Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 142: Michael Shieh, CEO and Founder at Appaegis, talks about making security professionals jobs easier and how to build a successful sales team

Transcript

142: Michael Shieh, CEO and Founder at Appaegis, talks about making security professionals jobs easier and how to build a successful sales team · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: No doubt there's a ton of complexity in cybersecurity, and anytime your value prop is to significantly reduce that, you are in a strong position.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Find out how AppEGIS is doing exactly that with Michael Shea, its founder and CEO.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Sales Bluebird podcast, which exists because at B2B cybersecurity startups, it is hard to get consistent traction and scale the sales team.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sales Bluebird provides you tips, tricks, experiences, examples, ideas and inspirations for people who know a thing or 10 about building cybersecurity startups.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Andrew Monahan.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Our guest today is Michael Shea, founder and CEO at Aegis.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Michael, welcome to Sales Bluebird.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Andrew.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice that you have me.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation today.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting area we're going to get into.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, though, Michael, we need to know a bit more about you personally.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've got uh a bunch of questions here.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pick out three from my list.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And these are not complicated questions, they don't need to be overthought.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's no catches, just simple, straightforward ones.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: First one is do you prefer a tricked-out Jeep or German car with all the gadgets?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's the interesting question.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: German car.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I always love German cars.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: German car, love it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: iOS or Android?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: iOS, definitely.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because I use iPhone.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just the way it is.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Always have.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Final one.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: What is one event in the world that you have not been to that you would love to go to?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, interesting.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: CES.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: CES?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I haven't been there.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard somebody go thin about it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's got a it's legendary CES, right?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Going back uh going back in the day.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Trouble is you have to go to Vegas.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's the trouble about that one, right?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, is it trouble or is it pressing?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's talk about business then.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So Abby just is here at RSA this week.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested, first of all, where are you on the journey of growing the company?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: What can you reveal about size, employees, things like that to give us a feel for where you're at?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think we are still in the early stage of the company.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have a product, we have deployed, and customers use it, but we want to grow and scale into a level that be able to really solve more customers' issues.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you've got a you've got something in market and now you're in the scaling customers.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when were you founded?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: We are founded about three years ago in 2019.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And funding-wise, have you taken a round or two?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yes, we got the C founding about$7.7 million, Q4 last year.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Congrats.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, Michael, I'm a salesperson at heart over many years, and I'm also from Scotland, and we're simple people.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Explain to me in words that I would understand what Appy just does.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: What we try to do is we define how to secure remote access.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And today, you know, there's uh many different different solutions by there designed by different locations or applications.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, usually companies deploy the VPN to connect the application inside their data center.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: They have deployed something called ZTNA Zero Trust Network Access for something in the application in the cloud.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: They got the CASPI, uh cloud application security broker for the SAS application.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: They got the secure gateway for the internet, they got the VDI for their uh contractors.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: But by the end of the day, all this solution actually is really secure a user to the web application.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, today, you know, it divides into five different industries, and to really secure a person in the organization, you actually need to deploy five solutions for that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we take the different view from there.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if we can secure from the source, will the user connect to the application, and that pretty much is a browser itself.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if we can secure a browser, then we actually sub everything there.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you use the word secure browser.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me more about what that means.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: How we build is like this.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, today, you know, even you deploy file solution, you're actually still missing the visibility and control of what the user does.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say, you know, how user using the username, what's their password, get into the application.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Found the networking layer technology, you have no idea because those are all packed into the uh digit in the wire.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: But if we be able to build a browser, be able to observe all the interaction between the user and application, you actually got a lot more inside there.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know exactly where user goes, what's the identity they use to log in, what's the data they download, what's the content of the file.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: All this become much easier to retrieve and be able to monitor and control.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So with that, you can really deploy just a simple browser on customer's laptop.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then you know, from remote side, the IT and security be able to remote control and see all the activity there, and then be able to really help the whole organization to secure uh the user's access.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So are you providing the secure browser or are you plugging into the browser?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's very good questions.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: We provide a secure browser.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: The browser is not really just uh doing the browsing to the internet.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: They actually have a security element to connect to the SARS application.