The Founder Formula

Rehan Jalil - Three-Time Tech Founder

• Trace3 • Episode 23

Share episode

On this week’s episode of The Founders Formula, we talk with Rehan Jalil. Rehan is a successful three-time founder, holds an AMP from Harvard Business School, has over 25 patents either granted or pending, and was named one of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year finalists.

It’s safe to say that Rehan knows a thing or two about the founder’s formula, and we were blown away with the wisdom and practical advice he had for us during this interview.

Listen to this and all of The Founder Formula episodes through your favorite podcast platform or Trace3.com.

Rehan Jalil:

I think the most important aspect in validation is understanding what problem you're trying to solve, how big the market is, how many people need it, and a product that if, when you actually can show to your prospects and customers, they can immediately resonate with it.

Intro:

The founder formula brings you in behind the curtains and inside the minds of today's brave executives at the most future-leaning startups. Each interview will feature a transformative leader who's behind the wheel at a fast-paced and innovative tech firm. They'll give you an insider's look at how companies are envisioned, created, and scaled. We hope you're ready. Let's get into the show.

Todd Gallina:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Super excited to be here. My name is Todd Galena, and with me is Tony Olzak. He's the Chief Technical Officer here at Trace3. Tony, how's it going? Hey, Todd. Doing great. Thanks for having me again. You are welcome. Tony, so much has happened since the last time you and I have spoke. I just wanted to announce to you that I have a new favorite Silicon Valley startup. They just raised $23 million. Oh, do tell. So do you want to know what they sell? When you put it that way, I'm almost afraid to ask. Well, they sell water. Like some kind of special water? I think their name says it all. The name of the water is liquid death. Like a really special water. It's the most special. In fact, their tagline is they want to murder your thirst.

Tony Olzak:

Oh, that's amazing. Hopefully not seriously. It's been like actually murdered. Yeah.

Todd Gallina:

Murder you and your thirst. But no, it's, it's really funny. This, this company liquid death, they, they just got 23 million, as I said, and basically they just want to make drinking water cool again. So these, these things are like served in like 16 ounce tall boys. They go for like, you know, 15 bucks for a, for a 12 pack and you can, you can get them at seven 11 and they've got like, if you go to their website, they've got like all these people with their heads cut off. So I can definitely, you know, see it making a splash and being cool, but I don't know. I don't know how often you frequent, But it hasn't gotten

Tony Olzak:

to us where we're at. So not an Orange County thing. You guys aren't guzzling down liquid death like it's going out of business. That's probably they would have nailed the demographic. Orange County, I'm sure, would be a huge proponents of liquid death flavored water. It's not flavored, right? It's like this is like just like water in a can with some cool artwork. And like that's that's the value prop.

Todd Gallina:

That's it. That's it makes you, makes you, makes you ask yourself, why haven't you started a company?

Tony Olzak:

You know, it wasn't like canned from, from tears of, you know, people who live in California and repackaged into $23 million. Really? Wow. Well, I can't wait to try it. I mean, hopefully it's magical.

Todd Gallina:

All right. If we, if it gets out to Colorado, you got to check it out. But in the meantime, I'll be hitting seven 11 multiple times on the way home. But yeah, So with the launch of that company, we also have some sad news that there has been a pretty huge Silicon Valley company that has wound down. They had $2 billion in funding, and they are calling it quits. Yeah, I heard about this. And this company, for our listeners, is Quibi. So they started during COVID. They lasted about six months. And so my question to you is, were you a Quibi subscriber,

Tony Olzak:

Tony? You know, I wasn't. I saw some of the commercials, just never could pull the trigger. I'm not sure that they had, there was no real content that really hooked us. And I don't know about you, and we cut the cord a long time ago. We subscribed to so many services. Subscribing to one more, you've got to nail some kind of anchor content that really pulls you in. What about you, Todd? Did you subscribe to those guys?

Todd Gallina:

I didn't. I didn't. And similar to what you were saying, You know, we have this smattering of subscriptions for different reasons. Netflix, because we've kind of always had it. But I did end up buying the Disney Plus because I can't live without The Mandalorian, and that just came back. And so although I bought it, watched the first season, kept it for a little while, and then shut it down, you know, I'm back. And I'm back every Sunday. I don't know about you guys.

