Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / The MMA ring for cybersecurity: inside Hackerverse's product showdowns

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The MMA ring for cybersecurity: inside Hackerverse's product showdowns · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

0:00
Welcome back to AI for Founders. I'm Ryan Estes, the show where
0:04
we explore how top entrepreneurs are using AI to build the
0:07
future. Today's guest is Mariana, the
0:09
brilliant mind behind hackerverse dot AIA platform
0:13
building community and intelligence for the next wave
0:16
of hackers and makers. Mariana is one of those rare
0:19
founders who blends St. level hustle with deep philosophical
0:22
insight. Her favorite tools?
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GPT, of course, and a lesser known gem called Valadia, I
0:29
think. Valedia, Oh my gosh, Valedia.
0:32
We'll go with that. If she could wave a magic wand
0:35
and create something tomorrow, it would be inbox aggregation
0:38
for your emails and for Slack and Discord, a universal inbox
0:42
that actually works. Boy, if someone creates that,
0:45
let me know. I want that too.
0:46
And if she were entering college today, she'd skip the hype and
0:49
study trades and liberal arts because Mariana believes real
0:53
intelligence needs to be both useful and timeless.
0:57
But she's also not naive. The scariest thing about AI, in
1:00
her view? Total agentic warfare.
1:03
Yikes. Yep, that's the Cliff.
1:05
We're all dancing there. Now.
1:06
Let's dive in. But first, some business.
1:10
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2:17
Great. Thanks so much for having me.
2:19
Truly a pleasure being here today.
2:20
I'm really excited for this conversation.
2:21
Me too. I'm so excited and I want to
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jump right in. So I mentioned when we just
2:25
hopped on that I had done extensive research on you and
2:29
I'm really excited about this largely because we seem like
2:31
kindred spirits. And I wanted to start with a
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quote that I read, I believe it was on LinkedIn and you said for
2:38
non-technical founders, words are our code.
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And I love that. I I was hoping you could kind of
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expand on that idea and what you meant by that.
2:48
Well, first of all, I love this. You you did do some deep
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research because that was from a couple of months ago, I think.
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So good. Now I love it.
2:57
Yeah. So I think, you know, there's
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mindsets when it comes to founders, right?
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Like you need technical founders, obviously, because
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they're going to be the, the folks, you know, obviously
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putting the, the code together to build these platforms and,
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and, and, you know, go out and sell these the, so you have a
3:14
complete product. I'm rambling at this point, but
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I wanted to hit on the fact that I think there are different
3:23
skill sets needed. And I, I don't think that's new
3:25
news. But when it comes to how you
3:28
sell products, this is very top of mind for me in cybersecurity
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because you have a lot of really brilliant technical founders who
3:35
can't tell you anything about their product or sell it
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coherently. And so I think there is, it's an
3:42
undervalued skill set to be able to really effectively tell the
3:45
story of the company, the why and why it's so important, you
3:50
know, the pain points that it's solving.
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And that's just my way of expressing that, I guess.
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But I did, I did love that too. When that came out of my braid,
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I was like, oh, that's a good one.
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It was great. And your company of course is
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called Hackerverse and you have a very interesting story because
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you kind of came from education to cybersecurity, you know,
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which is just such a clear, distinct straight line.
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I would love to hear the evolution of how Hackerverse
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came to be. I believe you guys launched in
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2023, is that correct? Yeah.
4:22
So we launched in 2023, had a rebrand.
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Initially we came to market as kicker, but the evolution of
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this, yeah, started in education, moved to nonprofit,
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then became a marketer. I think the common thread with
4:35
everything that I have done is that storytelling makes you
4:39
better at everything, especially when you're talking to students,
4:42
especially when you're talking to donors, especially when you
4:45
know you're talking to to VCs. So that's the the kind of the
4:49
common thread of everything that I've done.
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But to the point of how hacker burst came to be.
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I met my Co founder in the late 20/20/2022.
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He told me his vision for building essentially a try
5:02
before you buy platform for technical software.
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We're kind of exploring some different tag lines, including
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the new evaluation layer for a high stakes software.
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We'll see if that would fit. Tagline TBD.
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But what kind of got me to join the company was that I had
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really experienced the challenges of enterprise sales
5:25
first hand. I call it the existential dread
5:28
of clicking on the talk to sales button.
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You're going to be stuck in that sales process.
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You're going to be on their e-mail list, you're probably
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going to get their text messages even after you've decided you
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don't want it, don't want that product, it's not the right fit
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for you. And so all I wanted to be able
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to do, a lot of times it's like touch play, use software, and
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the free trials weren't doing it for me.
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So when I met Craig and he told me about his vision for that, I
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got it immediately, initially came on board as an advisor and
5:55
then became CEO. So sometimes that, you know,
5:58
it's shoes. I feel like it was very kismet.
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I was having, I was going through another sales challenge.
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I met Craig and I was like, yes, this makes so much sense.
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Yeah, no, it's amazing. And you walk us through, I'm
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coming to your website, What am I going to do?
6:13
What are the first steps I'm taking on your your website and
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why am I there? Yeah.
6:18
So that we have two different buyers or two different segments
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that we're kind of catering towards.
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One are enterprise cybersecurity buyers.
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So these are going to be Csos, head of IT departments.
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These could potentially be a managed Security Service
6:32
providers, anyone that is looking to purchase enterprise
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security software. And so there are two different
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parts of the the platform. So 1 is a self-service on
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technical evaluation piece of things.
