Hugo:

rThreat:

Alex:

Archis:

Polyverse:

Ike:

TidalScale:

Michael is the CEO of Virta Labs, a healthcare security company building a platform for medical device management. He also founded his own consultancy to help start-ups acquire funding through traditional and non-dilutive mechanisms like government grants. He’s especially well-versed in the financial and legal aspects of startups which are tricky for so many founders.

With me in this episode is Eric Cole. Eric is the CEO and Founder of Secure Anchor Consulting, where he has provided guidance for companies of all sizes and the Obama administration. He is also an established author who will have a total of 8 published books after the release of Cyber Crisis at the start of June. In the episode we dive into the common themes between entrepreneurship and authorship, and how he became successful in both.

Pre-order the book now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cyber-Crisis-Protecting-Business-Threats/dp/1950665836

The average professional's experience with cybersecurity generally involves phishing training, and that is a brutally dry introduction.

Oz Alashe at Cybsafe is working to revolutionize the world of security training, and he won't stop until he has influenced training across the globe. Listen to this episode for his embarrassing icon that influenced his joining the UK paratrooper regimen and his outlook for the future after raising $8 million earlier this year.

Pete is a guru in the entrepreneurship space. He is currently acting as VP of Business Development for two different companies and CEO of his own consultancy, all while acting as an advisor and board member for several others. Pete is a clear "people person", and his stories of innocent connection followed by subsequent business opportunities are incredulous. Tune in to hear about his recipes for success for start-ups that sometimes go against commonly accepted ideas.

As Wayne put it, security companies are often boring. To his credit, ThreatQuotient is far from it. The company has grown to over 100 employees since Wayne founded it with his coworker, Ryan Trost, back in 2013. The team has raised over $50 million in funding, and some portion of that has gone toward adopting three rhinoceroses, the company's logo and official mascot. On this episode, Wayne discusses his burning desire to become a founder before he succeeded with ThreatQuotient, the time commitment in a new venture, and the decision to step down from CEO in order to let the company continue its incredible growth trajectory. Enjoy!

While episodes so far focused on the stories of founders, in this episode I interview the hosts of the Extreme Uncertainty podcast, Mike Ravenscroft and Mike Leffer, who are prominent venture capitalists in the security space. The episode includes a glimpse into the untraditional routes into VC as well as several tips for founders looking for funding and idiosyncrasies of the security market when looking at potential investments. This is one of my favorite episodes so far, as it provides additional background as to the struggles of every founder I have interviewed on the show.

Their podcast can be found by searching "Extreme Uncertainty" wherever you listen to Secure Ventures, or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/extreme-uncertainty/.

Vladi has been through the gamut of cybersecurity roles including experience with the military, teaching, consulting, product, and entrepreneurship. After quickly rising through the ranks of Israel's cyber security arm, he entered the private sector where he gave up his free time for several years as he worked in consulting during the day and on coursework at night, including founding a security program at his alma mater shortly after graduating. Now, Vladi is leading Lightspin in the red-hot cloud security space with a novel approach to defense through graph visualization. His company has been growing rapidly, and incredibly he has done this while keeping an even balance between men and women despite the male-dominated field.