Tony Olzak:

I did the same thing. I literally subscribed, canceled, resubscribed just to watch The Mandalorian again. And I would pay like three times as much just to watch The Mandalorian. If they would just film more episodes more quickly, I would pay for that.

Todd Gallina:

I'm with you. That is the coolest thing in the whole world. You know, Jon Favreau, I'm already messing up his name, but he's got it figured out. But we were talking earlier and you were talking about the cord cut. you've had some interesting experiences, you know, streaming live sports.

Tony Olzak:

Oh yeah. Well, yeah, it's, it's a challenge. Live TV, I think is the, it's easier to buffer and record previous content, have that readily available and positioned and be able to serve that out to the world. And I think a live sports has been a big challenge, but you know, I, I recently subscribed to YouTube TV and I had a, an experience during the world series. It just blew my mind. You think about where technology can go and how it can change your life. So basically what happened was I'm a big Dodgers fan and I was going to miss part of one of the games. So I used the cloud DVR to record the game. And about halfway through the game, I finally get home. I grab some dinner and sitting down and I'm just hoping that I can skip the commercials. And I go to select a game and there's an option I've never seen before on any of these platforms. It may exist elsewhere. And it says, watch key plays to catch up to live. And I was like, what? No way. I pressed that button and it blasted me through four innings of just key plays and No waiting, none of the pauses, none of the commercials, like no like waiting for a batter to come up and warm up and all the talking, just like just the key stuff that you need to know. And it caught me right up to live TV and my head exploded.

Todd Gallina:

Yeah, I mean, you didn't have to like sequester yourself or isolate yourself for the entire time the game was actually going on while you were getting caught up. Like you can't get a text from a buddy. You can't read Twitter. But immediately at one point, you're totally caught up. And so from the fifth inning on, you're part of the spectacle.

Tony Olzak:

Oh, yeah. I mean, like, think about how we experience live sports or any live events today. I mean, you almost have to shut your phone off if you're behind the times because the tweets, the text messages that are coming through. I mean, you could miss something legitimately important just because live sports is going on. I agree. Yeah. Just imagine my mom calling me the next day saying, hey, I tried to call you. I had to go to the hospital for this, this, and that. And I'm like, sorry, mom. I had to turn my phone off because I was behind on the game. I didn't want to get any text messages. Didn't want to ruin the score. Are you okay?

Todd Gallina:

That's so funny. No, I think of the text. So sometimes I won't be watching the game and then I'll get a text about the game and it'll be an uncompleted. I wouldn't understand it. So, for example, during the World Series, a text would come through from a friend. It'll just in all caps, just say Kershaw. And I'll say, like, do you do something good? Do you do something bad? Do you hurt? You know, so then I don't want to ask because then I'm going to find out what's going

Tony Olzak:

on. But that's hilarious. Same boat. It's going to change your life. You should check it out. I mean, I literally can't wait to For the same things like football games, basketball games. I want to try it on everything now. Be purposefully late just so I can see key plays.

Todd Gallina:

Yeah. The later you do it, the better, because, you know, most games are decided late. Most good games. Right. So people will be doing it for Survivor, for Bachelor. You know, they're just going to get right to the end, you know.

Tony Olzak:

Yeah. Watch key smooching until live TV while you're watching The Bachelor. That'll be the next feature.

Todd Gallina:

Oh, that's awesome. Hey, you ready to get to our guest? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, as promised, our guest is an entrepreneur, investor, and three-time founder. He holds an A&P from Harvard Business School and has over 25 patents, granted or pending. He was named Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year finalist in 2010. Currently, he's the founder, president, and CEO of Security AI. which is a Silicon Valley-based identity and data intelligence-driven privacy and protection company. Please join me in welcoming to the show, Rehan Jalil. Rehan, welcome. Thank you so much, and thanks for

Rehan Jalil:

hosting me.

Tony Olzak:

Yeah, it's great. Great to have you on the show, Rehan. To kick us off, we would love to hear more about your current business, Security AI, and why you started it.