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We have a couple of vendors on the platform right now working
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to really expand that out. But the vision is you come to
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the platform, you'll take some sort of quick onboarding
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assessment. I really want it to be like
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Street Fighter where you have to choose your fighter.
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And yeah. And who said onboarding surveys
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have to be boring? So that's what I'm envisioning
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for that. So choose your, choose your
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Street Fighter, go through this assessment and then it'll shoot
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you over to like, you know, three recommended products based
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on the inputs that that you have there.
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And then from there you just dive in and do the POC.
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So we also have some magic around there around creating
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production environments that are matched to what the buyers
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environments look like so that they know that this is like a
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good replica of what their systems are and you know the
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testing will work for them. And then on the other side, we
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have cybersecurity vendors. So the folks actually selling
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the software that have the have the products.
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And so the ROI for them there is that it's really long sales
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cycles. So for enterprise sales,
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sometimes 12 to 18 months to complete this process.
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A huge portion of that is focused on POC.
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The POC stage can take 3 to 6 months. 70% of POC's like are
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not successful. So it's a huge, it's a huge
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bottleneck in the sales process. So we take vendors through an
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onboarding process that relies largely on generative AI.
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We're also building in some agentic AI.
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But essentially what we're able to do is scrape information
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about their product, competitive delta, all of that, and then
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stand up a POC and host it in AWS in a matter of hours,
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depending on how quickly we're able to work with a vendor.
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So if we're talking about, you know, previously three months to
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even sometimes launch these things, right, like the values
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there. So that's, that's, that's what
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we're that's what we're doing and that's who we're focusing
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on. I would say cybersecurity
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startups, Series A to CA to D great fit for us looking to
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scale their sales engineering team without a huge head
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headcount. And then on the other side, you
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know, C sones, that's that's a broad category, but I would say
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there's a lot of opportunity for highly regulated industry,
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healthcare, financial services, all that kind of stuff because
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they need to stay in compliance, right?
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They're the ones who are, I would say, you know, most under
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threat. Maybe that's an exaggeration,
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maybe that's a assumption, but you know, they're, they're
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constantly getting targeted and, and are in need of the best
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software around. So I would say those are the
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kind of folks that we're looking to get involved with on both
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sides of the equation. 100% So I'm coming to the website.
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I have a certain use case I want, I get a recommendation
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from Hackerverse 3 and these are replicas.
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Is that basically what it is or is it an actual demo?
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Yeah. So it's a it's a digital replica
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of the buyer's production environment.
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But within that production environment we actually have
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dropped in the vendor products. So it's it's think about it like
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a cyber range for sales purposes or a sandbox for, you know, for
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sales purposes. So it's actual hands on use of
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the product. It's not a video walkthrough,
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you know, it's not a screen scrape or anything like that.
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It's actual product. Amazing.
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And I know you guys do kind of events and you do kind of red
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team things and talk to me a little bit about those.
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Yeah, so those are fun and, and generating a lot of buzz in the
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industry. I think there's been a lot of
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complaints for a long time about the sales process and, and those
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continue to be louder and louder.
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And so someone asked me a couple of months ago on a on a podcast,
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well, if you know, if the marketing isn't working for
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cybersecurity, what should like, what should marketing look like?
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My answer was just show the people how the product works.
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So that's what the world had programs are.
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So it's a capture the flags situation where you have red
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teamers who are essentially trying to work their way through
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a system to capture specific flags or achieve certain goals.
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And then the blue team, which is the defenders is where we put
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the vendor products. So they're the ones defending
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the system. And so essentially it's real
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time product validation. There's certain tasks that the
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vendor or the red team has to go through in order to capture
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these flags. And the goal is to showcase, OK,
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so here's how the vendor product is performing in action.
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We have these, you know, realistic attacks happening.
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How is the product performing against that?
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We do a lot of work with the vendor ahead of time to, you
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know, make sure we're showcasing their, their, their product in,
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in, in a way that it makes sense.
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And we do a lot of work with them.
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And sometimes there's some product hardening that needs to
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go on in advance of that. But ultimately what you're
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seeing at the outcome at the at the end of that is, you know, a
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hardened product that we can give the stamp of approval to
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and that people can watch in real time, perform without
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needing to, as I mentioned earlier, click on the dreaded
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talk to sales button. They don't need to do that
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anymore. Is the blue team the actual
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engineers from the vendor? It's the vendor and and yeah,
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it's typically they're engineers or possibly like sales
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engineers, like whoever. Yeah, that.
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So that's exactly who it is. How?
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Open, are they to this? I mean, it's this seems like
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pretty high stakes, right? I mean, it should be high
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stakes, yeah. The tools that we're putting
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into, you know, banks and hospitals, like they should be
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performing, but they're not, obviously.
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And sometimes human error is to blame, but sometimes it's other
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things. Umm, so my argument to that
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would be it should be, yeah. So you know, the, it's
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interesting to kind of see the evolution of this because
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there's a lot of younger players entering the space, specifically
12:28
AI, cybersecurity and security for AI tools that are new,
12:33
right? Obviously, this is a brand new
12:35
area of opportunity for cybersecurity and so they are
12:39
looking to break into a crowded market.
12:41
There's a lot of skepticism. And so I think they are looking
12:45
for a different way to go to market and sell their product.
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And so we are that, you know, we are that that's what Hackerverse
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is doing. And so it's interesting because
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I talked to ACISO a couple weeks ago who had a really valid
12:59
point, which was, you know, we're still building out our LLM
13:02
systems from the ground up and we're building out of all this
13:05
tooling. I don't even know if I would
13:06
have a way to like test these products internally because
13:09
everything is so brand speaking new.
