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The Most Significant Bottleneck for Security Operations? With Innovation Sandbox finalist Dov Yoran CEO at Command Zero. · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Cybersecurity Go to Market podcast for a special showcase episode.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking to the leaders of the companies who've been selected for the 2025 RSA Conference Innovation Sandbox.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: These are the very few, in fact, only 10, that the judges have selected from literally hundreds as the most innovative startups in cybersecurity today.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and today we are talking with Dov Yoran, CEO and co-founder at Command Zero.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Dov, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, hello.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to our conversation, Dov.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're a multi-time founder.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't your first rodeo, right?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you've uh had some success in the past, which I'm sure is governing and fueling and informing your approach to building Command Zero.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So as we get into this, I'll be kind of interested to see which directions we take the conversation and what we can learn.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you my first question, though, and this may be the most important one.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Where in the world did you have your first sandbox stuff?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, where where where did I grow up?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in the northeast in the U.S., uh just about an hour north of New York City, a very, you know, rural part of the state, so like northern Westchester.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, in the woods, you know, there was uh, you know, a walk, long walk the driveway to get the school bus in the morning.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, that was uh a fun upbringing with lots of work and uh lots of sports involved.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do you still feel comfortable out in the rural areas or are you a city guy now?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a city guy mostly since college, living in cities.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that may change.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a couple little ones, so we need to get them more space at times too.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So CBD'd.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know the feeling.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's talk about Command Zero, though.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with uh the problem that you're solving.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who who's having this problem and what is the problem?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the problem are analysts that are overworked, SOCs, security operations centers that are oversubscribed, you know, from medium to large to fortune-sized enterprises, right?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're relying on individual knowledge, they're relying on manual processes, just things that don't quite scale.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's a solid perspective on on these teams and these individuals.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so um that's that's exactly what we're looking to help change and to help uh help bring a future to.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess intrusively I get that you know them taking a long time is not a good thing, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but why is that a big deal?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I noticed on your website it said uh was it the most important or problem that that in in security operations today.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering why that is.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: What's the big deal about this that makes them want to spend some money and go solve it?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Yeah, well, it's the most, in my opinion, it's the most significant bottleneck in the industry, right?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's um it's a very underserved group.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you think of tier two analysts, tier three analysts that are experts, there's there's very little tools that are provided for for them.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a problem that plagues the entire industry, no matter what vertical you're in.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: You have an incident, you have an escalated event, you want to draw a conclusion, you want to come to a verdict.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're trying to uh come out of the gray and and come up with a definitive answer.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh boy, it was it's been a challenge my entire career over the last 30 years in cyber.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's just even more exacerbated given cloud, given SaaS, given data, um, and given just the advent of AI and how that's both uh a friend and a foe.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell And what are they using now that you're looking to replace or augment?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell More often than not, it's it's manual processes or internal processes of what's already been deployed and trying to sort of get the best leverage from various products that that have been deployed, each with its own siloed perspective.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell So they've got all these whatever for the the number I saw that said uh large companies will have between 70 and 80 cybersecurity products.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So so they're they're getting alerts from all these different products, they're using their SIM as well, they're trying to figure all out.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is that where they're at right now?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Yeah, and there's swivel chair, you're moving from one product to the other, and each product has different schemas and structures and what uh the aid data output looks like, and how do you sort of collect it all together and present to one narrative?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're really helping to solve, helping teams that have tremendous amount of experience, those with less or so, draw those conclusions, draw more productive, more consistent investigation outcomes.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell And how did you come to this realization that this is this is something actually you could solve now?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a moment that caused it to be able to be solved now that hadn't been for the last 20 years, or is it just uh the natural evolution of your thinking?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, it's more of an iterative process.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I I've been in the space you know my whole career, and I've always been involved in a lot of young startups and always sort of pushing the envelope and and and sort of looking at new ideas differently.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so to me, it's always been part of the journey.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and this has been one that's been reinvented a few times over.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, with uh going back to AI and LLMs is part of a useful, powerful tool, one of several tools that can be combined and used to really make a dramatic impact um for teams this go around.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm I'm I'm super jazzed up for that, for that opportunity.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell And since you've been selected for the innovation sandbox, I'm guessing the judges saw some uh new innovative way to tackle this that they hadn't seen before.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are they looking at?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: What are they seeing?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: What impressed them?