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's also built in kernel to connect to the private application to do it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because by the end of the day, for users, they are accessing the application.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: They don't really care where the application is.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: But for then, you come to the browser, you log in from your existing identity provider.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then you got all the applications that you are allowed to access and hand.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's easy you connect and to the application without go through another login, without go through another credential check, or that everything will be really integrated with the browser itself.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then in the browser, then access obviously is secure access what's providing.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: But does it do like DLP things?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Does it do traffic inspection?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very good question.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: We actually focus on three areas.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: One is the networking.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: We can control where the user can connect to.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: The second is uh who they are.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: What's the identity they log into?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think about identity is really, oh, you can integrate with an identity provider like Okta or HOAD.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: We actually think that's the really basic one.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: The more important one is how user log into internal applications because that really check into who they really are present into the application.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: This actually is oversight by many applications right now.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: When we be able to use it, leverage the browser capability to really see what's the identity they log in into each application.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: What's the password potential they use for that?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we can really monitor and enhance that to prevent any unauthorized login.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then because you're doing that, is it more for internal employees or third parties use cases?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's very good questions.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: We apply to all, of course, you know, again, initial traction, initial customer, they move by into the third-party contractor assets.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because right now, contractor is a higher highest risk user in their environment.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And usually they have very limited way to do that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: What we see the most popular way to deploy today is really deploying VPN plus VDI.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with VDI is either on and off.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you either give them the old assets or now.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And even with a VDI, it still doesn't control where they go, what's the identity they log into internal cloud location, what's the file they download, you actually still miss that.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we can really complement that, you know, either install as a browser on the user side to help them to connect to all the different locations, or you can even install it inside a VDI environment if you want.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we can instantly enable all the secure assets for that particular user.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you're covering a lot of different areas there.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm wondering who the buyer is inside a company.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is it coming out of security, out of networking, out of application groups?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Today our focus with the security team.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think the main buyer is really CISO and security team.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them is really like VP or director of ITSS, because this is really part of the remote access control.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then they've been operating with VPNs and maybe they just are started doing ZTNA, things like that.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: What's going to cause them to go a different path?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is there some event or some type of customer that's actually a better fit for you based on what they're doing?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think because the awareness of a zero trust, a lot of people start thinking about, you know, do I really have a good visibility and control on the traffic go through VPN?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, which technology I should go to?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they can move to the let's say Zero Trust Network access, which really focuses on the internal application.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Are you still meeting and with the visibility on the networking side, you know, not even the identity side?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or they can really think about, okay, maybe I need to deploy the Caspi, the cloud application security broker, and that's for SaaS application.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then they think about, okay, then I need to protect them, you know, on the internet access as well.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the SWG come in.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually, if you really need to secure all the new users, you just need to deploy four or five, which a lot of people actually don't do that because not only the cost of the it deployed, it's also the effort to really maintain and integrate that.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually see a lot of people just skip some of them just because uh the fully deployed with all the management effort is just too much for a lot of security.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Would you say that's the bigger driver then for someone?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a cost reduction or operational efficiency argument?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say less on the real cost the purchase cost, but really the management effort and be able to provide the enough security for that.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because even with a combination of this uh solution, you mostly really target to where they go to, you can see that, but not really missing a lot of insight of what's the customer or what's the user assets too.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then if I'm uh enterprise, I'm is enterprise that's your prime market?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: We target enterprise uh customers.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And why would they not do this, right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: What would cause them to say, no, we we don't want the all-in-one approach?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're happy with our five different different systems.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say a lot of times it's uh status quo.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I already deployed all this, and so I'm comfortable with this.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we do see a driver for that.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like earlier this year, actually, there's one company that used deploy VDI for their contractors.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we see the attack come in, you know, just because uh there's a stolen identity.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the hacker actually uses an identity to log into their VDI environment.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Once they get in there, they actually go to the GitHub.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And from there, they download all the explorer tools into their the VDI environment.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And with the tool, so right now they can do all the previous escalation, they can do all the lateral moves and all that.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that actually the VDI is even we think is a security mechanism, eventually become the bed for the hacker to launch all the different attacks there.