So You Want to Be a Security Entrepreneur

It's five o'clock somewhere. Time for the security cocktail hour. I'm Joe Patti.

I am Adam Rothman.

So Adam, this is a big day. I am very pleased with myself today. I know what you're going to say. It's really annoying me. That's right, for all Adam's talk about him saying, I'm going to get this guy, I'm going to get an Israeli, I'm going to get this guy, this ex-Intel guy, all his Israeli security friends, I booked our first Israeli on the show. So I'm very proud of myself. And today, we are very lucky to have a great guest, and we're going to have a great show. Idan Wiener, who is the co-founder and CEO of Illustria, an Israeli security startup. And he's going to tell us all about entrepreneurship. Idan, how are you today? Hey, very happy to be here. Good morning. Great. That's right. Good morning. It is morning here, but we're still doing cocktails. And Idan is in Tel Aviv, right?

Yeah.

So it's a little more respectable for him, but with his choice, we're drinking a little whiskey this morning, this afternoon. We don't want to encourage bad behavior, but you never lie to our listeners. So we do have it here.

It's the afternoon in Tel Aviv, so it's all good.

Exactly. We're on Israeli time here, so it's okay.

And by the way, I have Shin Bet going after the guys that have not shown up for the podcast yet. I might even tell you what Shinben is.

I don't want to know. It sounds... Oh, God. We cannot tell. Can I tell them? I probably don't want to know, but anyway. All right. So, Idan, you know, before we get into it, why don't you tell us just a little bit about yourself and, you know, Illustria and talk about your journey, which is super, super interesting.

Yes. So, very happy to be here. I'm Idan Wiener, the CEO and co-founder of Illustria. Seven years as a Naval Academy officer. So I see a lot of correlation between managing a startup for being a captain on a missile boat. Later on, traveled a bit in the world, returned to Israel, became product manager in a few companies, startups, but always wanted to create something from zero to one. I was eager to start my own venture. And then I met my better half, Bogdan, which is the CEO and co-founder of Illustria, two and a half years ago. We met, fell in love, and we have a little baby.

Okay. Well, hey, sometimes things come together, so that's great. And yes, you do travel quite a bit. We actually met in New York at a cocktail party, so this is totally appropriate. We have great karma for the show. Exactly. So there are a lot of topics we wanted to go through, but I know that when we talk, one of the things you're always, it seems like, and you've said that this is the startup thing, getting customers, you like customers, customers, customers. So, you know, how do you talk to your potential customers? I mean, it's got to be, You know, it's got to be interesting. You're showing them something new. You're talking to busy people and people who have a lot of people who want their attention. What's it like?

Yeah. So first of all, maybe a few words about Illustria because we are cyber security. Oh, yes. Illustria.

More about Illustria.

Okay. We basically are cyber security for open source. So today developers don't write the code from scratch. They use open source libraries in the repository. But this ecosystem was built on trust. There are mainly bad or bad actors out there that try to harm organization and penetrate them. So in Illustria, we have a gateway to stop those malicious actors and eventually bring CISO's platform to mitigate and reduce all open source risks, let's say. Right.

So yeah, that that's a great space because it's we mentioned supply chain risk, but we haven't talked about it much. But, you know, especially on the software development side, whether you realize it or not, people use a lot and a lot of the stuff you buy is really open source. It's stuff that's out there that someone has written and. It can not only be of questionable quality, but there are a lot of cases of bad actors inserting code in there, and then you just adopt it when it comes in. So that's not good. It helps solve that problem. So that's great. Awesome. Okay. So let's get into it then. Let's talk a little bit about customers. I personally know there are a lot of people out there in the security profession who need this. But finding them and convincing them to sign on is something completely different.

Exactly. So first of all, a disclaimer, all the insights shared here are based on my personal experience. So I'm not sure if I'm right or wrong, but this is my let's say, experience, my personal experience. I think there are multiple paths to conquer a mountain. Throughout your journey, you will determine the best approach. So think about you have a brilliant idea and you talk about it with your friends and family and they praise you, this is amazing. But when you talk with real customers, It's a bit different. And we would say, this is interesting, but the turning point would be if they were willing to pay for that. And then the discussion is completely changed.

Well, not just willing to pay for it, but also willing to take a chance on on a new outfit, because I know that as a manager, one of the things we'd look and say is, look, even if you're getting something at very low cost, I want to invest the time with a company that may or may not be around for a while.

