Tech Trialblazer's interview with Evan Blair, one of the co-founders of ZeroVox. Right, well obviously you guys won within about 18 months of being founded our latest, and a year later you've had one of your significant rounds of funding. So what I thought would be great is we'd love to revisit things. You know, 2014 is a long time ago, and ZeroVox has come on loops and bounds, if we call him the pun.
So it's great to sort of have you here and sit down with your own. It's particularly nice to sit down in a park versus in an exhibition centre or in a press room. Very much so. So I thought we'd just come through, you know, exploring a little bit more about what's been going on.
Can you tell us a little bit about ZeroVox and what your focus is? Sure. So ZeroVox is the leader in digital risk protection. When we started, we were very easily focused on social media.
There's a lot of business engagement with the market, with their customers, and employees engaging personally to place on social media platforms. So there's a lot of risk inherent in that engagement and that kind of activity. But now we've since broadened our scope as businesses have really engaged across all of the digital world, right? Into web, forums, blogs, news sites, mobile app stores, marketplaces, you know, the deep web, pay sites, even the dark web, on and on.
And so we provide customers with a single platform to manage, gain visibility, and then manage the security risks. And then the attacks that are propagating across this digital service. We call it the public attack service, if you will. Now, these platforms are public.
You can't secure them the same way you secure your own infrastructure. And so ZeroVox gives you the ability to see what's happening in real time, to analyze what's happening in real time, using machine learning, AI, and other open rules engines to look for particular risk issues, maybe things like impersonations, fraud, targeting campaigns, social engineering activities, piracy, or counterfeit goods. Identify that and then take action on it. So we're not just alerting you to say, hey, these are the bad things that are occurring to your brands, to your customers.
This is the data that we found that's been shared in an unauthorized manner. But we're actually taking it down. We're doing something about it. We're remediating the problem.
And that is the remediation that takes place on the platforms themselves. These platforms that we don't have control over from a security perspective. We reach into Facebook. We reach into LinkedIn and remove that.
We reach out to domain registers and remove fraudulent proof domains. We even have the ability to impact email security in an advanced email security capacity for BEC or business email compromise types of attacks. Your take-downs and infrastructure dismantlement of the phishing campaign itself. So it's really visibility and protection is what we're providing customers today.
And it's really important because most of our business activities are taking place in this public sphere. And we have to secure the business where the business exists. We should be focused inward when everything else is focused outward. And I think that's a different thought process for security professionals.
But we're seeing more and more think this way. The market is growing fast. You see in a couple areas, ours particularly, the digital risk protection space. We also see in the digital market for intelligence that's growing where we're trying to say, hey, how do we look external to impact the security of our organization?
And that's really what we're trying to do as a global leader in digital risk protection. So obviously as a founder, and I think we were fine with you if you want to set up CWCOX originally. I'm sure it's been quite an easy journey, although I'm sure you've probably got one of the things to go faster at times. Always.
What would you say are some of the key moments on your journey that were especially challenging? Especially challenging? Well, look, one of the challenging moments was how do we go international? Right.
So we're a US-based company. We're an East Coast company based in Baltimore, Maryland. And I think that's really an important distinction. I think we operate with a different mindset being on the East Coast than the West Coast, right?
Yeah. And our first large investors were Comcast Ventures, their seed stage fund, and NEA. Now NEA is obviously one of the largest venture capital firms in the world, and people think of them as a Silicon Valley firm, but their main office is in Washington, D.C. And so with that mindset and the growth that we have, especially in the financial services sector and consumer goods space, when we were ready to go international, we said, how do we do this?
And now we have three international offices. So we have an office in Santiago, Chile. We do a lot of research and some development out of that. We run some operations out of that.
And we also have a fairly sizable black American sales presence out of our Santiago office. We have an office in London, which is, I'd say, a very fast-growing office for us as the U.K. market and then the broader NEA market in general has been very receptive to us and to problems that we're able to solve. And then we also have an office in Bangalore, Bangalore, India.
And that has really allowed us to expand our managed services capacity for a market that is certainly in desperate need of vendors not just saying, here's a new tool to waste your team's time with, which, you know, I think sometimes you get in the threat intelligence space that they're another tool that Miami's growth analysts at. And people shortage is a problem. And so what we've tried to do is provide not just a platform that's an automated solution and an automated security technology, but we've also tried to provide a managed service to all of our customers to help them, you know, manage the alerts that get fired by the platform. What do I do?
Is there an investigation needed? Do I actually take that on a plan? So, you know, going international, the first international office was Santiago, the second slot was Bangalore, and each of them had their own unique challenges. Certainly in the U.K., we had visa challenges.
And now I'm sure we're going to have some more challenges with the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. But, yeah, that was one of the big kind of stepping stones for us that race to race. I mean, you're always looking. There's always challenges along the way, right?
We have the right pricing. I mean, pricing is such a funny thing, especially when you're in a new market and you're establishing a beachhead. You're the first mover. You're the pioneer, which is kind of the position that we sit in.
And, well, how much do you charge? A trailblazer, exactly. So how much do I charge for this? I don't know.