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But with that, you know, if we using our solution, it will be much secure because right now where they go, how they look in, who are they looking, we all check that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So with that, there's much less attack service that security the hacker can explore.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Especially right now, there's no window as a launching pad inside a company because nothing really they can really store to do that.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it reduces the attack service a lot.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what is it about App EGIS, that's the big innovation?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is there something under the covers that makes this enables you to bring all this together?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I think there's two things.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: One is that we actually develop the browser with all the technology so we can really observe all the activity there.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the second is that we actually integrate this browser with all the cloud services there.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we can bring in the keyboard, we bring in the cloud IAM system, all that to make everything uh secure.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So right now you can get away a lot of networking inside.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to redirect the traffic from the end user to certain network points to do the inspection or that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: All traffic can just go directly to the internet.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's do away with all the complexity about forwarding, optimize the traffic.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have that issue at all.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we do create a control plane to integrate the closer with the cloud services.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So right now you can leverage the keyboard to do the overall protection there.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we were at RSA this week, Michael, and uh you know, you go on the floor out there, and there's hundreds of, if not thousands, of vendors.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're all using similar words to describe what they do.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: How are you thinking about the company apps and how you rise above the noise out there and get the attention that you believe you deserve?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, you know, we define how the secure assets work by the browser technology.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think that really brings us differentiate from all the other vendors who try to use a networking layer to try to encrypt the traffic to insulate the content there.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's only so much information that you can derive from the networking side.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what we do is really from the source and from the browser side, we see all the interaction there.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where we can really provide a lot more information and security than other vendors.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you want your prospects to understand that everyone else does a network level with the limitations, and you've got this unique approach, thinking about it much more at a higher level, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And also I talked to a lot of customers.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you mention that protect the same user, you need to deploy a solution.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, they all think that that's like that's so strange.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's something should be changed.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, that's where we are today in the industry.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you just need to deploy all the different solutions to protect a user.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because today the user always access to internal applications, they access the SARS, they go to the internet.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And all you just need, you know, with a today, you just need all the five different solutions to protect the same user.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: For us, you know, it's protect from the source, uh, we just you know deploy our simple browser and you got everything covered and with even better security.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean that's the good thing is you can offer simplicity, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the challenge, as you said before, status quo, is you know, five different solutions, different buyers, users, people with their own little they're trying to protect, and they like advanced features and their whatever, you know, Web Gateway, their VPN, their PDI.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's probably some resistance there to try and you know move away from that from them.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is why our you know market entry is targeted a third-party vendor assess.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because we talked to a lot of CSO, they actually don't they are not satisfied what they have the tool today.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's very protection for them, you know, using existing VPN, VDI solution.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they want something more secure.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so third-party access is a great entry point for you.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of go-to-market then, do you have a sales team right now?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we're gonna have a couple enterprise sales executive.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you started off hiring individual contributors, not a leader.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that right?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: What was your thinking behind that?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think you know, we are early, and so we want to have an individual contributor, you know, sales executive to really talk to the customer, get the feedback, and really you know, tune our product to really fit for the customer.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: We are not really in the stage to have a DP scale the entire sales team for that yet.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you got two people who are having the interactions learning from their discussions with prospects, right?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: How did you think about the type of person that was the right one to hire for those two first roles?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because as you say, there's a lot of learning going on, not just selling, which is different, right?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, we like to have a sales person, have a curiosity about what's the solution there and be able to articulate well about the public domain.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think on the security side, a lot of time you need to be able to speak unknowledgeable about what's the user's issue is and how our solution can help them to solve their the issue.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are the salesperson that we are looking for.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So curiosity was was a big driver.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: How did you know when you had someone who was curious?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, a lot of times from the talking, you know, you can see they are not really, the person is not really limited to a certain specific domain of knowledge.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, usually they will see broader view about what's the security, what's the tool deployed there, how do that affect the customer's deployment, or that you know, they're showing that they are curious about all the different spectrum of the security industry.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're thinking around it rather than just in one specific area, right?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's good.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you back them up with an SCE, a pre-sales engineer?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we do have an SE support that.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then how are you thinking about when is the right time to bring in a leader?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is really when we see the business scale, and that's where we want to, you know, let's say from two to ten salespers, then you you need a leader there to be able to uh scale the sales team, get everyone to have a proper training, and be able to push out the message to all the customers.