Exactly. So first of all, you have to find the early adopters or innovators. On the other side, they will, first of all, believe in you as an entrepreneur, in the product and in the vision, and also you'll find this pain for them that you can solve. It's not easy to find them. It's exactly as find your investors. We can talk about it later, but I see it as the same. And the discussion changes because people can say, wow, this is an amazing solution and this is great, but the question if they will, allow to put their face on your PowerPoint or they will agree to pay even $2 for that. And it's not easy questions to ask. I remember that the first time I was frightened to ask those questions because it's not an easy question to ask and 99% you get a no. But that you understand eventually this will separate between your ideal and customers, like the early adopters, the ones that are only wasting your time. And it took me one year to understand that I can do 50 calls with, let's say, security teams, but they're my friends. So they don't tell me the honest truth. And they also want to buy everything, but they're not always the decision makers. Exactly, exactly. This is another point. It's not so easy and it's okay, it's not easy. All the entrepreneurship, it's a process, it's a rollercoaster. I have a lot to say about it as well, but if it's long and exhausting, you're probably on the right path.

I know, I've had plenty of ideas where, and Joe can attest to this, where I wanted to develop things and look for investors and put a lot of time into it, but it's like anything else. Good ideas don't necessarily mean you're going to make money and they're going to go to market. Sometimes even bad ideas do a lot better than good ideas based on who's marketing it and why. And then the other side of it is as a person who's been on IT infrastructure teams and security teams, when we've had new products come to us in the first year or second year of their existence, well, like how many rounds do you have the funding? How long have you been in business? How do we know you're going to be here next year? We've asked those hard questions and it's horrible. you know, it feels horrible to do that to somebody else who probably has a great idea. But at the end of the day, if you purchase that infrastructure, that new product, and that company fails, you look bad. So you have to find the fine line of whether or not you want to adopt that product in your organization, or you want to be safer and go with a more well-known product.

Exactly. And I feel it from the other side. This is a relationship that we need to define. And I'm trying to be very honest with my, let's say, customers. explain them the runway, as you mentioned, and also what are the features and the runway, the product runway. So we can also develop things for those customers as they want. So they are part of this journey. And I think this is another valid point is to be very, on one side, modest, but also very, let's say, open. to changes and also be very reflective with what is the situation and what you have and what not.

Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, it's really important. You need to sell a bit and offer stuff to people, get them excited. But at the same point, you can't oversell. But I think part of that has to do with the potential customers, too. I mean, if you're someone who's, you know, going to be looking and, you know, everybody likes to do stuff, everybody likes the cool stuff. And, you know, there are a lot of people in IT who probably think they make a great entrepreneur, so they want to be in the world or whatever, you know, and sign on. But, you know, if you're doing something in a very, very, you know, stuff with a very, very early stage company, if you want to get in and look at those kinds of, you know, kinds of products and companies, you have to have realistic expectations. You know, you have to say, you know, you're dealing with a, with a small company, very small, they may not be around forever. It's gonna be a little clunky, the product won't be perfect. And even a lot of the nuts and bolts like billing and invoicing and stuff like that is not going to be perfect. But on the other hand, the benefit is you not only maybe get the, I've always found that one of the nice things is you not only get the satisfaction of helping someone and being in the world, but also you might have the opportunity to provide some direction to the product too. At least that I've seen where it can help suit your needs. I mean, we've done that a bit, right, Adam?

Yeah.

Giving people laundry lists even of things. We'd love this.

Absolutely. If you look at our relationship with some of our vendors in the past, We have actually, when I say we, I'm not just saying you and I, our other teammates also. Yeah.

We have, even though you really do all the work.

That's not true. We have actually helped certain vendors mature their platform by making recommendations and providing features. and finding the right things to add to the organization where they've taken those features and given it to other clients. So a good customer can literally make or break an organization. You can find one customer who's your biggest advocate and you're getting 20, 30 customers later on in life. It's almost like a virus. They tell two friends and then they tell two friends and on and on. And then you end up having 30 people.

Agreed. And we look for those customers. I'm waiting, and this is happening today, to get phone calls at midnight and say, listen, Idan, your product is shit. Sorry about the language, but this is how we can improve our product. Because if I'm converting to a paying customer and I'm not hearing nothing, this is not good to shape my product to get to market fit. So it's a journey and I agree.

Oh, that's right. I mean, I suppose it's, I suppose you need to go into tell me, but I assume you need to go into the mindset of the product is not perfect. It, it needs a lot of work, even if technically it works, you know, there's a difference between having a functioning product and a secure product and something good, but having the market fit too. And I would think you really need a lot of, a lot of feedback along the way for that.

Before you answer, I want to add to that. How does it feel when I'm assuming I've never looked at your whole, your whole entire, uh, organization's financial structure, but how does it feel to go into an investor to have a meeting with them and they're telling you what you need to do? It's kind of weird, right? I'm not saying you're bad people, but I'm saying being the CEO of an organization does not mean you're the boss.