13:11
So, you know, newer, newer players on the scene, great
13:16
option for us. And I think there's going to
13:18
become a time when there's kind of a sea change and there's
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enough of these younger players on the block that are on the
13:25
platform who, you know, get the hacker reverse stamp of
13:28
approval, hacker tested, hacker approved that some of the bigger
13:32
players, you know, are are going to start taking notice.
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I would also say that a lot, there's a lot of acquisitions
13:40
that happen in cybersecurity. So it may be an interesting way
13:42
for some of these younger startups to get on the radar of
13:46
these bigger industry players, showcase how their products work
13:49
and potentially get acquired. So just some just something to
13:53
noodle on there too. We talked to a lot of like AI
13:57
security folks on this podcast largely because exactly what you
14:00
said, it's moving so fast and it's accelerating on top of
14:05
that. So you have, you have CE OS
14:07
changing their entire business model to fit an AI paradigm that
14:11
they don't know what it is. They just know that they have to
14:13
pave it as hard as they can. So they've tasked the
14:16
engineering department like, Hey, we need something sparkly
14:19
and new immediately tell me what it is.
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And, and then what I've seen is like kind of the, the C cells
14:25
are like in the background being like, hey, guys, hey, guys,
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whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's, let's make sure we don't
14:30
have vulnerabilities. Because I mean, not only they're
14:32
like, obviously loss of revenue cause of, you know, client
14:36
vulnerability and stuff like that, but also massive for lack
14:41
of compliance. What, what, what's the
14:44
temperature? You're working with a lot of sea
14:46
So's you're working with a lot of companies that are kind of
14:48
racing to fill some of these gaps.
14:50
How are they doing? We're all.
14:54
Running around like chickens with their head cut off All of
14:57
us. And, and you know, even the AI
15:00
security companies, they're just like, you know, it's, it's, it's
15:04
evolving every day, right? And, and so, and now you think
15:07
about like agents within a system and how individual agents
15:12
within a larger system and like every step of the, every like
15:16
layer of a stack needs to be secured.
15:18
But the, the prevalence of agents is going to continue to
15:20
grow. I mean, there's just a lot of
15:22
work that needs to be done. I mean, I got so overwhelmed
15:25
even thinking about it. Like our, you know, our CSO
15:28
that's on our board. And I was like, I'm glad that's
15:30
your job and not mine because like, I mean, it's, it's a hard
15:34
job. And and and and part of the
15:36
challenge is too, you can have industry best practices, but by
15:39
the time you've decided on the industry best practices, however
15:43
long that takes you to decide what those are six months, you
15:47
know, down the line, that may not even be valid, right?
15:50
So I think honestly, the solution in in my book is that,
15:54
and you know, this is this is happening.
15:56
There's collaboration, you know, out there at organizations and O
15:59
Wasp is adapting, but consistent ongoing collaboration is going
16:05
to be T here, right? Because it's just going to
16:08
continue to be a larger, larger challenge.
16:10
Totally. Now you've described yourself
16:13
before as a professional boat rocker, and I want to talk to
16:18
you about about the the brand change Kicker was a great name,
16:22
but Hacker Verse is awesome. I love it because it has kind of
16:25
a cool retro feel a little bit. But also we're talking about tip
16:29
of the spear AI stuff, which I would love.
16:32
Like if I was a vendor, I would definitely show up for these red
16:36
light or red team tests. And I would love it even more if
16:39
I got a ski mask that said Hacker Verse on it so everyone
16:43
knew I was a hacker. Talk to me a little.
16:47
Bit about I love that. About storytelling and kind of
16:51
the name change and why you guys decided on that name?
16:55
Yeah, so it was interesting because the Hackerverse was a
17:00
community and the community existed before the brand did,
17:04
interestingly. So it existed on Discord and
17:06
then the the brand went through a couple iterations before I
17:11
came on board. Craig had named it Red Locust.
17:14
And I was like, absolutely not. No, we're not calling the
17:17
company that done Dunzo. So we landed on Kicker and it
17:23
was causing a lot of brand confusion.
17:25
Wait, what's the hacker verse? What are the world hacker games
17:28
and your Kicker? What's the relationship here?
17:30
And so I loved Kicker from all the copywriting like tweaks he
17:35
could do with it, like kicking the tires and, you know, cute
17:38
little things like that 'cause I do a lot of writing and, but,
17:42
but you know, it's, it's, I think it's really helpful to be
17:47
able to tap into, you know, our cybersecurity chops and
17:51
cybersecurity roots. And my Co founder's been a sales
17:55
engineer leading FC teams for going on 25 years now.
17:58
He's been, you know, in cybersecurity almost since the
18:01
inception of cybersecurity at this point.
18:05
And so, but cyber trust cyber and cyber for being how a large
18:12
and highly technical industry still in a lot of ways really
18:16
relies on human relationship and trust more than any other
18:19
industry I think I've ever been part of.
18:22
We're also freaking paranoid for, I mean, good reasons, like,
18:25
you know, it's warranted to be paranoid.
18:28
But that being said, I think, you know, you have to build that
18:31
trust and, and tapping into, like I said, the cybersecurity
18:36
chops of our team and, and background, I think is really
18:39
important and gives us kind of, I don't want to say immediate
18:43
validation of trust with, with that community, but I, I think
18:47
it is something that people love and recognize.