Rehan Jalil:

Absolutely. A little bit of background about myself and our team. Myself and our team, we were helping run cloud security business for Symantec. And we've clearly seen that the data and individual rights on this data is becoming a very important topic. In fact, more and more regulations are coming along. And also, as you know, for most of the breaches, it's the data that people or hackers kind of go after, not only creating security issues, but also privacy issues. issues for the people for whose data is actually being stolen and as given new regulations privacy increasingly become digital privacy i should say become a individual right a human right it was very clear to us as a team that a new kind of technology is needed that can provide intelligence about an individual data inside the company and help protect it help meet all the requirements that are needed for a variety of different regulations in different geographies and there was a new need and it's one of one of those things where we could have used our expertise on data protection and data understanding and tying to an identity and then having all the all the various protocols so that is a bit of a background in the company that the chart of the company is to enable privacy rights for the individuals on behalf of the companies and companies are able to kind of build their brand and trust with their users along the way. The company is based in Silicon Valley. We're close to 200 people, strong. The company is young, but we're considered the leader by Forrester in Forrester Wave for privacy management. And this year, at RSA Conference, we were awarded the most innovative award at the RSA 2020. and various different accolades the company actually has accomplished over time.

Tony Olzak:

Yeah, Todd was showing me all those awards from earlier. And I know, Todd, you had a question where you were curious about that side of the equation. Maybe that's a good time to even dig in.

Todd Gallina:

Yeah, absolutely, Rehan. We did see a ton of validation coming from the RSA conference, as you mentioned, from the press. You mentioned Forrester, the analyst community. Is that by design? Do you recommend that founders place potentially a PR person on staff? Is that something that you guys did or is that something that kind of came organically? Can you talk a little bit about how important validation is to a company and how a founder can potentially get that?

Rehan Jalil:

Yeah, I think the most important aspect in validation is understanding what problem you're trying to solve, how big the market is, how many people need it, and a product that if when you actually can show to your prospects and customers, they can immediately resonate with it. And accordingly, when you show to, whether it is in a competition, whether it is to judges, whether it is to media, whether it is to analysts, they can immediately kind of resonate. I think it's anchored on the problem that you're trying to solve. It's anchored on the solution how innovative and differentiated it is that you're actually trying to give into the hands of the customers. I think that is really the core foundation of it. And if that doesn't exist, no amount of marketing, no amount of PR is going to help because there is just no takers to that solution. I think that's the foundation of it. Having said that, of course, you have to pay attention to what your brand message looks like, how you're positioning the company, the solution and the product, of course, is extremely important. In our case, We had zero PR person in-house. It was pretty much driven by a few handful of people inside the company who understood that you had to go to the key stakeholders. And you're putting yourself in some ways, let's say if you go to RSA and you're putting yourself a bit vulnerable in front of a massive, very competent audience, not just the judges, which are extremely competent there, but also the attendees of RSA, as you can tell. um you know often they're they're very much into the details so you're you're putting yourself out there you have to you have to feel comfortable when you put yourself out there similarly when you go to an analyst and you explain the solution you're putting yourself out there and when you participate like for instance the case of forester you actually have to participate in an evaluation process and the outcome of that evaluation may put you in the bottom of the stack also So it's not that they've guaranteed that because you kind of reached out and because there was a PR that an analyst like, you know, who do typically do a very thorough job of evaluating a solution, they're going to put it out there on top among the leaders. So, which means you have to, your product, your positioning actually have to be very, very well prepared and you have to have conviction. Otherwise you could be at a disadvantage also losing any of these, you know, any of these contests and within the analytics community. not being rated nicely is also not a good thing. So I think I would still go back to say product is the anchor of all these things. And then on top of it, you know, as better positioning as we can do. In our case, we didn't have in-house PR.

Todd Gallina:

No, you guys have had a ton of success in that arena. And anytime you kind of present your baby to somebody, you know, the last thing you want to hear is it's ugly. And so definitely knowing that you're solving the right problem and you have the right fit before you engage in kind of that evaluation is huge. So congratulations on that. Thank you very much. Thank you. We wanted to just rewind a little bit. Obviously, we mentioned previously that this is your third go around as a founder. But let's go back to maybe your childhood or even as you were kind of entering college. What in your background made you think that you could be an entrepreneur or a founder?