Yeah, so this takes me to being a product manager and to ask the questions and understand what is the customer, what is his real need for pain and not what is really telling me because he can tell me about other stuff and I need to ask the right question or do some manipulation about it. to understand if I can answer crucial pain. And people, you know, tend to ask things because they think it's beautiful on the platform or just to talk about it. I mean, and it can take me left or right from the direction of product market fit. As you mentioned, this is, we need to also perform it in a very delicate way. That's why I feel as a product manager, it helped me a lot because In other cases, you are kind of like a political, I mean, from the political point of view, you need to manage the way how to say no to 90% of the, let's say, features or requests and be okay with everyone. Is it really that much, like 90% you really have to say no to most everything?

Wow, that's a lot.

And everyone thinks that their feature is the most important feature and you need it. Otherwise, we're going to leave your platform and it's not necessarily true. Exactly.

So you need also to manage that from this perspective of giving people the, let's say, the atmosphere to feel that they can also say what they want to say. And on the other hand, say this, okay, I don't see our Ohio, I don't see clear usage of this feature and that's why it's not going to happen or maybe on the next roadmap or something or give a blur answer.

Yeah, but I think that gets back to being honest with the customers and open because I can't tell you how many times and someone has told us, and granted, this is not in startup so much, but in later stage companies where they go, oh, yeah, we're going to come out with that. It's one thing if you say, we're going to come out with that next quarter or next year or something, and you see it on the roadmap. And if you see it on the roadmap, you got maybe a 50-50 chance of it getting there, unless it's just in a few weeks. But when someone says, yeah, we're thinking about that, the radar goes up. And it's like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. We'll do that. They're not doing it. And I suppose you need to be extra, extra careful with those kinds of expectations at your stage.

Right. I think, yeah, we are a different animal in our stage. So lots of the requests are a bit shifting. You know, I tend to carefully think about every feature my customer wants and I need to do it in a delicate way, as you mentioned. I mean, because those are my engine and my people for the next customer, if I'm doing a good job.

So, yeah. But I guarantee you, if you have a whale and the feature makes sense, they're going to be getting to work hard to get that feature done. And that's the funny part, right? That those, those whales drive technology and that feature is usually a nice big feature. And it's probably very expensive to implement and put into a development. Yeah.

Well, have you been, I was kind of thinking the same thing. Have you been faced with that situation where a potential very good customer has asked you for something that just is not realistic or even takes the product in the direction where you don't want to go?

Yeah. Really? Wow. We found the middle that we can develop. Oh, you did? Yeah. In an MVP version. And he can be set. I mean, this company can be satisfied with that. So it's finding the balance, the middle. That's how I see it.

So you have... parallel products, they're both the same name, and maybe one's like 3.51, one's like 3.52, where you can turn features on and off, like through checkboxes, where people don't even know those features exist. Exactly. Interesting. I never even thought about that.

Oh, you do that? Really? Because that sounds that sounds complicated. No, that sounds complicated to manage, because you have limited resources to implement this stuff to and manage all this.

Well, it's kind of like buying certain products. You know, every product comes with not every, a lot of products come with multiple features and like, you know, if you don't pay for it, it doesn't get turned on. But the second you put that additional license in there, those extra features get turned on. So it's, it's interesting. These are almost like Easter eggs, you know, hidden features that you don't know about. But if you have the MVP edition, you check that box and boom, it's on.

Yeah, very interesting. Okay, I learned a bit about products and customers. How about funding? I know that funding is probably the other big thing on your mind. Put it that way. I've heard it described that with a startup, it's almost like a video game with your health and stuff. You've got so much money and if your life runs down to zero or your health, you're done. That's it.

True. Let's shift our focus to the interaction between investors and entrepreneurs, which can be likened to the dynamic of basically dating. So like dating, both sides need to express interest, but it requires a delicate dance. So basically, the key takeaway is that when both parties are genuinely interested, things progress rapidly. As an example, we got a term sheet within three days. I need to talk with 100 other VCs before. But like dating, when it's that, you can feel it in the air. And this is something that took me a while to understand. So if I'm texting a girl and she's not into me, I need to understand and not keeping text here. And this is the relationship with VCs. So it's one of those, it's not you, it's me. It's not you, it's me. Exactly. But also here there are rules. So first of all, it's important to have an action item and at the end of your interaction. Also with dating, right? This could be... Well, that's a sales tactic too. Always have a follow-up. Exactly. And this could be scheduling follow-up, second technical meeting, specific date or marking event on the calendar. This signifies progress. If there's no action item, it indicates a potential problem of lack of interest. Now, VCs won't tell you what is the, let's say, the real feedback here. and it plays a crucial role. They prefer to leave the door open always. So you need to come back through someone who did this connection and understand what is the real honest feedback.