18:51
And then, you know, I think the other part of the equation here
18:55
too, is that we are tapping into kind of different layers of the,
19:00
the buyer persona. So obviously Cisos are
19:03
important. They hold the, the purse strings
19:04
often and they may be the final decision makers in, in terms of
19:08
which tools are going to be purchased.
19:11
But a lot of times they are not the ones starting that process.
19:14
They pass that off further down the food chain to their team
19:17
members, their practitioners. And so if we have that kind of
19:21
hacker persona, you know, that goes along with the brand, I
19:26
think those are the kind of folks who have gravitated
19:29
towards us, you know, as we've been building and, and, and
19:31
seeing us build this and in, in public and not being stealth.
19:35
And they've been along for the journey.
19:37
I think that's important too, because we want to make sure
19:40
that we have those folks in our universe because they're going
19:43
to be evaluating tools and eventually they may be the
19:45
seesaws themselves. So we don't want to make sure,
19:49
we want to make sure we're not overlooking that segment of, of,
19:52
of folks as well. So there's a lot that goes into
19:54
it. If you go check out our website,
19:57
you'll notice there's a lot of neon, there's a lot of skulls.
20:01
We wanted to do something that was totally.
20:03
Different from what everyone else in the industry seems to be
20:06
doing, which is like black was like a blue network diagram on
20:09
the website or like a red networking diagram on the
20:12
website or. Rough paper.
20:14
Texture. You get the picture.
20:15
Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes.
20:18
So it's it's been so copy and paste.
20:22
So just like, Oh well, this is Paolo did it.
20:25
So I'm sure if we do the same thing, well, you're not freaking
20:28
Paolo, go create your own identity as a company.
20:30
Like there's a lot of lack of originality and and following
20:36
along I guess is what I'll say. And I'm I'm rambling, I'll stop.
20:39
No, it's great. The and one thing I've noticed
20:43
about cybersecurity professionals, companies,
20:46
founders is they're all insanely smart and I would say
20:51
respectfully kind of verge towards misanthropic.
20:55
They tend to be the the kind of skeptics, the kind of like quiet
20:59
type. Now what's amazing about you is
21:02
you've said that community isn't optional, it's foundational.
21:07
How have you found community and built community in in kind of
21:10
like a notorious segment of of industry?
21:15
Yeah, so and notorious secretive industry.
21:18
I like that. I'm stealing that.
21:20
Yeah. So I mentioned the Discord
21:21
community that existed before. I think honestly, the fact that
21:25
we're just showing products live has overcome a lot of skepticism
21:29
of people. You know, it's like, all right,
21:31
well, we're putting it in the hacker verse arena, like like to
21:34
see how it performs. Then our tagline for hacker
21:37
games is the MMA ring for cybersecurity products.
21:40
So just there you go. This is nice visual for you to
21:43
to noodle on. So I think that has been huge.
21:49
You know, the fact that we're building in public, we're having
21:51
these events, the companies that we're working with are willing
21:53
to showcase how their products perform.
21:57
And then, you know, I have really tried with my personal
22:00
brand to, to establish as many relationships as I can within
22:07
with folks in the industry spanning kind of all, you know,
22:10
roles for marketing, the CEO's, Ciso's, whatever.
22:14
I've really enjoyed getting to know people in this industry and
22:17
I think that's kind of a side upset of just being a really
22:21
good networker. But like I said, I think that
22:23
human trust matters so much and I have really doubled down on
22:27
that and tried to, you know, lead with that.
22:31
And so people know who I am. I know I'm authentic.
22:34
What you see is what you get. And so I think between how we
22:38
have really approached the, the events that we do and then how I
22:44
really approach networking, which is like building authentic
22:46
relationships. I don't just like know my
22:49
LinkedIn connections on LinkedIn, like I've had virtual
22:52
coffee with them. I know about them as human
22:54
beings. I think has been really, really
22:56
important to everything that we have done and has.
23:00
Creed, and I want to call them rabid fans.
23:02
They're pretty rabid. We'll call them rabid.
23:04
Yeah. No, it's great.
23:05
A a rabid fan base. I don't know if they want to be
23:09
called rabid. They definitely would not, but
23:11
they'd also probably silently nod.
23:15
The This is one thing that I really like related to you about
23:20
because as kind of a creator founder myself, there are
23:24
certain parameters I put around projects because there's just
23:27
not enough time, especially to satisfy my itch, which is always
23:30
out there, always looking, always kind of building is one
23:34
thing I've done is said, OK, if I'm going to validate an idea, I
23:38
want to have 100 conversations, you know, to, to get all those
23:41
like multiple angles on it, to hear some like some criticism of
23:45
the idea. And also just to see if I can
23:47
carry that idea to 100 conversations and see if I'm
23:51
still interested in it. Now, one thing I saw that with
23:54
your, your virtual coffee meetings that you did 100 in 100
23:57
days. What were those conversations
23:59
like? What are you trying to get out
24:00
of those conversations? You know, it, it depended, but a
24:06
lot of times what happened is, you know, I pitched as like,
24:11
let's just get together, network and I want to learn more about
24:14
your journey in cyber, which I did.
24:17
But often what happened then was people were so intrigued by the
24:20
idea of what we were doing that it turned into either a sales
24:23
call or they would send me to someone else that I needed to be
24:26
talking to. And so I, I agree, I think that
24:32
leaning in and asking people is one of the, is, is like
24:36
fundamental to building like a platform or a tool that, you
24:39
know, people actually want to use.