Rehan Jalil:

Yeah, I think probably not necessarily a design. I thought so. But desire. to create new things, to desire to solve meaningful problems and do it in a way that a lot of people can benefit from it. I think businesses and products exist to serve other people. They exist to solve real problems. And if they can't do that, often they don't have a right to exist. And I think I would say it was that the journey of, I'm of course, technical background on the WCS side of things. So I think that was simply a desire to actually create new things and solve real problems with those creations, right? So that's how I would say the journey kind of started. I came to Silicon Valley also by an accident, you know, in the sense that I didn't have clear understanding that Silicon Valley is that magical place. Happened to be that when I graduated from my graduate program, happened to be that, you know, among many of the offers that there, one of them was in Silicon Valley landed here. But it was very clear that in this space, if you actually have a desire to create stuff, you can actually offer value to other people and that becomes a business. I think that became kind of, I would say that's the path I would say I took up upon. In case of, and I would say it's never an individual. Other realization, I think all you have is never an individual that kind of creates a meaningful thing. It's always a team. Being lucky to actually have the right team that always came together in past ventures, this venture is I would say major part of the reason that we're able to build some highly differentiated offers and create a value along the way. I'll give you an example in security.ai, a part of the reason we felt strong that we can create meaningful differentiated values because the background of the team was coming from data protection, cloud security, clear understanding of how the data needs to be analyzed, classified, and then what can you derive out of it. And of course, we had to put new things on top of it from the lens of the privacy lens, but we knew we can actually pull that off. So pretty much I would say kudos to the team that is there at Security.AI. Pretty much very similar team at the variety of leadership levels and the team levels, which have come also from previous company also, which we've worked together before.

Tony Olzak:

Yeah, that's actually something that we hear quite often. And one of the questions that we kind of get back is this curiosity around picking the founding team. You mentioned how important it was to have a great team. Through three versions of going through this yourself, was there any rhyme or reason of how you picked the founding team? Or was it something that you put in place before you started the journey? Or was it after you already knew what you wanted to do? Walk us a little bit through that. that piece of it. I think many of our listeners are very curious around how you actually assemble that team out of the gate.

Rehan Jalil:

Yeah, I think Security AI was kind of lucky to actually have the founding team and founding team members. And we started as a sizable team to begin with. And part of the reason was the domain knowledge, domain understanding. A big background before Security AI, there was a company called Elastica, which pretty much similar team actually had helped build. And we became Gartram Magic Garden leader, became Forrester number one in CASB, helped define along with some of other fellow competitors, helped define the space of CASB. And it became, of course, one of the top three needs for multiple years in a row. CASB still is thriving. So it is the same team that has helped create this whole category of CASB. And I think it's very obvious that all of us have the aspiration to solve something new. We thought that we actually have solved a very meaningful problem with CASB and, of course, associated infrastructure and service security. And we want to solve something new. And I think it's not only the skill level of the team, but also an aspiration to create something new that resonated. It's not simply the competence. It's also, I would say, you know, the emotion has to come along along the way. And that helped, you know, the people who want to do something, they pull together. Not necessarily that I had to can choose in some ways this is a meeting of the minds and a track record of doing things before really helped so trust existed because we have done you know things before and that was obviously the founding founding team and of course beyond that then the team grew we've been lucky to actually have a built a quite sizable team in a short amount of time and this team has now built i would say seven or eight products under the umbrella of security or ai which actually solves almost every requirement on the privacy side

Tony Olzak:

that is needed. That's awesome. One of the things that I think many people are curious about, because we always hear about the networking in Silicon Valley, and it sounds like you've had direct exposure or worked with many of these folks that became part of the founding team of your current endeavor. In today's remote work kind of environment that we're finding ourselves in, do you feel like the future of talent congregating in places like Silicon Valley is as important and forming those networks? Or what other ways do you think people will be getting exposed to the kinds of talent where you can form great founding teams to go after a big problem?