Well, wait, so hang on, this is fascinating. So if you have a VC and you have a conversation, whatever, and you get whatever feedback, you try to read the tea leaves, as we say with it, If they're really 90% not interested, they won't say no, they won't close the door.

You will get an answer like, thank you very much, we were impressed and please bring more traction, which is not really generic.

Yeah. But you need to decide whether to devote time to that then, right?

Yes. It took me also a while to understand that. This is another rule that always approach an investor through a warm lead. Ideally, you can leverage a founder who received investment from the same investor who knows you personally. And then I can talk with my colleague, this entrepreneur, and ask him, listen, what happened there? And then I got lots of interesting feedback that I can also learn from them, like, listen, you're Strategy is not big enough. You as an entrepreneur, you're not impressive enough. It's not always nice to hear those feedbacks, but those are honest feedbacks that you can improve from that. So it's important to go back and understand why you got a no. Yeah. And are they usually good with telling you? Depends, you know. I mean, everyone don't like to get like a negative feedback. But this is the way of being entrepreneur, is to get 99% of the day a no. And from every no, this roller coaster, you're getting better and better. Because you understand this is part of the process, this rollercoaster. And every now you're trying to understand how you can improve. And you understand maybe after two years, not sure what will be 10 years from now, that there are other parameters that you don't really control, like chemistry, luck, you know, other fund who really needs to invest in a cyber security right now. you need to start to align eventually. So you have to do everything you can to be the best, but also let go and understand things are happening.

So in my mind, I'm actually looking at your website and I'm looking at some of the two investors. Well, at least it looks like two investors. And I'm saying to myself, wow, you know, I want that. I hope like, if you look at it from a girlfriend standpoint, I hope she doesn't want to break up with me. I hope the relationship stays good. I hope if we need to continue our relationship, we might put more into it. You know, you're always worried about how that relationship's gonna go because it's the honeymoon stage. You just started dating, you wanna build trust, you wanna get possibly more money to come up with more features and continue. You're always afraid you're not gonna get enough clients. These are the things that were on my mind when I wanted to start a lot of different products. difference between you and me is when we talk about using language, you had more balls than me. So but I still have my guts. I still have ideas. But to go out on the go out on that ledge, and to jump and say, I'm going to learn to fly is a big thing. And I give you a lot of credit. But um, it's not just about you, right? It's about the people that you have hired. Of course, it's about the clients too, but we talk about the inner relationships. It's about your investors. It's about them believing in you. And I see you have your advisory board, which any company would have and hoping that the advisory board points you in the right direction. So you're, you're holding a lot of cards in your hand and managing a lot of relationships. You're not dating one person. You're dating multiple people.

Perfect. Perfectly described. I mean, it's like a delicate dance, which you don't know how to dance. And OGT, you try to understand along the way how you do it. So mistakes are part of the way. And that's why I like the resilience way, because I feel this is the only way to be better and also maintain a humble and honest approach. I don't know anything. I'm trying to be the best. I'm consulting with, let's say, other entrepreneurs that are more, that raise round A and B and C, that if I can learn from their mistakes, this is amazing. And this is like the process, ongoing process to try to correct the daily problems you have.

I don't know. then you have to worry about competing against similar products. And there's competition besides.

I really like this part, okay? Because this is something I've learned through the hard way, like everything here. When talking about your competitors, you always say, okay, I'm not going to speak with them because they are my competitors, right? The answer is no. I'm today, I'm a good friend. I know all the CEOs, direct competitors of mine, and we're talking and we meet. And this is part of the journey. It's OK. You don't have to talk about your spicy sauce and how you do your stuff, but every startup has the giant in the room. And the number one question is from the VC perspective is why is the giant in the room is not going or the elephant in the room is not going to that direction. And we dealt with that question for 10 months until we're sick of it and just met them and talked about it and we got very interesting insights, why not? So when you meet another investors and tell them, listen, we met them, we know exactly what they're doing, we know why they're doing it, the conversation is changing. And this is a must, I believe.

Now, have you found in what you're doing where VCs think very, very differently and they invest in very different ways than most people who have their retirement account or whatever, how they invest or day trade or anything? being, you know, I can understand you talking to your competition because they were also, you know, your community, your friends, your learning and everything. And believe me, long term, you'll know them for a long time and be in and out of stuff. But have you found that the, you know, the VCs, that they don't, unlike a customer buying the product who picks one winner, do they kind of pick one winner who they're going to put money into or even in one space, have you seen that they will kind of spread their bets around, that they will invest in a bunch? Yes. So it depends on the size of the fund.