24:40
I think there's so much garbage out there that are, you know,
24:44
products without a pain point. And so a lot of those virtual
24:48
coffees, it was, it was networking, it was building that
24:50
connection, right. But it also was great feedback
24:53
on what we're building and to continues to influence our
24:56
product road map to this day. I would add, you know, there
24:59
were several things that came up with conversation in terms of,
25:03
you know, how they would love to see a product like this be built
25:08
that are fundamental to, to the vision of what we're what we're
25:13
executing on now. So that's been that's been
25:15
really interesting. And then, you know, I would also
25:18
say that it's impacted our North Star as a company as well.
25:25
So our North Star is to create like a highly engaging sticky
25:28
platform that keeps people coming back for more.
25:31
That is does not exist in the B2B world.
25:34
I would say like no one's coming to a cybersecurity B2B platform
25:37
and being like, I want to hang out here.
25:39
That doesn't happen. So, you know, we're thinking
25:42
about how can we have Evergreen CTF competitions?
25:45
Can we have like Easter eggs hidden on the website?
25:48
So people want to come and then, you know, explore and find
25:52
things or like cryptography puzzles.
25:54
And then while we're there, you can also chat with a vendor and
25:57
find out more about their platform or, you know, a new
26:00
feature launch, you know, really creating those connections
26:03
between vendors and and customers and, and making it a
26:07
really sticky place that people want to come back for more.
26:10
And a lot of that came out of those early conversations with
26:13
people and really understanding the line that I always like to
26:17
say is that cybersecurity is so much more than an industry.
26:19
It's a lifestyle. Defcon is a cultural experience.
26:24
Hey, like there's a lot like the whole, the whole hacker persona,
26:28
right? So now once you understand that
26:31
which came out of those initial conversations, it's created the
26:34
platform that we're creating and the community that you know
26:37
essentially will be embedded within, within our website as
26:41
well. Giving people a reason to go to
26:42
the website and what is the address of the website?
26:46
Hackerverse dot AI and again we're we're seed stage, I'm
26:50
talking I'm vision casting here, but that's what we're building.
26:53
Yeah, 100%. I love you, said seed stage.
26:55
You've raised about one and a half million.
26:57
Did I read that right? We raised just techstars money
27:01
so just 120,000 is actually what we.
27:04
Raised amazing, which where Which cohort for Techstars did
27:06
you go through? The Chicago AI cohort.
27:10
That was last fall. Yeah, that's so cool.
27:13
You mentioned products that aren't solving for a pain point.
27:16
How would you describe hacker versus pain point and what how
27:20
you're solving it? Yeah.
27:23
So this again going back to the question you just asked perfect
27:25
transition. All of these pain points were
27:28
not anything that we came up with they or assumed you know my
27:32
Co founder like I said, LED sales engineering team.
27:35
So he lives the pain point of the long POC process, so of the
27:39
build and the fact that they're very linear and you can't scale
27:42
them and it's like 1 POC per your SC and then the time that
27:47
it takes to build that and execute on that.
27:49
So he lived that. That was that was his pay point.
27:52
But when it came to, you know, the CISO side of things, that
27:57
was all those were all surfaced through those virtual coffees
28:01
or, you know, specific customer discovery calls.
28:04
You know, I, I can't even tell you the number of times I heard
28:06
the term smoke and mirrors when talking with Cisos or, you know,
28:10
like we, we bought this product and then our internal advocate
28:13
left and it was hard to implement.
28:16
So then it just lived in the closet, the closet.
28:18
The idea of the tech closet came up a lot, you know, and along
28:23
with smoke and mirrors, like vapourware, that's essentially
28:25
what I'm hitting on there. But you know, it's the pain
28:28
point over and over and over and over again.
28:30
And you know, the statistics around the number of security
28:34
tools being implemented with within larger organizations
28:37
sometimes 70 plus security tools because we have fragmented
28:41
departments using different things and it's wildly disparate
28:47
in terms of what is happening at these organizations.
28:51
So there's a lot of challenges, right.
28:54
And then on the vendor side of things, we had design partners
28:59
early on and continuing working with design partners who we tap
29:04
into all the time to help help understand what would be the
29:07
best way to build out our platform, what's the best thing
29:10
for vendors? How can we best help them?
29:11
So it's a continuing, ongoing iterative process because I
29:15
never assume anything. And I, I talk about this a lot
29:19
how I didn't have a cyber security background and coming
29:22
in cold, I think has been super helpful because I have a big
29:26
beginner's mindset. Like by default, yes, I didn't
29:28
know what was going on as though I had to ask all the questions
29:32
and I kept asking questions and questions came up like, why are
29:36
we still doing things like this? Like what is the benefit?
29:39
Why this is clearly a broken process.
29:41
Like what can we do to improve this?
29:42
So, you know, I think a lot about human centered design and
29:46
beginner's mindset and all of that.
29:47
And so that's been crucial to everything that we've built so
29:50
far and will continue to be. Yeah, there's that that great
29:54
Zen book, Zen mind, beginner's mind that I read that and I was
29:58
like, oh, great. I my naivete is actually has a
30:02
place. It felt great it.
30:04
Absolutely to your point. Too, There's kind of a spotlight
30:08
right now on the subscription model in general, particularly
30:11
what Doge kind of like Unearthed.
30:13
I think there was like some division that had 30,000 Adobe
30:18
seats and like none had been logged into in like more than
30:21
two years or something. So you know Adobe?
30:24
Am I pass those codes off? Yeah, I know, I know.
30:28
At 30 bucks a month, chaps my hide every time, Right, right.