Rehan Jalil:

It's a great question, actually. I think there is no one answer to it. First, we're not always going to be this remote. I think it's definitely for some time, yes, but eventually I think the world is going to be the way it was before. Yes, there will be some variations of it and how people feel more comfortable, maybe still working more. But I think humans are going to be humans. They're going to basically collaborate together in more physical forms. It's just a matter of time. Yes, there will be more acceptance of remote work, which means Silicon Valley or any other city in which there is a density of talent, capital, education, institutions, legal systems, constructs, all those, they're very fluid. I think those geographies are going to thrive. And Silicon Valley happens to be the poster child, but not the only one, of course. Having said that, especially with open source and software being built across the world and having basically more awareness and contribution levels of people becoming more and more, obviously, transparent on various different forums, I think pulling teams together based on interest, whether they're geographically co-located, I think it's going to be more and more people are clearly examples of the area that necessarily have to be in the same place and, you know, you actually, you know, pull together. Whether, not necessarily just as a founding team, but let's say, you know, following that, where you're putting your team together regardless of where they are based on the skill set that they have and because of transparency that, you know, many open forums bring to, based on the research that they've done or the code they've written and things like that. I think there's going to be more and more of it. No question about it. I would still say the importance of geography is still going to persist for quite some time, but not certainly the Silicon Valley by no means is the only place where the action is.

Todd Gallina:

I like the picture you're painting, the positive one of people getting back together, gathering, sharing ideas. I don't want to speak for Tony, but I know it's definitely something that I've missed, kind of that collaborative things, those impromptu meetings that you just have when people are in the in the same office. So I like that picture that you're painting.

Rehan Jalil:

Yeah, I think, I mean, you can look at it historically, right? The pandemic is not the first time it's happened and much worse, unfortunately, where tens of millions of people suffered and died and the world got back to where it was. Yes, it took time perhaps, but I think that's where it's going to go. But remote work, yes, maybe the more acceptance, it doesn't take away the human collaboration in person that I think creates its own magic.

Todd Gallina:

I wanted to talk a little bit about you, As an advisor on the VC side, I know that you kind of coach folks on starting businesses, being entrepreneurs, being founders. Can you tell us a little bit about the pitch? You know, you're going into a VC firm. You have a great idea. What's the most important part of a pitch?

Rehan Jalil:

Yeah. So I think the VCs, because they see so many deals, perhaps a day, you know, and they have a huge deal flow. Often good VCs have that. Few things they pay attention to. And depending on the VC, you know, of course, everyone has their own flavor. How big is the problem? Like, is it a narrow problem? Is it a big problem? And how is it a growing problem? Is it going to persist as a problem and continue to grow? I think that's one of the first things because they're all trying to go after, for the right reasons, you know, making a bigger impact. And of course, having bigger returns accordingly. How big is the problem? And the second is, what kind of solution that you're trying to bring in, is it differentiated? Or is it going to have, basically, can it hold its ground and be defensible over time? I think that's actually the two fundamental things that start. But of course, team is important, extremely important, because sometimes where you start from, not where you end up. And if there's a good team, perhaps it will navigate along the way. And many people, frankly, many VCs just start with the team. They'll basically have the right team and they'll say, oh, they'll figure it out. And then kind of fund them or seed them initially. And then, of course, the landscape of things, you know, the timing is important, not just the hobby. The problem is timing wise. Are you too early, too late? Are you, you know, at what point you're inserting yourself into the market with that particular offer? And then business model. Is that business model going to be sustainable? How repeatable is that? When you sell it to one customer, can you sell it to thousands of them? The same thing, not a significantly modified thing. And how much effort is going to be to sell something? So I think some of these things become extremely important for most VCs, and that's what they're trying to look for. But again, as we said, because they are listening to many, many entrepreneurs every day, it has to get attention very quickly. Because if you can't really get the attention in first 15, 20, 30 minutes, then you kind of lost that opportunity because there are plenty of meetings happening there for most important VCs out there. I would say these are the most fundamental, basic things. Again, no rocket science, but when the right idea comes and it has all these attributes, they end up getting attention.