I know a few funds which are enormous, which invest in two very close startups on the same vertical. But beside them, usually the perspective is to invest in like one you know, vertical with one startup. And because you do not know what will happen, let's say two years from now. And it's all about risks management eventually.

So, you know, it's, it's, I like the box as I've told you. Right. And, um, you get into the ring and you try to win that fight, but when you get out of the ring, you're hugging the opponent cause you're friends with them or you're cool with them. You like them. I can only imagine being in the same space with a similar product, with people you might even have served with, I don't know if you have, in the military, or people that are your neighbors, or people that you go to the same events with, and you're competing against them, and you wanna beat them, but you want them to be okay, because you care about them, but at the end of the day, you have to be the one on top. You have to be the one that succeeds. To me, it's almost like boxing, right? You don't want to hurt the person sometimes that you're sparring with or fighting with, but you want to win and you want to come in first place. But you also know that person comes in second, they're going to have issues because they're not going to get the same level of support for the next fight. It's a very interesting place to be, you know.

For sure, I feel exactly as you mentioned, and I exchange notes with my colleagues from the same environment. We are friends, we meet in like occasions, you know, same, it's a tiny world. And it's also interesting from the perspective of choosing a vendor, there is the point that when this, you know, customer ask, listen, what do you think about those guys? and how you differentiate and how you differ from them. And then I say, first of all, they are my friends. So, I mean, you can choose whether us or them, but you've won. And then they are very surprised with this answer. Then we go back and talk about differentiators and how we can do it better. But I believe we should, as it's mentioned in the ring, in the box,

Yeah, right. Well, right. Well, it's like, you know, whether it's boxing or whether it's, you know, sports or whether it's this, they're, they're your competitors, not, not your enemies. And, and in fact, uh, you know, it's like, yeah, we've talked about it before with the, uh, you know, I, I made a somewhat pained analogy about, you know, the Roman gladiators that they, they, the loser did not always die because then there would be no gladiators. It's, it's the same thing here. You know, you may, uh, you know, your startup may not be successful yours or your, or your competitors, but ultimately they're, you know, they're our colleagues too, you know, and they're going to go and go on and do some more, some more interesting things. And we need people in the industry. The only idea is not to, not to crush them. Yeah. So I was thinking, as Adam was talking about the, you know, seeing your investors on the website, just you talking about that and the, and the rejection. So, seeing those two, you know, two investors or however many investors you have, you know, that's great. But I guess from your perspective, then each one of those, you know, kind of multiply at times a hundred and that's the number of rejections that you got. And that's all you had to go through to get that. It sounds like, and that's just, that shows a tremendous amount of resilience that, that I think a lot of, a lot of engineers, a lot of people in technology don't have. It's just not the mindset, you know, to keep failing over and over and keep going.

I mean, I don't know, maybe we are a bit crazy. It's not easy, to be very honest. Sometimes you think like, maybe I'm not good enough. But I think what gave me power is to look on my customers and understand that from their customers' perspective, they truly believe in the product and also in Illustria. Investors, we need a lot of stuff here and not every time it will be ideal for both sides. And when I eventually let go from that feeling, things became much easier for me mentally. So, you know, we can talk about mental health because this is an important side of being an entrepreneur. You know, getting rejections, getting no's, uh, understand what people are saying, but not what coming out of their mouth, but, but what they're not saying. I mean, understand lots of things and gain like brother, understand about the processes of people. Eventually it's a business of people and you sell, you sell to people.

So you don't, I like comparing things to a lot of other things. Right. Um, I always wanted to do like a 10 minute stand up comedy night, right? Where I go to a comedy place and I do 10 minutes. I seem to think I'm funny, but at the end of the day, when you go onto that stage, you're frightened. And I can only imagine this is very similar to you. You want to succeed. You want to be the best possible person you can be. and you're overcoming all these objections and you realize that most likely, for me, I realize I'm going to go on stage and get booed, but I still want to do it because I know if I persevere, if I continue on, that eventually things will work out because it's all about that mental attitude. It's almost the same, again, as boxing. You're fighting and you're getting your ass kicked. but you realize that this fight is also mental. It's not just about skills. It's about, it's mental. How do I persevere? How do I overcome objections? How do I wake up every single morning and be the best possible person I can be and continue my organization and make it fruitful? Again, I give you so much credit, Adam. I can only imagine being in your shoes. And I realize, I don't know what it's like to be in your shoes unless I've really been there. So to me, it's frightening. It's daunting. But I give you a lot of credit. And I think you're going to do very well. Not that you haven't done already.

