Miguel Armaza sits down with the inspiring Mahmoud Abdelkader, serial entrepreneur and CEO/Co-Founder of Very Good Security, a company that’s on a mission to protect the world’s information by providing essential security and compliance infrastructure for other businesses.

In this episode, we talk about:

- Mahmoud’s journey – moving from Egypt to New York City and how he found his love for entrepreneurship

- Launching Balanced Payments, his first startup over a decade ago, getting into Y Combinator and why every first time founder should try to go to YC

- Understanding Very Good Security’s mission to secure the world's information, and why they want to make data useful in the same way as money

- Challenges of unintended side effects of financial and privacy regulation and what Very Good Security is doing about it

- Getting comfortable with rejection and why you should never underestimate the hunger of immigrant entrepreneurs… And a lot more!

Mahmoud Abdelkader

Mahmoud Abdelkader is the CEO and co-founder of Very Good Security (VGS). He was previously CTO and co-founder of Balanced Payments (exited to Stripe). Prior to that, Mahmoud designed automated product matching systems at Milo.com (acquired by eBay) and built high-frequency trading systems for Wachovia Securities, now a part of Wells Fargo. With experience ranging from Wall Street to early-stage startups, Mahmoud is passionate about democratizing data security. He started Very Good Security to make best-in-class security and compliance attainable for businesses of all sizes.

Very Good Security

Very Good Security (VGS) is on a mission to secure the world’s information. Providing essential security and compliance infrastructure, VGS enables startups and enterprises to focus on their core business instead of compliance and regulatory overhead. VGS customers enjoy a Zero Data™ approach to information security, retaining the value of sensitive data without the cost and liability of securing it themselves. VGS Control accelerates compliances such as SOC 2, PCI, ISO 27001, GDPR, and more. For more information, visit verygoodsecurity.com.