Tony Olzak:

So we just covered the pitch, and I think that's, you know, you're starting to hurt along. Let's assume that you get funding from one of the things that we're curious about, and you've had multiple exits and then you're on to your newest endeavor here, is when people talk about pivots. And one of the things that we're curious about is in that original pitch, you've got a vision for the company and the solution, and then you get your funding. How close in your experience were you to your original vision by the time you had some type of exit event? And then how did you think about how you needed to pivot or did you have to at all?

Rehan Jalil:

I think it's a great question. So there are adjustments and then there are hard pivots, right? And then complete, I would say there are two different things. So if you're still trying to solve the same problem and going off the same market and then adjusting the way the market needs this thing to be solved because you're adding new things into it, That adjustment is a continuous thing that any good team would do. In the case of CASB, for instance, we started with Gateway. At least started with the very first thing we did was to put an inline CASB Gateway. And Microsoft Office 365 was new, and Google Drive was there before. We built something for that. And clearly, we started there. But we soon realized that these companies were opening up their APIs. And the things that could be done with the APIs actually could show the proof of value much more quicker. So within the first, I would say, few months, we literally, we didn't give up the gateway side. We added support for the API, which we never started with when we actually initially kind of started the company, Elastica, in 2012. But we very quickly latched onto APIs and became one of the great decisions. It looked technology-wise, because the team was highly technical and they were understood in line traffic controls and all that. We came from, you know, the background of deep packet inspection and so forth. The API looked actually, technology-wise, it looked like too simple. And like, it was to a point that, you know, some of the team members felt like this is just, it's just too simple. Maybe it's not worth, you know, the innovation, you know, aspiration that they have, right? But from market side, it was the right thing to do and that we did. And then we, As we came along the way, we started realizing more and more what the market needs are going to be from data protection side of things to UVA side of things to investigation capabilities. I won't call them pivots, but they were evolution that's happening as most discovery is going on, but we solved the exact same problem at the end of the day. And it became a multi-mode CASB. Basically, only a few companies could do it. We were one of the pioneers in there. And that's the reason it became, you know, the company became, I would say, quite successful. And even companies like Cisco started reselling that product, put that on the global price list and so forth, right? So I would call them, you know, minor pivots or additions or adjustments along the way. We started from, thought we were going to solve one way, but then we figured there are three different ways to solve it and added all of them, right? Same, the very first company, was Y-Chorus. We basically, we knew there is a packet coordinated with a deep packet inspection and you have to build hardware. Those are the times when you actually build your own, you know, boards and systems and FPGs and silicon. You, you know, will integrate all the silicon. But the use of that platform, we realized later in the stage that, you know, 4G networks are coming. So we should use a 4G. We started with the 4G and then we actually had to, even 3G guys can actually use it. So we started adding 3G protocols in it. call it a pivot or addition on the platform, I would say that evolution of the, but we solved the exact same problem where we started from. But what most important thing is to keep an eye on the customer need and adjust. Sometimes adjustments and enhancements are easy. They must be done. And even when they're hard, they must be done because there's no point driving something off the cliff because you just don't want to adjust. Or if it requires a hard turn, I think entrepreneurs should be ready and bold to accept it and take that hard turn instead of actually driving something off the cliff.

Todd Gallina:

That's awesome, by the way, adjustments and hard pivots and keeping an eye on the customer's need and just making sure your adjustments are there. From a personal, internal team level, this is like you mentioned before, just earlier, WeChorus and Elastica, and now with Security AI, is there always an exit in mind? Or have you ever said to yourself, listen, I want to build a company, you know, I want to build a lifestyle company, and we're doing it for the long haul?

Rehan Jalil:

Yeah, honestly, we probably should never have an exit in mind. Because if you have an exit in mind, you're just not building the right way. Yes, exit paths may come along the way, and you can still choose to go one way or the other. But I think if entrepreneurs start with exit in mind, they would probably never build something which is built in a way that others will desire, even desire, right? And that's often a mistake. that gets made, that people start with inception, or they build this thing, it's going to be sold. You never build something that somebody wants to buy at that point. I think the focus intensely has to be on value creation. As I said, businesses exist to offer value to others. Others could be consumers, or others could be people inside a company. It's literally to offer value to some other people, right? And if that is not there, forget about any other good outcomes, right? And if that value creation requires adjustments and pivot, So be it. Somebody should do it and take that hit and do it. But if the value creation is there, good outcomes will happen. Whether it's a lifestyle, whether it's somebody acquires it, I think those outcomes will happen.