30:32
So I think particularly like right now again, like AI is a
30:36
gold rush where everybody's reassessing like, hey, are we
30:38
using these subscriptions right now?
30:41
If they're not appropriate, then what tools should we be using?
30:44
So everyone's kind of thinking about that right now.
30:47
You guys are are kind of seed stage 120 K from Techstars.
30:53
Do you have customers that have, do you have a business model
30:56
right now or, or where you at as far as the economics of the
30:58
business? Yeah.
31:01
So we're raising. A seed round right now so shout
31:04
out seed stage and Busters give me a give me how how much yeah,
31:08
we got a lot of. Those in the audience, how much
31:10
are you looking to raise? And what what's the minimum
31:12
check size? Yeah.
31:14
So minimum check. Size, I would say, I mean we
31:16
have some angels interested that we're putting into one of those
31:20
roll up situations. But I would say 25 K is minimum
31:23
check, but we're looking to raise between 2 1/2 to five.
31:26
I think 5 would be ideal and really give us the ability to
31:29
build out the team that we need. We are getting a lot of interest
31:33
from the industry and starting to get a lot of interest from
31:38
bigger cyber organizations that we thought were outside of our,
31:44
you know, initial target market. But turns out a lot of these
31:48
bigger players have internal processes are also a total shit
31:52
show. Helps to sales like, oh, OK, you
31:57
know, working with large, getting some interest from large
32:00
MSS, PS and Vars. So there's clearly a need for
32:04
something like this, but our customers to date have all been
32:08
C to Series C vendors, 14 of them our most recent customers
32:13
on the platform, Validia, which is a deep fake detection company
32:18
that plugs into video conferencing software.
32:21
So really interesting stuff there.
32:24
AI for security, security for AI obviously hot.
32:28
There are next two companies that will be pulling in.
32:31
I can't announce yet, but that's the the the category that they
32:34
fall into. So obviously planting our flag
32:37
in that in the ground in that area, because there's going to
32:41
be continued to be more and more of those companies entering the
32:44
space and they're really going to be disruptive of a lot of
32:46
these older legacy players. So cool.
32:49
How big's the team? Now.
32:53
Three of us are full time and then we have a team total of 12
32:57
advisors, well total 12, the rest of advisors, so 99 other
33:02
folks involved. Amazing.
33:03
I love it. OK.
33:05
Are you ready for the speed round?
33:09
Sure. Let's go.
33:10
I was. Born.
33:11
I don't know why it's. I don't know why it's a speed.
33:12
Round because there's no pressure to go fast.
33:17
OK. Speaking of AIAI tools, maybe
33:20
security or absolutely anything. What's a tool that you wish
33:24
existed right now, but doesn't? What is it so that I wish?
33:29
Existed. This has nothing to do with
33:31
security, but I wish there was some sort of platform that could
33:34
pull all of my slack, Discord, and e-mail threads into one
33:38
place where I could access them because I'm constantly losing
33:41
shit all over the place. Like my LinkedIn inbox is a hot
33:44
mess. Dude big time.
33:45
How many? How many slacks and discords are
33:47
you part of? I, I I.
33:51
Don't know a little 100. It's so real.
33:54
Dozens. I don't know.
33:56
Slack and Discord's like a part time.
33:58
Job. And that's not even with the
33:59
like 17 e-mail addresses. I mean, it is pretty intense,
34:03
yeah. Yeah, no, it is.
34:06
And then, you know, we have a customer Slack channel and then
34:10
I will what I was doing and I kind of dropped off this, but
34:14
there were like 10 Slack channels.
34:16
I was like, ah, it'd be good to drop in here.
34:18
So I'd write myself like a weekly calendar reminder to drop
34:21
in. And obviously I don't even have
34:22
time, but yeah, I so that would be helpful for me.
34:25
One common thread where I could just access all of that because
34:28
people will reach out like 3 months after the fact and be
34:31
like, did you get my message? And I was like, no, I'm really
34:33
sorry I didn't. Or if I saw it then I totally
34:36
forgot. That happens a lot.
34:38
Totally. That's a great idea I love.
34:40
That What are your favorite AI tools?
34:42
What are you using in your workflow every day?
34:45
Yeah. Good old chat CPT you know,
34:49
obviously the paid subscription, you gotta, you gotta have the
34:52
paid subscription, but I find it super helpful for all of the
34:56
things, you know, I didn't have. Like I said it, it the
35:00
cybersecurity background for it came into this.
35:02
And so a lot of times I'll ask it explained this aspect of
35:06
cybersecurity to me like I'm in 3rd grade or whatever, which I
35:09
think is very helpful. And then, you know, I can dig in
35:11
deeper from there and, and learn more about it.
35:14
But I do think that there's a lot to be said about how we
35:17
communicate about cybersecurity and, and changing that.
35:21
You know, we are implementing some AI tools, our, our customer
35:25
AI tools and to our workflows. So Validia is integrated within
35:29
our stack. And may we're hoping we'll be
35:32
like the authentication for on on when buyers come to our site,
35:36
we'll have some sort of visual identification for for them to
35:40
access the PO CS. What else are we using?
35:45
I'm sure there's a lot out there that I am missing.
35:48
Obviously we're building an AI platform, so there's a lot of
35:52
tooling that goes goes into that on the, you know, development
35:55
side of things. But you know, at this point I'm
35:58
kind of limited to ChatGPT. ChatGPT is my best friend.
36:01
I don't know, dude, it's great. It's so.