Thank you. Oh, yeah. Well, we, yeah, I mean, I'll second that. And you know, it's, it's funny, especially, especially talking about security. You know, we've heard and, you know, with entrepreneurship, yes, you have to, you have to fail, you have to fail quickly, keep going. There are those books from a few years ago where they talk about all this stuff. But when we're talking about information security, you know, I can tell you that as a manager being responsible for the security of an organization, repeated failure is not something that's encouraged, believe it or not. So I think, you know, it kind of occurs to me that, yeah, seeing people go from, you know, security to, you know, to entrepreneurship It must be a very difficult job. It is a very, very different experience than a lot of us are used to, I think.

I think 99% of the occasions you have, let's say, on this roller coaster are going down. But this 1% is so amazing. You know, when you close your first US-based customer, No, I can't really describe what is the feeling and I won't forget it. I'll never forget this feeling. This is something that like one of my top things that I experienced like mentally, like one and a half years ago. We were in a different place. Now someone genuinely pays us money for a three years deal, multiple deal year. And you think about this is amazing. So let's celebrate that with like a slice of pizza for 15 minutes and then let's grind again and continue to get to know.

Yeah, you don't get much rest. You can't focus on your success because you have to get more success.

But it's important. It's important to stop. This is something that I understand today. When you get these small wins, you need to stop. You need to cherish them and to say thanks to everyone, to your employees, your investors, to yourself. to your friends, everyone that supports you, and try to celebrate and continue.

I can only imagine being in that room and then they're giving you that yes, or you're on a video conference and they're saying, oh yes, and you're sitting there screaming internally inside, yeah, yeah.

But your face to them is like, thank you very much. Exactly. And maybe another thing that I want to discuss about regarding what you said, Adam, you know, we can talk about things for a while, but eventually it's relevant only if it's signed. Absolutely. That's right. I was celebrating this occasion only when I got the email that you see the PO and the contract between us to them, and this is signed. And then you can celebrate because people say, you have an amazing product and I want to buy it tomorrow, but the next day they're ghosting.

So I never did what you did. I've done sales, right? I've done everything from small electronics to selling, um, uh, industrial lubricants, like, you know, motor oils and stuff like that. That sounds hilarious. But yeah, I know it sounds hilarious, but I've never done stuff to your level, but I, I, I've taken risks, right? I've walked into clients that. that didn't like the organization. I was told, don't ever walk into these clients. And I said, screw it, I'm gonna walk in there. And then it felt so good that day to say, guess what? We just sold to blah, blah, blah. And they're just bored. They go, you're lying to me. There's no way. I go, yeah, I really did. There's such a feeling of success, knowing that you've overcome somebody's objections. Because at the end of the day, you're not selling the product. Sometimes you're really selling yourself. They're believing in you. The product is probably really good too, but they're believing in you. People buy people, they don't buy products.

Exactly. That's why I'm coming back to where we started as I see investors as the same as your first customers. It's the same, it's chemistry, it's early adopters, innovators. They told me, I mean, my first customers told me, listen, Idan, we can buy other products, maybe they're better, but we like the chemistry, we like what we are seeing here, we like talking with you. We like working with you, and this is why we continue to convert this to, let's say, agreement. That's all.

And that brings me to, I like to eat. Don't say anything, Joe. I swear to God, I'll come to right now, New Jersey. And I like to eat. Everybody likes to eat. You just like to eat more. Oh, here we go. I'm willing to go to a restaurant where the food is just a drop, not as good as another restaurant, but the service is amazing because I want to feel valued. I want to feel when I go into a restaurant that they want me to be there, that they want to take care of me. that I don't need them to be subservient. I don't need them to be at my feet every second, but I need to feel like, yes, is everything good? Do you need something? That's what I like about certain products as well. When I was asked to pick from vet products, I vetted them based on the people behind them. Because a great product is amazing, but guess what? If I can't get the person when there's an issue, or I can't get my customer success manager, I can't get the developer people that can tell me why something's not working. Let me go back to Joe at one point when he was my manager. When I had issues, I had a responsibility to tell Joe, hey, there's an issue with this. It's causing this and this to the network. What do I do? Not that, what do I do, but are you okay with me doing this? And Joe would say, yeah, but get it fixed. The responsibility is on me. If I can't get that vendor, that customer, I mean, that vendor as a customer, I'm screwed. So yes, I would go with a product that might have less features or not as maybe as technically proficient, providing I can get support behind it.

Yeah. And to be honest, it's not for everyone. I mean, this is your opinion. Other security experts told me like, listen Dan, we're not there. I mean, we cannot invest time in that. So let's talk in one year when you have off the shelf products. Always. I appreciate that as well.