What is the market fair? And you see, especially as a young company, you know, you sell your first deal. You don't want to, oh, you're scared. You want to overprice it.
Because if you want the deal, you need to sell. Well, how do I, did I underscore it? And you're kicking yourself, well, should I have charge of more? What's it worth?
And so over the years, you start to ask customers. You start to feel more comfortable with a group of customers that share feedback. And as long as you listen to your customers, I think you end up in the right spot. Both from a product development and future functionality perspective.
So it's a pricing perspective. But it took us years and years to get to a stable pricing model that makes sense. And, you know, what we decided to do at that point was kind of throw out the general security notion of secrecy around pricing. And say, we're going to make our pricing publicly available.
We put it on, we have to make our pricing simple. Let's put it on one page. And it needs to be explained in three sentences. And customers need to be able to look at the sheet and pick the coverage they want, pick what they care about protecting.
That's really the way we went down it. We said, hey, where are you trying to protect your organization? What digital data sources? What are you trying to protect?
So your brand, or executives, or your team, or your physical locations, or your products, or your accounts? And that's it. Where? What?
Very simple, straightforward. You know, our sales team goes, we need to charge more. But what we try to do is we try to get customers, you know, we try to make sure customers feel the value for what they're paying for. And I don't think that's necessarily the case across all the security industry.
I think there's a lot of, well, how much money do you have? And yes, that's the price. But that's not okay. We wanted to change the way people perceive security companies to be a little bit different.
You know, blazing a trail around that. You know, the pricing and the secrecy component, right? So, you know, our partners, our customers, everybody knows what the amount is, what we charge. And that's that.
And also, in the industry, you know, we're trying to break away from the, well, here's the price. But I'm willing to give you an 85% discount mentality. And just say, here's the price. This is what it costs.
I mean, that's the world we live in, right? How much is your cell phone? How much is your iPhone? It's $800.
Great, that's the price. How much is coverage? $1,000? Great, that's the price.
Cool. You know, I think, you know, listening to the customers and being willing to take critical feedback from people to improve ourselves and improve our process, improve our product, and not to feel like we're doing everything right. A lot of entrepreneurs will say, well, I know best. You know, I'm the smart one.
I'm the one that came up with the idea. I have the best idea direction. But, you know, certainly, you need that innovation. You need that ideation.
But, you know, customers that are dealing with the pain, they know what the pain is and they have ideas, too. And so, if you involve them in your process, then you're going to end up in a much better place. And we did that from an early stage. There's a couple of customers that come to mind right away that really pushed us hard.
And, you know, they really made us a much better organization and they made us a much better product because of it. And so that's the most important thing. I also think the culture that we've created at ZeroFox. I mean, everybody talks about culture, especially in startups.
But, you know, it's really important to create an environment where people are excited to come to work. And where they feel that, you know, they're being given as much information about the organization as humanly possible. And so we still, we started the company and ran all hands. So, you know, it's just a handful of us sitting, you know, in a conference room.
And then we'd go around and, hey, what are you working on this week? Let's talk about, hey, we're going to update on the fundraising that we're trying to go after. Let's talk about it from customers or product owners. No, but there was six of us, right?
And then there was 10 of us. And then there was 20. And then there was 50. And then there was 100.
And now there's 300. And so how do you maintain that level of transparency and connectedness to the business? So still for today, every other week, on Wednesday mornings, we run a company, all hands, from Baltimore, or from London, or from Santiago, or from England. And it's a video session.
It's posted a slide. And at the castle, which is our headquarters, it's an old, it looks like a castle. It's an old Pabst Blue Ribbon bottling facility, pre-prohibition. But, yeah.
We do have Pabst on that if you're interested. We also have a rotating selection of local Maryland and Baltimore craft beers because, of course, we do. But what we've been able to do is just foster a culture that is unique in a regional aspect, but the same across four global offices and hundreds of people by over-communicating and ensuring everybody is a part of this journey together. And then everybody feels a shared sense of ownership in what we're doing.
And everybody feels the ability to raise their hand and say, I think something's broken. Or I think we can do this better. Or I've got an idea. And that's really, really important.
Not all organizations can say that. And that's definitely something that I'm super proud of. So, obviously, from our perspective, we were delighted that our team won in 2014, which seems like, I'm sure, a lifetime of four years, and definitely much closer to the beginning part of the journey rather than the end. Obviously, you secured $27 million in B-round funding in December 2015.
And congratulations, you've just done another round. Yes. I just thought, a little Google. And that was led by Intel Capital.
So you actually boosted our security alumni raise by over $800 million. Yeah. So it's actually the largest funding round for a secure company in Baltimore in the history of the city. So, yeah, we're pretty proud of that as well.
We take our responsibility as a citizen of Baltimore, and we're trying to help build that city as well very seriously. In the state of Maryland. And all the good things that we've gotten from them, received from them. And then, you know, they continue to support us with that.
So that was very exciting. But yeah, the fundraising is a funny thing. Peter Barris, who's our board of directors and, as I mentioned, one of the directors at NEA, we got our A round. He once said that no one congratulates the chef when they come back from the market.