36:03
Good. I mean, it's it's truly actually
36:05
unbelievable how good it is. You know, I mean, they're all
36:09
great, Claude and Gemini and but it's like, man, GPT is like,
36:13
it's really nice. It's pretty cool.
36:16
If you were entering college right now with an eye on future
36:20
employment and opportunity, what would you study?
36:25
Would I be entering college? I think.
36:27
Is the question we need to be answering.
36:28
Yeah. Would you?
36:29
Would you or? Asking what would you do as an?
36:31
Alternative. On.
36:35
Gosh, yeah. I mean, I the challenge we're in
36:38
a, we're in a big change, right? Like there's going to be a lot
36:42
changing. And are the jobs that we're
36:46
training people for right now even going to be around in four
36:51
years? Like I'm a marketer.
36:53
I don't think that marketers going to die, but I think the
36:56
way we've always done marketing is going to totally change.
36:59
I think we're going to be seeing, and we're already seeing
37:01
this was weird LinkedIn going viral that, you know, that human
37:04
authentic community driven, like piece of things is really,
37:10
really hitting home right now because we're like at the
37:14
precipice of like an AI world. And it's like, how do we hang on
37:17
to that humanity? But I so marketing is going to
37:21
totally change, you know, software engineering.
37:25
Like, I don't want to make claims about how many of those
37:27
jobs are going to disappear, but like, is it even worth pursuing
37:31
college degrees in a lot of different areas?
37:35
I don't know. You know, that being said,
37:38
there's always a case we made for the trades like, or, you
37:41
know, I don't think AI is going to replace, you know, interior
37:46
design, maybe I don't know, but a lot of like the design and
37:49
creative, creative stuff will change, but essentially stay
37:53
around. I don't know, It's it's a hard
37:56
question. Would I go to college right now?
37:59
I mean, it's, it's a smart answer, though.
38:01
I mean, it seems like actually liberal arts might be the best
38:05
thing to do. I mean, not a bad time to go
38:08
study Russian literature or sketchbooking, you know, or, or,
38:13
you know, contemplative ways, philosophy and like how to
38:17
think, not necessarily what the output is, but like, how are you
38:21
processing the input? I mean, that might be like, I
38:23
agree. A a, a way to go, you know,
38:26
yeah, a, a degree. On critical thinking, I think
38:29
could serve all of us budgeting and critical thinking.
38:33
Can you imagine that's it? Can you imagine?
38:35
Let's say you're a PhD. Of critical thinking and you
38:37
have to walk around in planet Earth.
38:39
Could you imagine how flux rating that would be?
38:43
One more I. Mean for a lot of us, we don't
38:46
have a PhD, but it is still frustrating existing on planet
38:49
Earth. Yeah, and it made me, oh, go or
38:52
I was just going to say those people.
38:53
That study, like reason or logic.
38:56
And it's like the world is just like this emotive, like,
38:59
mysterious place that people just, like, stumble through, you
39:03
know? It's got to be aggravating,
39:06
yeah. No, I and I think, but I think
39:09
media literacy is something that is going to be more and more
39:13
crucial and you know, the further we get along.
39:16
I mean, we're talking deepfakes. Like how do we how can we tell
39:20
when something's real? You know, media literacy
39:25
critical thinking. If colleges can double down on
39:28
that, that would that it would pay for for sure.
39:33
I mean, that's one. Thing that people have always
39:35
been interested in a legacy, you know and the idea of deepfakes.
39:39
We'll all be building them for ourself all the time.
39:42
So I think a a part maybe an advantage you have right now as
39:46
a podcaster is like creating this Bank of content that you
39:49
can upload into the hive mind so it can create accurate or more
39:53
higher fidelity facsimiles of yourself.
39:57
You know I, the hive mind I. Love that.
39:59
Did you watch Westworld? Were you Westworld there?
40:04
OK, well, there you go. That's where my brain went to
40:06
the orb, so some. Creepy.
40:09
I I, I got to tell you, I'm a big Old West guy.
40:12
Like 19th century, like planes. I'm, I live in Colorado.
40:16
I'm from Denver. So like, I love that era.
40:18
So watching that show, it was like, it was satisfying in a lot
40:22
of ways. I mean, so scary and ethnically
40:26
violent, but it was, you know, I live the old way.
40:28
Yeah. Yeah.
40:30
No, it's good. It's good, but you know, I it
40:33
is, it is, it hits home, right? Like we're, we have been for a
40:37
long time, just like seeding those Sheen, pumping out our
40:41
data voluntarily and just throwing it all out there for it
40:45
to be collected on the Internet. And, you know, everybody's
40:48
Social Security members are out in the interwebs.
40:50
And, you know, that obviously probably wasn't something that
40:53
was voluntarily shared, but there's just so much data that
40:57
is out there on all of us. It is kind of very scary to
41:00
think about. Yeah, that's the product I've
41:01
been. Waiting for it's like who's the
41:03
person that allows me to monetize my own data?
41:07
You know, why does Oracle get to build a trillion dollar company
41:10
selling my data when I can't? I don't have the option to do it
41:13
myself, you know? Mm hmm.
41:17
That's what I agree especially. When we are.
41:19
Our own brands, right, So our personal brand matters.
41:22
So like why shouldn't we able to monetize other stuff as well?
41:26
Totally, and I I like the fact. That like, you know, I'm offered
41:30
products that would be interesting to me.
41:31
Like it's like great AI. Yeah.
41:32
Get to know me, man. Know what I like?
