequencing (NGS) genetics testing products. And then Covid happened. After watching his run rate drop to near zero in the space of a few weeks, Alex, his team, and his investors worked together to engineer a company-wide pivot. Leveraging their collective expertise in testing, Phosphorous released a critical new product to market: at-home Covid tests. Phosphorous' saliva-based Covid tests are now available to individuals and organizations, and the company went from near failure to closing out 2020 with surging revenue and a critical new business line that's helping individuals and organizations fight the Covid pandemic. 

Alex talks to the Mikes about the challenges the company faced this year, as well as his own personal pivot from financial services to medical technology startups. He shares his advice for entrepreneurs looking to get into the medtech space, his thoughts on what it takes to turn a tanker ship, and he tells us where the future of genetics testing is heading. You can check out what they're building at Phosphorous.com.

What do you know about Data Care?

Our guest on the podcast today is Cyndi Gula, Co-Founder of Gula Tech Adventures and former VP of Operations and Co-Founder of Tenable Security. She’s also at the vanguard of a movement to change cybersecurity—everything from how we think about who “belongs” in the industry to the name itself. Cyndi started her career as a ceramics engineer before jumping with into a life of entrepreneurship. Since launching and exiting Network Security Wizards, Cyndi helped launch Tenable and scaled operations from 5 to over 500 employees. Cyndi tells us about her entrepreneurial journey and the challenges she faced scaling up a successful cybersecurity company. She gives her advice for those “silentpreneurs” who work behind the scenes, what it's like to go from founding companies to investing in founders, and her take on what needs to change to make cybersecurity a more inclusive environment for women and people of color.

You can check out everything Cyndi and her Co-Founder for Life are building at the Gula Tech foundation at gula.tech, where you can also check out their brand new podcast, Gula Cyber Fiction, where she and Ron interview people from within and outside the cybersecurity industry—or should we say, the Data Care Industry.

What do you know about what keeps a Chief Information Security Officer up at night?

Yanek Korff spent his career in cybersecurity as an engineer and business leader helping enterprises manage cybersecurity threats. It wasn't until he left FireEye and was considering his next move (in between playing a lot of XBox) that he and a former colleague were inspired to launch a company to help CISOs manage their cybersecurity operations. The inspiration? A tweet. (Seriously.) 

Yanek shares his journey and the challenges of going from an engineer to a business leader to a cybersecurity co-founder and the lessons he learned along the way. He talks about the headaches facing CISOs, where the managed security services market is going, and his advice for founders. You can check out everything Yanek and his team are building at Expel.io and you can follow them @Expel_io.

What do you know about cryptography?

For decades, researchers and data scientists in the federal government and commercial enterprises have invested millions to crack the code on homomorphic encryption—that is, how to keep data secure while it's in use. Our guest on the podcast today spent the first part of her career at the National Security Agency as one of those scientists, and she's the one who cracked the code. 

In 2016, Dr. Ellison Anne Williams left the NSA to found Enveil, the first commercial company to provide security for data in use. Also known as the “Holy Grail” of cryptography, Enveil's homomorphic encryption platform is a technical breakthrough and represents a fundamental leap forward from traditional privacy and security technologies. Though Ellison Anne spent her early career "collecting degrees" in math and machine learning before joining the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and eventually the NSA, she recounts how for much of her time in government she felt like a fish on a bicycle--an entrepreneur working in a massive government bureaucracy. Ellison Anne recounts her entrepreneurial beginnings running a cake business in high school, and talks about a career in government that was undergirded by a desire to work on entrepreneurial endeavors. Since founding Enveil, Ellison Anne discovered that what she learned about working the gears in a government bureaucracy helped her prepare for navigating enterprise sales cycles. She shares her advice for founders and gives us a look at what the market for privacy and data security will look like in 5-10 years time. You can check out their groundbreaking work at enveil.com and you can follow them @enveil_inc.

What do you know about launching, scaling, and exiting a cybersecurity startup?

Our guest today needs no introduction. Ron Gula is the Former CEO and Co-Founder of Tenable, a global cybersecurity company headquartered in Columbia, MD. Ron and his wife Cyndi launched Tenable in 2002 and saw it through to a successful IPO in 2018. Over that time, Ron and Cyndi emerged as leading voices in cybersecurity through their work as investors, though-leaders, and philanthropists. In addition, Ron and Cyndi have invested in dozens of cybersecurity startups, many of which have scaled and come to define the startup ecosystem in the Mid-Atlantic. 

Ron talks about starting out in the Air force and his journey from serving his country in cyber defense for the NSA to launching an industry-leading cybersecurity company. We discuss his post-IPO move into angel and venture investing with his wife and co-founder for life Cyndi, and he shares his advice for founders looking to launch and scale a new venture. 

You can check out Ron and Cyndi's new adventures in tech at Gula.tech, and you can find Ron on LinkedIn. 

What do you know about data discovery?

Organizations large and small struggle to manage and make use of their data. Whereas most organizations understand their structured data assets,  unstructured data poses a security risk for those companies that don't manage and secure it. It's also a potential treasure trove of insights that most companies aren't equipped to tap into. ActiveNav helps organizations discover and manage their unstructured data to make use of their data assets and minimize risk of breach and ensure proper data governance. CEO and Founder Peter Baumann launched ActiveNav in 2008 just as the issue of data in the wild started to come into the conversation, and over the last ten years he and his team have scaled the company into a key player in the data discovery market. But Peter's entrepreneurial journey didn't start with data analytics. We talk with Peter about his entrepreneurial origins making and selling wine to pay his way through college, the challenges of building and scaling a data company, moving a company's operations overseas, and his take on how entrepreneurs can overcome the "maturity bias" as a technology firm raising venture capital. 

What do you know about launching a non-profit technology venture?

Our guest on the podcast today is Samier Mansur, CEO and Founder of No Limit Generation, a Washington DC based non-profit that equips refugee aid-workers with trauma informed mental health and wellness tools developed by world renowned experts. While working to support on the ground relief efforts during the Rohingya refugee crisis, Samier realized that traditional aid workers were not equipped to address the mental health needs of children in crisis zones. Having previously co-founded the successful public safety technology company LifeSafe, Samier realized this might be a problem that technology could help solve. 

On the podcast, Samier shares his journey from international relations major to tech founder to the world of non-profits. He gives his advice for founders looking to launch a mission-driven enterprise, how to cope with the challenges of being an entrepreneur, and how we can use technology and entrepreneurship to build a better world. You can check out all the work Samier and his team are doing at nolimitgen.org and follow them @nolimitgen.