Sramana Mitra: Do you see gaps in the market where you see opportunities for entrepreneurs to build products or solutions?
Tim Panagos: There are many places where interpreting the data and doing something about it are pretty large gaps. Understanding what’s happening is only the first step. You need to take that and turn it into insights. From the insights, you turn that into action. That’s the insight value chain that we described to some of our customers.
>>>Ben and his co-founder are two techies who started by bootstrapping with a paycheck. With zero marketing budget, they have scaled TryHackMe to a million users and significant revenue.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Ben Spring: I was born and raised in Portsmouth. I also went to the University of Portsmouth. I have a degree in Computer Science.
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
UpKeep Maintenance Management CEO Ryan Chan took a hobby project that he bootstrapped with a paycheck and managed to get into Y Combinator. From there, he raised a $10 million Series A from a top-tier Silicon Valley firm, Emergence Capital. Excellent execution as of this podcast interview from 2019.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start from the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?
Ryan Chan: I was born in Kentucky. My family moved there for my father’s job. But then, we quickly relocated to California. I grew up and was raised in a small suburb in Los Angeles called Oak Park. Not many people know where that is, but it’s about 20 miles west of downtown Los Angeles.
Entrepreneurs are invited to the 583rd FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, July 21, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST.
If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.
You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!
Despite increased investment in cloud security services, companies continue to struggle with managing their attack surface amid recent data breaches. Surveys show that for 67% of organizations, their external attack surface expanded over the past two years due to the rising use of cloud, third-party services, the Internet of Things and cyber-physical systems. About 69% of these organizations have been compromised via unknown, unmanaged, or poorly managed internet-facing asset in the past year. IBM (NYSE: IBM) is trying to target this market through its recent acquisition of Randori.
>>>Sramana Mitra: What’s interesting to me is that you are able to sell six-figure deals without hard ROI to address a perception issue. That’s unique I think.
Tim Panagos: It may just be a point in time.
Sramana Mitra: The higher the ticket size, the more the need to justify hard ROI. What you’re pointing out is that you have been able to sell six-figure deals without hard ROI. That’s probably a point in time. It is a point in time where you are benefitting from that.
>>>Sramana Mitra: Fantastic! What are some of the nuances of go-to-market strategy that you have learned?
Matthew Benson: We took a shot at this influencer-based model. We created a tournament for a single influencer. Once we saw the spark, we doubled down on it. It was based on being receptive to the community and listening. That platform has become our main revenue driver.
>>>Sramana Mitra: To do all this, how much of this is your proprietary technology and how much of it is system integration using other people’s technology?
Tim Panagos: Our strategy was to adopt things that were already existing in the market rather than building from scratch. It’s my belief that we intersect with the IoT, cloud, and AI macro trends. All of these technologies exist already in the marketplace. It’s not a matter of whether we need a better sensor or we need better AI; it’s about taking these technologies that are on the shelf, pre-integrating them, and making it so that you can scale in a business.
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