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think the idea is really a combination of a few different items.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's encoding our knowledge base, right?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's taking our decades, and me and my co-founders, the lead engineers, and other folks involved, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Decades of experience around instant response, malware analysis, threat intelligence, security operations, and codifying that into a knowledge base and putting that into a platform where you can leverage both that knowledge base, automation, and LLMs and obviously AI.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so all those things is a really unique and incredibly powerful combination.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they're all, you know, they all have their unique perspectives and sort of how they're influencing the right outcome.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: But but that that's something I think is truly innovating and sort of nothing really out there in terms of what I've seen in the past years.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell And when you show the product to prospects, what's the wow moment?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: What's the bit where they go, oh, I see this all now coming together into a completely different way of working?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell You know, one thing that I've that I've that I've found in this go-around, and we talked a little bit earlier about things that you pick up and learn along the way, the the UI and the user experience around how we present what we present and how we draw together all various loose strings in the environment and how we present it in a cohesive way.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: We spend a ton of time and energy, and my CTO and my co-founder is in the UI constantly, and he's obsessed with it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it really shows, and that's almost a universal comment with every conversation that wow, this is this is incredible how intuitive it is.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and we, you know, what we take is a we take the Socratic approach where we're asking questions, pulling back answers, and just re-reiterating and reprocessing that that motion and to come to the best outcome.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so to me, that's that's really a cool thing that um folks recognize the effort we put into that and and and and our clients appreciate that.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Well, I think the uh cybersecurity products in general are known for being a little bit hard to use, not for being beautiful and easy to use.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh was that a design thinking right from the start, or did you kind of kind of get there halfway through the journey?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell No, no, no.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right from the start.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a a large, uh, an atypical number of engineering members of the team that are dedicated to the UI and the UX, much more so than any other startup or organization I've been a part of the past.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that is very conscious in how we're um and how we're building a platform from day one.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I think there's probably quite a few companies in our industry that are sitting there right now going, what can we copy that Wiz did?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um they were known for was being unbelievably easy to use and a beautiful demo.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And people just kind of gut it in seconds, is what I heard.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't actually seen the demo myself, but I think that's one of the things that seems to be coming out of that, which hopefully is good for the industry.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people might recognize that's uh something worth investing in, like you have.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wiz has done a phenomenal job.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I've come across countless users and practitioners to CISOs that say, wow, that tool was so empowering or is so empowering.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we're we're hoping to uh replicate, I don't say replicate the magic.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Ours is our own and our own swim lane, but we're pretty excited about what we've built.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Dov, take me back to that time when you got your first real order, not an order from a friend or family member or or a VC friendly who's doing a favor, you know, real life prospect out there who came in relatively cold and said, I like that stuff, I want to buy it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it it is exciting.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't know, I guess I'm an old hag at it, but it's I know it was coming, right?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's no doubt.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: We went and hired and we brought an engineering team on, and we've been building product for a couple of years.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: We were in stealth for two and a half of the first three years.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: There was no sh moment of doubt of like what we're building and our mission, what we're carrying forward.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, it's it's an amazing feeling for you know to validate, yes, here comes a customer, this is real, they're ready to pay.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and the fact when they find value, we go through their pilot debrief.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's just awesome to hear how useful the tool is, how it saves them time, how it gives them better insights.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm moved, but when we then sort of read that to the engineering team who've been working at this for quite a while, and it's just such a great feeling for those, you know, for those members of the team to um to you know to partake in that.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, I feel like they they need that juice, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: They need that feeling.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: It actually does matter what we're doing.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're hoping it does up to that point, right?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell, you know, it's because it's all about the people, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I know we're like so focused on technology, but it's it is all about the people, from the engineering team, from the go-to-market team, and and everyone in between that you know we're building this together, everyone has roles to play, and it only really works as a true, you know, as a true team concept.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so it it's it's truly awesome when it comes together and everyone gets to sort of enjoy in that moment when you know we get to ring the you know the bell, so to speak.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell And speaking of people and speaking of go to market, you know, this is not your first rodeo.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering what you've learned from the previous startups you've you've run and started, this informing how you do go to market now.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's your plan that you said, yeah, we're not gonna make mistakes before, we're actually gonna do this a little bit differently this time.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell You know, some of the things that are a little different is the um uh the how do I pronounce you know, think about this, the ability to kind of talk through and be more overt on what we're actually doing.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd say earlier in my career, we were, you know, not say secretive, but you know, you've got the thing, you want to build it, and you sort of want to be coy and and not, you know, competition and other people to kind of get and sort of grasp onto your product.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're incredibly, you know, even incomparable to what I'd done in my prior companies and how open.