Oh yeah. Well that happens all the time. I mean, you know, I can tell you as a manager sometimes it's, You know, like I say, for things especially that are, you know, early stage that you know you're gonna have to invest more time in and put more risk in. Sometimes you're just not in a position to do it and do it right, because you need to be prepared to do it. And, you know, sometimes like you say, there's nothing until there's a signature. You know, sometimes you're not dealing with the person who actually signs it. And sometimes their boss says, no. or they just don't get the funding. Because, you know, in corporations too, it's like, you know, I tell people the same thing. I'm like, look, I have this budgeted. I have the approvals for it. I have all of this. But, you know, anything can happen between now And when the signature goes on the paper, who knows? It's tough.

But mentally you feel defeated, right? But you also realize that that defeat does not mean, it might be, it's not the end of the war. It's just another part of it to go on to. And I'm sure that you persevere and you realize, well, I got an objection, but now I'm going to go out and get a success. I'm going to get somebody to say yes. You have to push yourself mentally. It is like a fight to me. It is like being in a ring. You know, round one, you lost. Round two, you lost. But guess what? If you can win round three and four and five, you can still win the fight.

Yeah. I mean, I can tell from an honest perspective that the first client from New York, this deal almost like fell four or five times. But, you know, we're not here to stop. So we found eventually the middle, but it wasn't easy.

Awesome. Okay. So we talked a lot about perseverance and keeping going and I know we had talked earlier about sharing some of the mistakes that you might've made along the way to help others. And we talked about some, but is there anything else you wanted to help out our prospective entrepreneurs with, things they should be on the lookout for?

Yeah, so first of all, it's crucial to actively engage with your competitors. We talked about it. And remember that the process takes more time than you might anticipate. So building relationship and closing deals require patience and persistence. So I remember back then, like after meeting, I came, like I met the CISO and like, you want to buy Illustria? Like after one minute. It's absurd for me today to come back to these meetings. I mean, where you need to, like dating, you know, you cannot give a ring after like one date, right? You need to, it's the same. And listening is a valuable skill. I mean, take the time to truly understand the customer pain points and this will enable you to tailor your solution effectively, but also listen to other people out there. If it's your advisory board, if it's our investors, I mean, they know what they are doing. And if you can learn from their mistakes, this would be amazing. So, this is, listening is a valuable thing. and also let go of your ego. So stay open to feedback and be willing to adopt and improve. I mean, be humble. Collaborations, you know, this is very important. It's a tiny, tiny world. You know, you meet someone and you meet him later, four years later, and you don't know what will happen.

That's kind of a situation I'm in now. I networked with somebody years ago and now I'm dealing with them again. People tend to remember who you were and what you were doing. I had this question for you, Don. You ever have a customer reach out to you and say, I want your product, I want your product now? Well, you didn't have to sell it. It was like.

Not yet, not yet, but no, this is something I'm dreaming on at night, so.

It's like, it's like, you know, it's like a woman walks up to you in a bar. She's, you know, she's absolutely like perfect. She has a conversation with you. She's intelligent, beautiful, incredible personality. And she singles you out in the bars. She says, here's my number.

So this happened to me. Okay. That happens to me and I say, this is a scam.

Yeah, but this is the question. What is the catch here? Exactly. I mean, it can't be too easy. If it's easy, something is maybe a scam. I agree, Joe. I mean, yeah. The honeypot, the deception technology.

Yeah.

Yeah, and we need also to manage, I think, stress. Stress is a big word in the startup industry. I'm managing it by doing a lot of sports, trying to be healthy, trying not to work until late hours. because I understand today it's a marathon and not like a sprint. And I got one insight from a serial entrepreneur who told me, like, listen, Idan, I understand exactly what you're doing. I love the grit, but you will kill yourself eventually. You need to stop and start breathing. So there are days that I'm starting late and going to the beach and just breathing. I know how to manage my stress level occasionally. Yeah, I think that's very important.

There's kind of the, uh, you know, the stereotype and I've heard people say, yes, if you're an entrepreneur, if you have a startup, you have to work 18 hours a day. And you hear about these people who, you know, sleep like, you know, three hours or something. And I've heard other people say, uh, anyone who does that as bipolar, it just drives you insane eventually. And that's not helpful.