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And is your primary route direct, or are you going through channels or SIs as well?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for now, since you know not many people know the company yet, so we go directly.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: We try to get more customers.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, we try to bring in the partner as well, for them to really you know understand the market and be able to understand what we do and what's our value, which that we can expand into our channel and partner sales.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, fair enough.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember your first customer?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: First end customer?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: How did you find them or how did they get in touch with you?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is it well, you know, interesting that you know the I think for the early startup, the first sales usually is all networking.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, and this happened to someone I know, but it's interesting if when I present to them, you know, talk about how our solution can solve the issue, they actually bring up their requirement because they happen to look exactly the same solution there.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really they need to have some help for third-party assets that there's no solution that can really fulfill what I need in a market.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So they were already thinking about it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when we present our solution, hey, this is a benefit we provide, is that match to what they require?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's a really awesome experience when we do that.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And for those early customers, they're essentially design partners, early adopters, right?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: How do you interact with them to make sure you get back the information you need?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a set cadence?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a process to do it?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have uh by weekly uh meeting with them to get a feedback, and also, you know, there's any issue or that, we resolve right away.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really, you know, we help him then to really be able to provide a service very quick.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then, you know, traditional way you go to a big vendor, then you wait for like you know one year to get the feature that you need.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've talked about this with founders before, is that you know, in cybersecurity, especially, I think, you know, startups have a role, a significant role to play, right?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can deliver something in two sprints.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go to the big company, they'll deliver something in two years.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, who doesn't wait for two years is the attackers.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: So in terms of relevance and and the role for a startup, I think cybersecurity, it's so important.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they need the innovation, they need fresh approaches to come in.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because uh a lot of cybersecurity is really, I would say, event driven.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got instant or you find out there's something that there's an issue, you want to fix right away.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: You will not really be able to wait in for like yeah, one or two years and things hanging there.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you have the two sales folks.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Are you still involved in the selling as a founder?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, as a starter, your founder always needs to be involved, yes.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the areas uh I think some companies struggle with is how do they switch down the involvement from the founder and enable the sales team to you know do their job without having to rely on having you on their shoulder.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if you've got any thoughts or how you're thinking about that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I consider that as a part of the sales training, you know, you always need to have uh a constant training for your sales guide so they can pick up.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think the startup moves so fast, a lot of times you have new features or new use cases that come up, and you just need to constantly deliver the same message or the new scenario to your salesperson so they can pick it up, be able to articulate the use case to the customers.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: They have to take that on board pretty quickly, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, I enjoyed our conversation.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: You guys are seem to be on an incredible journey.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Really wish you all the best for 2022 and beyond.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: If someone wants to continue the conversation with you, Michael, how would you recommend they get in touch with you?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, and just visit our website.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can always find there and contact us, or maybe just uh send me the email.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my email is michael at atpegis.com.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome to do that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And at PGS is A-P-P-A-E-G-I-S.com, right?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really a combination of a two or APP application, uh, EGIS, you know, AEG I S as a share.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I enjoyed the conversation.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wish you all the best.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, too.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed that conversation with Michael.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was thinking about it afterwards, I had three big takeaways.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: One is they're going after a really big use case, but they're getting success starting with third-party access.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: So they're picking a smaller use case to get in and get traction with prospects.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when you're working with people, having something more tangible and smaller is often the way to least get in and get conversations going.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Secondly, was their start off with the sales team was to hire two AEs, not to hire a leader who then builds a team.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because as Michael said, what they really want to do is have lots of conversations, lots of lots of interactions with prospects so they can learn about what's going on.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he feels right now that they're at the stage or we're at the stage where two AEs plus him and maybe one other person internally might actually be able to handle all the workload of doing that.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it was an interesting way to get going in the sales team.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And thirdly, when he was uh talking about what he looks for in salespeople, Michael said that the primary thing that he looks for is curiosity.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I actually really liked what he said about this because at an early stage, being curious and being willing to just be open-minded to listen and learn and try to understand what's really going on with prospects can make the difference in terms of the speed at which you get go-to-market fit and start being able to scale the sales team.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's only in that curiosity do you truly hone the sales messaging, the ways you describe things, the ways that you position against other people or other vendors in the marketplace.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: That curiosity is going to give you that insight to be able to do that.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, really important.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, those are my big three takeaways.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious if you have ones that are different to those or you support those ones too.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: But uh good conversation with Michael.