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: We have videos and we show exactly how the platform and the product works.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we're out there, but you know, there's a number of folks who are helping us, and we love it.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's flattery and it's it's it's great to see that we're influencing others in the space, but it it just, you know, it's it's just a different page of like, yeah, no, we're we're not here competing against the competition.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're here to make you guys and the enterprise chairs better.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's a that's a it's a it's a cool way to to approach it and be just a lot more out in front and a lot more open about it and showing and demonstrating and allowing people to see what that looks like.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a just a psyche that's just different than what I'd done in the past.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell Well, it feels like maybe there's a confidence has has come from having done it before to know really what the threats are and what the issues are.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or also think these days, though, maybe you validate this or not, someone can replicate your product in terms of a screen or something like that about how how it works.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: What they can't replicate is all the experience that you guys are bringing as a founding team that governs your secret sauce behind the scenes, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's the bit that they can't replicate.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: And kind of alluded to that earlier.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's that decades of experience around this problem set.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's combining that with the content, with the knowledge base, with sort of the usability and the UI and LLMs and some you know modern things that can kind of help help perpetuate that um that influence, right?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're it's it's great to see those come together.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you're exactly right.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like, hey, yeah, sure, you could copy the screen, but there's so much going on under the covers that uh you know, we we welcome, you know, we we welcome the challenge and welcome to continue to uh you know be on the front and thought leaders in this space.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell You welcome them spending their marketing budget to to increase this segment, right?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that too.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always have and and still continue.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I am pretty tight on our marketing and go, you know, marketing budgets.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: We we we're we're much stronger believers in thought leadership and you know things that we've done differently.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like we actually built the product in stealth for several years before going out there and you know, uh leaflets over Central Park from a hot air balloon and Super Bowl ads and whatever else the marketeers like to uh spend money on.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we're we're we're pretty prescriptive in how we uh and how we buttons.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: People seem to be very black and white on being stealth, right?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've heard people say that's the most stupid thing in the world, and I've heard people say, oh, it's definitely the way to go.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like you did it this last time.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is it where what you would do again?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Did you learn anything about uh about it when you were in it?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell You know, it all really depends on what the problem set that you're solving is, your access to design partners and users and sort of how close you are to that to that problem set.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: So some things, you know, if it's a pretty simple model and it's pretty straightforward, I'm not sure if there's much need for a longer stealth.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're kind of building things that that has some intricacies to it, um we we found it very helpful.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it being once you come out of stealth and once you start selling, uh I hate to say it's a distraction with those pesky customers because it's all about the customer, but in all reality, it's it's a whole different world.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And once you take the covers off, you're drawn in a lot of different directions.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot more people at the table wanting your time from press, you know, to uh VCs and investors, right to industry analysts, you know, things beyond just customers and building the product.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I won't call it a distraction, but it it it you want to be prepared, you know, be prepared for when you're ready to have those engaging conversations.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, your singular focus becomes more three or four different areas of focus.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: All of which are super important.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and all of you know bounces to the table.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's that's exactly right.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Yeah, enjoy the calm while you have it, because it won't be calm after that.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I I would say, yeah, for me, calm, but you know, for others I could see where it would be, whoa, is this gonna really work?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Are we there?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's always a certain level of uh of unknown until it's known until someone buys it, until someone uses it.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, when you have a uh a world-class team around you and amazing co-founders, it it makes that a a lot easier to uh to be less nervous about, if you will.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's wrap it up with another important question, Dolph, for you.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: If Command Zero was a college basketball team, who would they be?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, college basketball team.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, would it have the grittiness of Yukon Huskies and uh coach chirping in their ears?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that's not my MO.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing talent of Duke, even though they lost.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe St.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Johnny's in the Redstorm, right?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that team really went on an increment tremendous growth path with Patino and going from nothing to, I know they got upset in in the in the second round.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he's really done an amazing turnaround job for the first time in 30, 40 years that they, you know, won the big east.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll go with St.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Johnny's, some something back east.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, thanks for coming on the podcast.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: He wish you every bit of success in San Francisco in gosh, it's less than two weeks now.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So uh hope things go well.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, looking forward to it.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to seeing everyone there.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So many friends in the space.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it'll be an awesome, uh it'll be an awesome week out there.