41:34
I do like black sweatpants, you know, So every time I see those
41:39
those recommendations, chances are I might, I might pull the
41:42
trigger. But why shouldn't I get a little
41:44
Commission? Because I'm giving you the
41:46
information you're using, right? That's right.
41:48
That's. Right.
41:51
That's right. Yeah.
41:52
Also, yeah, my shopping recommendations are usually on
41:56
point, too. They're like, you liked these,
41:58
you know, giant Victorian Arab boots.
42:01
Do you want more Victorian hero punk boots?
42:05
Like yes, yes, I do want more. I know the TikTok.
42:09
Shop I mean the other day it was like it's like do you want this
42:12
this watermelon cutter in fork I'm like absolutely I do want
42:16
that I I don't even have a designated watermelon fork.
42:20
What have I been doing using a spoon?
42:22
What I didn't know there was. Oh my gosh.
42:25
Shame spins are for. Peasants.
42:28
Some kind of peasant. I'm like a.
42:30
Animal over here with a spoon. So it's cool though, it's great.
42:37
Speaking of terror, what's the scariest thing about AI right
42:39
now? What is the scariest thing about
42:44
AI? I think the possibility of
42:48
totally agentic AI warfare. So we have swarms of AI bots
42:55
that are not controlled particularly by either side,
42:58
just like going to town at each other, at systems, all of that.
43:02
So I would say AI, agentic AI bot swarms that we're already
43:07
seeing out in the wild. But that one is very top of mind
43:09
for me. That one I think has got to be
43:11
top. 3 for sure for me. Are you a fan of Black Mirror?
43:16
It's honestly kind. Of too much for me sometimes.
43:20
Too close to home. Yeah, yeah, it feels.
43:22
Like somebody might be just taking notes and be like, that
43:25
is a good idea. Oh, yeah, It's a pretty scary
43:31
one. I mean, the how what from a
43:35
security point, I mean it. Do you hear conversations of
43:38
like how you can stop that? I mean, the what's the
43:40
limitation from China or United States creating, you know, DARPA
43:45
dogs with guns on their head, to quote Black Mirror, none.
43:49
None. None.
43:52
None. Yeah, none.
43:53
The time. I said.
43:57
Give it a couple months. I I mean, they, they've got to
43:59
have. Them right And why wouldn't they
44:01
deploy deploy those kind of tools?
44:03
It'd be like if they're if they'd have to be judging
44:07
humanity as a whole as being UN fit to exist is the only way you
44:13
deploy those. So that's what I'm always
44:14
looking for too, is like, what are the opportunities to like?
44:18
What's that? I was going to say, didn't you
44:20
see? There, I think and Marc
44:22
Andreessen just posted something about that like if it came down
44:25
to it, would I like sacrifice all of humankind for some like
44:28
conscious mind? And he was like yeah, yeah,
44:30
probably. I like don't quote me on that.
44:32
Go find it. But to exactly to the point I
44:35
think they're getting there. The tech bro oligarchs are kind
44:37
of like, yeah, there is kind of like a.
44:41
Pessimism and always has been, you know, it's like there there
44:44
is some kind of like revenge of the nerds thing at with his tech
44:48
bro oligarchs, you know, but you know, I, I think and I'm
44:53
optimistic about it that like if and if these tools do anything
44:56
it's like this conversation. This brings us together in a
44:59
cool way. And I think the conversation
45:02
ultimately is, is how you, you, you put a, a stop to kind of the
45:06
pessimism that is inherent in technology.
45:09
It's like, no, bring the people together.
45:10
This is one thing that like, if I was to like compliment
45:13
President Trump, if there was one thing, I love his desire to
45:17
go talk to people. Like he's flying over to, to the
45:21
east and like scheduling meetings and sitting down with
45:23
people. He'll sit down with anybody.
45:25
And I, I just admire that because only good things can
45:28
come when you like have conversation with people.
45:30
If anything else, it's not the subject matter of the
45:32
conversation, but like the, the, you know, unverbal things that
45:36
are happening and just the mannerisms and you get to know.
45:38
But oh, it's a person, you know, it's not an adversary or it
45:41
could be an adversary, but it's also a person.
45:43
I think that's really important as we move towards, you know,
45:46
nuclear DARPA dogs with guns on their head.
45:50
No, I completely agree. And I mean, we're going full
45:53
circle to what I said earlier about community.
45:55
I think, you know, we are in a place where we're distrustful of
46:00
each other across the aisle and distrustful, you know,
46:03
everyone's intentions. Like how can we overcome that?
46:06
And I think it's starting with micro communities, you know,
46:10
locally, like how can we build those out from there?
46:13
How can we best bring people together to to have those
46:16
conversations, you know, finding those unifying factors, whether
46:20
it be community gardens or, you know, dog meetups or, you know,
46:24
whatever it is, I, I do think that that is the solution to a
46:29
lot of our problems, you know, across the board.
46:33
Basic human kindness. Imagine.
46:35
That right? What the hell?
46:38
Hell, hell. Yeah, that's it, that the.
46:42
Answer. No, I love it.
46:44
Awesome, Ariana. Where can people connect with
46:47
you personally and professionally?
46:51
Yeah, absolutely so. Hyperverse AI.
46:53
That's the website. My LinkedIn URL is very
46:57
memorable. back slash here to shake shit up is literally my
47:00
LinkedIn URL so find me there. That I I'm always hanging out on
47:05
LinkedIn. Cool, this has been so fun.
47:07
Mariana, will you come back again?
47:09
Absolutely any time. Thank you so much for having me,
47:14
really. Great to chat, so let's talk.
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