Blocking Ransomware at the Hard Drive Level: John Benkert, CEO of Cigent (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You retired from the Air Force and decided to do your own company.

John Benkert: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What were you going to offer and to whom?

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services While Navigating a Recession

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Rik Chomko, now CEO at InRule, and his team had to navigate a long journey, including a recession that disrupted one of their key customer segments dramatically. Read our interview from 2014 to learn how they survived.

Sramana: Rik, let’s start with the beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you raised? What kind of circumstances? Give us some of the back story.

Rik Chomko: I was born in the Chicago land suburbs and grew up there. My dad introduced me to computers at a very early age, which was way back in the 70’s, mostly because that’s what he did for a living. He’s one of the first people, I think, that jumped on to the information technology bandwagon. He would bring home phone systems and couplers so that we were able to link into the VAC system or the mainframe system running at his company. I had a twin brother and we used to just get up there and play games. We thought it was the neatest thing in the world, and that kind of got me started. As I grew up, I did other things but computers have always been a core interest and one of those things that I would like to sit down and play with.

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Blocking Ransomware at the Hard Drive Level: John Benkert, CEO of Cigent (Part 1)

Ransomware is a key Cyber Security challenge that drives enterprises and governments crazy. John has built a very interesting company to address this problem with a unique approach and lots of patented Intellectual Property. In this case study, you will also learn a lot about Go To Market Strategy through Firmware.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised? What kind of background?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped with Services to $175M

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

There is, of course, a myth that you cannot build a large company by bootstrapping. What a total pot of crxp! Meet TEOCO Founder CEO Atul Jain, and have your preconceptions checked and readjusted.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where were you born, raised, and educated? Tell us a bit of the backstory of your current entrepreneurial story.

Atul Jain: I was born in Kanpur, India. I was born in a lower-middle class family. My father was an engineer in PWD. I am the youngest of three children. The eldest is my sister Manu Jain and I have an elder brother Naveen Jain. At the age of eleven, I received a merit scholarship from the Government of India to study in a residential school. After I finished high school in 1976, I studied at the Indian Statistical Institute and graduated with a Bachelors and Masters in Statistics. My goal and dream all along was to be a Professor, so I came to the US to do a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. I did my research in probability theory in the field called Brownian motion. I completed my Ph.D. and got caught up in a game of cards called bridge. Five years later, I realized that my life was going nowhere and my career was going nowhere.

I decided to get a job. I went to the Silicon Valley and got a job with a company called Teknekron Corporation, the parent company of TIBCO. I started there and eventually ended up in the portion of the business that is known today as TIBCO. At that time, it was known as Teknekron Software Systems. Vivek Ranadive was the lead entrepreneur of that company. He had convinced me to move from Teknekron Corporation to Teknekron Software Systems. I then moved to Palo Alto. At that time, it had less than 20 employees and I was one of them. I started with them in late 1988 and left the company in early 1995 to start TEOCO. I was with the company when it was a tiny little company serving just the financial sector.

Sramana Mitra: When you started TEOCO in 1995, what was the premise? What did you see and what did you want to do with this company?

Atul Jain: I just wanted to prove to the world that you don’t have to be mean to succeed in business. Most companies were built on the premise that we have to worry about clients first and then at times, we worry about employees. I wanted to reverse the model. I created a business model based on the concept of alignment with employees, client, and community. At that time, I used to say that if we take care of our employees, they will take care of our clients, and that will take care of the business.  I wanted to focus on creating joy and a certain degree of alignment. I wanted to invert the pyramid. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t know what industry. I just wanted to build a business on a set of values and principles.

Sramana Mitra: How did that evolve? How did you get yourself going?

Atul Jain: When I started the company, I was based in Northern Virginia. I had come here for a project for TIBCO with a company called Mobil Corporation. Then I sold them a project on behalf of my previous company and I was working on that project for two and a half years. Then I decided to leave and find a client.

Almost always the first person that gives you your first break is somebody who knows you. My first break came from Mobil Corporation. They gave me an opportunity to serve them, because I knew some of the people there and had a good amount of expertise. Initially, I was just doing some consulting work for them. I understood that I wanted to build a business with some intellectual property but I had no capital. I started with $2,000, and that’s all the money I ever put into the business.

Sramana Mitra: You got a service contract with Mobil Corporation?

Atul Jain: They bought my consulting services, yes.

Our conversation continues here.

Colors: Mendocino I

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Mendocino I

Mendocino I | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 9  x 12, On Paper

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Colors: Bariloche IV

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Bariloche IV

Bariloche IV | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 9  x 12, On Paper