Tony Olzak:

You know, it's interesting from Trace3's research department who evaluates startups on a regular basis. We feel like we can identify those who have a strategy to be acquired. Because frequently you're evaluating startups and you realize halfway through the pitch that this is clearly a feature of someone else's platform in the future, not necessarily some great solution on its own.

Rehan Jalil:

Yeah. And you can tell by that. If it's simply a feature, because it's going to be very hard to stand on its own. And if somebody is continuing to build new things and add on to it, they probably have an aspiration to build a platform. They may still be acquired because that's the nature of the markets. and consolidation happens. But at least you can tell the aspiration of the team is to actually create a standalone platform. And we've been lucky in that way. I mean, if you look at last year, CloudSock, CloudSock, you can Google it, it's become the platform within Symantec. It became the fastest growing business in Symantec. At this point, it is the platform for cloud, for IS infrastructure, for CSPM. In fact, many of the other acquisitions are also being integrated into it. including, you know, the web isolation, including the SASE, the reverse proxy for the SASE, all are kind of become part of that, the platform. And it has become a kind of a thing that CloudSoft continues to live as a platform.

Tony Olzak:

One of the things we always love to dive into is just some interesting questions around culture and how important has culture been to the startups that you've founded? And are there anything in, is there anything in common that you've learned along the way that, people should keep top of mind is critical to the success of their company.

Rehan Jalil:

It is super important. And let's think about what culture is. Culture typically is the thing that people do. It's like an organizational habit. People, when they're collaborating, what habits have they actually established over time without knowing they're doing things, right? Without actually perhaps even thinking about it, they're doing things. And that establishes, you know, those small little things that are happening along the way. Organizational habits, I would say, that actually helped define the interaction and the culture inside the company. And there is, of course, no one answer. Every company can have their own culture, but at least for us, a few things have been extremely important. Number one is valuing people's skills and merits, but at the same time, the people who are more humble along the way. It often could be quite disruptive that people who are super talented but also know along the way they just know it all or it's only they want to listen to themselves and it breaks a team team environment right so important that people who are extremely competent but at the same time they understand they don't know it all and there are other people who could complement them and they are willing to basically participate and they want to learn they were the deep desire to actually learn on their own and from others and then it creates kind of the fabric for actually the, I would say, the collaboration side of things, whether it is in-person, whether it is remote, and so forth, right? Other important thing is that it kind of drives from the core funding team. Initial team members who come in, they kind of help not define by writing it somewhere. Yes, writing is important, perhaps, but it's all about how they behave along the way because people see each other and then they want to follow. especially the senior senior team members right so core team initial uh team that comes in i think if they all have certain way of doing things and the new team members come in if the selection criteria is that you want to you know bring in people who can be fit in within that culture i think it helps to you know maintain the culture if you're scaling fast growing fast and this is not uh attention is not paid for to it then often you can end up breaking basically the fabric itself. It doesn't mean that you don't bring diverse viewpoints and all, not at all, or diverse personalities, but the question is, what do they value? Do they value the core things? There's fundamental core things that you're not going to compromise on while you're trying to bring the diversity and the diverse point of view, and it's connected to the team itself, right? But I would say it is an operating system which is invisible, but it dictates how your company operates and whether it actually goes in the right direction or not. It's kind of an invisible operating system inside a company. Extremely important.

Todd Gallina:

Invisible operating system. I don't think anyone's ever kind of described it that way. That's awesome. And in the operating system, the kernel in this case is the core founding team to kind of set it up and have it running. That's awesome. Rehan, is there a gratifying moment for a founder And if so, when does it happen? Is it potentially creating lifetime security for your founding team? Is it when a customer walks up to you and says, you really solved the problem for me and my company. I can't thank you enough. Are there gratifying moments like that for you? And if so, can you share them?