Stress is probably. the one of the most dangerous things you'll ever experience in your life. Stress will eat away at you. It will cause you, I mean, I know we know this, but people don't realize, they say, oh, I'm so stressed, but they don't realize what the body's doing chemically to itself. And you're eating away from the inside and mental health is probably one of the most strongest things. Even in my gym, We did a podcast with Sal, which was the owner of FC Chaos Jam, and he just put up recently on one of the mirrors, a stress thing. And everyone's writing, they don't write their names, they write down what their stresses are. And I would say 95% of it was all anxiety. And I can only imagine, you have people you're responsible need to get paid. You have customers that are asking you, I need these features working on and they're pretty upset at maybe at something. And they're probably reasonable requests. Then you have you reporting to the to the investors and then you have to report to your own family and you say to yourself, what am I doing every day? Am I putting my family in jeopardy or am I putting somebody in jeopardy? You're getting hit from every single side. So it's not even a boxing match. You had a gang of 10 people jump you and you're fighting them all off.

Yeah. As you can see, Adam is also an amateur therapist. He's here to make you feel better. He's a motivational speaker.

He's completely right. I mean, that's why you need to be crazy as hell to do these kinds of things. I mean, and you know, when people ask me if to do it, I mean, how is it? I'm saying like, this is, this is, I don't know how to say it even, but You know how you started, you don't know what will be later on because it's a crazy roller coaster.

Yeah.

It's a challenge. Yeah.

No, that's interesting. That's something I haven't heard someone say yet. And that makes so much sense. You know how it starts, but not how it ends. Huh. Interesting. Okay. And that's really tough for a lot of people. Many, many people cannot, cannot deal with it.

Well, anxiety is not knowing the outcome of something. That's what anxiety is all about. And you're living with almost a permanent anxiety every day. You're wondering what the next thing is, what the next step is. And even when you become incredibly successful, That anxiety does not go away. You're still always worried about the next step. So just being successful is not enough. That continued success is something that you have to thrive for. Correct.

Yeah. And I'd also say, you know, something that we've hit on in other episodes is, you know, if you're going to work in security, I guess, or if you're going to be an entrepreneur, You have to love it. If you're just doing it for the money or you're just doing it to somehow think for the glory to tell people that you're doing it, you will just drive yourself insane. And it sounds cliche, but you really have to love it because you're going to be doing a lot of it and it's not easy.

Exactly. But this is an amazing journey and I appreciate every step and the things, to be honest, the things that I learned during this process. No school, no university, nowhere else. You learn how to sell, how to do marketing, how to motivate people. You're developing lots of senses which you cannot buy in other places. I'm grateful for that.

real world is very different from school, right? It reminds me of that movie with Rodney Dangerfield back to school when he talks about how real... I don't know if you've ever seen that movie Idan, but he talks about real life experiences is very different from going to school for business. First you got to pay off these guys and then yeah, I mean I might say that's how it is But you know, you don't think about the real stuff that the real issues, you know How do I get health care for my employees? You know, how do I can I set up a 401k to attract these this talent? you know these type of things things that you want to be able to do that they don't teach you in school and

All right. So we're getting to the last call here. Um, it has been a great discussion. This is really interesting. I know I, I learned a lot learned. I probably should not be an entrepreneur, but, uh, and I learned the opposite.

Now it motivates me to want to market one of the products I wanted to do.

All right. Well, you know what, you know what, Adam, you can, you can practice trying to get investors on me. Good luck with that. All right. now. So we're going to wrap it up. You know, please, any final thoughts and remind us about Illustria and what you've got.

So basically, we take security away from developers when they use open source libraries from the Wild West. We bring C source and security teams platform to let's say better manage and mitigate all open source risks. And today attacks via open source are on a daily basis. So, you know, it's a different vertical. It's very scary. And we believe that developers should focus on development and not on security because they're not security experts. So we can help organization better manage those risks.

Yes, please check out, it's illustria.io, right? Yeah. Okay, yeah, check it out. It's really, it's a great product and it's a really interesting space too. And one that we're gonna talk about a little more that really affects your security, whether you realize it or not. And Adam, you doing any boxing today?

Yes, I am actually after I go meet with some clients, but man, this has been so incredibly eyeopening. I've probably been waiting for this podcast 20 years and didn't know it because I've had so many ideas as Joe could attest to. And it gives me a little bit more of insight of what, you know, I can and cannot do and the level of... ambition I'm going to need in order to pursue that. So I really appreciate your insight, Yidan. I appreciate your candor. And I appreciate you giving us real open conversation about what it's like to be in this space.

Thank you very much. I'd love to, and I believe everyone could basically do whatever they want if they truly believe in that. This is their real passion. Thanks.

That's great. Thanks a lot. We'd love to have you back in a while, because I'm sure you'll have continuing adventures in all of this.

More dating, basically. That's right, more dating stories. Exactly.

It's dating from the other side, that's it. And we'll have to meet up in New York for some drinks in person. I'd love to. That's right.

All right. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Yidan. Thanks, Adam. Take it easy.