Rehan Jalil:

Absolutely. I think three, four categories, I would say. The customers, when you get any email from them, in case of security, we have a very first customer. A large customer, I'd say. And as soon as we turn them on, their privacy officer sends a note and actually thanks in very kind words for helping solve the issues which they've been otherwise having a hard time dealing with. And I forward it to basically a team and the board. And I think those moments when you feel like it was worth the hard work that you and your team actually put through at that point. It probably was over a year. So the first thing is kind of feeling like, okay, there is acknowledgement that what you built actually has value. And it's actually great for the team because it is hard work. And it's not a short sprint. It's like you're running fast for a very long time. And these things can re-energize everyone, right? That's the first thing. It's gratifying. And over the course of time, I think the other important thing gratifying is that when you pull together for years a team, and if there is a good outcome for everyone, I think that's certainly the most gratifying, I would say. I would say the most gratifying. And which does include, of course, investors, because they put a trust on the team, yourself and the team. And you really want to make sure that they actually have a return along the way. Similarly for the team, you really want to make sure that this is professionally a positive outcome, and of course, you know, a positive outcome on the personal side of things. I would say these stand out as the most gratifying along the way. And thirdly, I would say that when the team, when you start, many team members perhaps start as individual contributors, or they're in the early part of the career, or they're taking the transition, they're jumping from large, large, you know, companies, but taking bigger roles and having the team grow, take bigger roles, whether with you and other places, that's also very gratifying because you, you know, you feel like, okay, people, everyone has aspirations to actually grow, you know, professionally and personally that actually they grew over time. And of course, only the people who actually have aspirations and actually they have, they have the skillset typically and growing, but at least you, It was part of the journey. I think these things are probably the most gratifying along the way.

Todd Gallina:

Yeah, personal growth of the team. That's huge. Hey, Rehan, this has been great. Learned an absolute ton here. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to maybe share something that maybe we didn't ask you. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you'd like to share with future entrepreneurs?

Rehan Jalil:

I think I would probably summarize it, especially for future entrepreneurs. Look at the things that you... that actually interests you or you're passionate about and you're really trying to solve and create value. Don't go after just where you want to be an entrepreneur. That's no fun. It is actually a tough job. It is a long-term commitment on yourself if you want to be an entrepreneur because you can't just walk away because you don't like it. You can't just say, I'm going to switch my job. You're committed to it. You know, you raise money for it. You have a team kind of work along with you. You're going to see it through. So pick up on things where you really think you can create value. So because it's a long, long haul journey and it's going to be more bad days and good days, you know, often which you will be dealing with. Right. But if you're passionate about creating value, passionate about solving some problems and then these will be no problem. Yes, the bad days will not be a problem. We'll go through them. But I would also say that, you know, if you have an aspiration to do things, then take the initiative. There is nothing like jumping into it. You can't really do it part-time. If you actually have that aspiration, then you probably have to jump into it. But before you do that, you know, make sure that this is exactly what you want to do and you're passionate about it.

Tony Olzak:

That was great advice. Thanks, Rehan. You know, we were just talking about that earlier about how If you know what you're shooting for, you can embrace the grind, but it has to be something that you love and that the accomplishment has to be worth it. So love your advice there at the end. And it's been fantastic having you. I think a lot of the advice that you've given, you could tell that you've given a lot of thought that you've been there, done that. And you've almost given other potential founders a framework, let alone answering the question. So just love having you on today.

Rehan Jalil:

Thank you so much for hosting. It's great to be partnering with Trace3. It has been a great partner here before Elastica and really looking forward to the collaboration together.

Todd Gallina:

Great. Well, thanks for hopping on, Rehan. We appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Rehan Jalil:

Thanks so much. Have a great one. Take care.

Outro:

Trace3 is hyper-focused on helping IT leaders deliver business outcomes by providing a wide variety of data center solutions and consulting services. If you're looking for emerging technology to solve tried and true business problems, Trace3 is here to help. We believe all possibilities live in technology. You can learn more at trace3.com slash podcast. That's trace the number three dot com slash podcast.

Intro:

Until next time.