So, yes, we pat ourselves on the back for raising funds. But that's the raw materials. That's what you do afterwards. It's the Michelin star cuisine that you create with those ingredients that, you know, people actually pay for.
And people really congratulate you on. It should be congratulating you on. And so, it's great. Having Intel Capital behind us has opened up new world possibilities.
We're running all of our efficient intelligence machine learning in the Intel Cloud now. And we've seen marked improvements in speed and accuracy through the Intel Cloud. Working with their team there has really helped our AI. You know, the market opportunity that Intel is able to open for us.
Remember, let's not forget Intel owned Mac and Intel security. So, there's a lot of great synergies between the Intel team and the ZeroFox team. And so, it's nice to continue to have investors that come around the table that have deep expertise in every stage of our growth, right? From building companies to, you know, finding the right people to selling and marketing and taking a product that is growing at a great speed, but how to accelerate that 10 times faster.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting. It mirrors very much a conversation that I was having just before we sat down and chatted with a client who worked a lot with the startup community. I've seen them what they were seeing.
They're saying, you know, tech-to-be's been a huge elevator. We're expecting to see more money being put into the enterprise tech space now because it's easier to be unique within enterprise versus the consumer world where you have so little time between you becoming, you know, an Uber, and then there's Uber 2, and 3, and 4, and, you know, just leads to the brews, all that kind of stuff. It is so easy to replicate that success. And if you can get it right, you can basically be annihilated very quickly.
So, you can build it up quickly. And also, the other thing is getting something difficultly and it's really easy in the consumer, but getting it beyond that is harder. Yeah. So, that's good news for everybody in our space, right?
That the money is going to be freer than perhaps it has been at late. So, we're seeing a positive trajectory. Yeah. No, that is really good.
But you've already done it, so you don't have to worry about it anymore. I did that last week. No, that's true, yeah. But, no, look, I think building an enterprise company is a longer journey than building a consumer company that can be successful at night because enterprises especially in the security space are highly demanding on the technologies that they deploy to protect their billions of dollars in revenue.
But once you, and I think it's another important point, that once you get a customer, you need to make sure that you keep them. And I think a lot of companies in the enterprise technology space may not place a high enough importance on keeping those customers happy, right? On that account management aspect, they're focused on the new business and then do sales. But, you know, you keep a customer happy, your lifetime value for that customer goes up, the worth of your organization grows.
But also, you're going to just continue to compound year over year and enter into that nice growth trajectory that everybody wants to see on the chart, you know, going up and right with a little of a curve to it. And so, it's enterprise security technology, but security just poses so many challenges. And, you know, there's regulations, there's compliance standards, there's data privacy protection standards that you have to apply to if you don't sell it all into the government space, you know, state and local, right? You have a whole other set of requirements, you know.
So, it's always trying to stay one step ahead, but I think you can build something very sustainable and hopefully predictable if you get it right. Yeah. I always feel that the entrepreneurs who are very successful in tech companies are much more likely to be able to replicate that success rather than being, you know, perhaps the unicorns that, yes, will come through once in a million. you know, the white second white second coming together at the right time and the right idea and then have another idea that does the same thing is going to be quite a big aspiration, right?
That would be great to be able to keep reinventing a new Facebook or whatever it will be. So from your perspective, let's just look at the awards. Obviously, it came at a really very crucial time for you. You've utilized just getting sales on the wall.
So thank you very much for your team taking time to be yourselves and would like to be one. What tips would you give to other people who are considering doing stuff like this? If this is an early stage, you've got so many other things that you could be doing that maybe you would see as being more valuable to your customers, those types of things. My co-founder team sponsor always based a high priority on industry recognition and awards.
Maybe there was a time when I just thought, oh, trying to win an award maybe comes off in vain. However, what I realized was it's very important because this is an independent group that is reviewing so many other companies and helping you stand out from this crowded field, especially when you're an early stage company and you need investment to keep the lights on and to grow. Being able to say that, hey, we've won an award that is a reputable award in the industry and it doesn't go unnoticed by investors, it doesn't go unnoticed by customers. I think it's a very valuable thing, especially for an early stage company, to spend the time to promote their product, evangelize their product in the market.
And what better way to do that than with an independent third-party trophy to say, hey, take a look at us. Somebody else thinks we're pretty cool and we're doing something really unique here. And that might be just a leg up that you need to get the meeting with the investor, to get that customer to open that email or to get that nice deal across the finish line. Yeah, everyone will help.
Absolutely. And the other thing that we were talking about today is also this long time. If you're in a consumer tech startup, you'll be working very, very, very hard for a much shorter period of life, right? Don't tell me that you've got the awards and you've got the funding and then suddenly you can relax.
Everybody's kicking back in the Caribbean for a couple of weeks. There is a sustainability. It's much more of a marathon than a sprint and it takes a lot of effort. So I feel that there's only a benefit for your team to stop briefly, only briefly, and just say, hey, we're on to something.
We're doing the right thing. The hard work is being noticed and recognized and we're heading in the right direction. And all this pain and suffering and time and energy is worth it. No, we can't place a dollar value on that morale boost that gives the team and the people that are really pouring their hearts and souls into the project.
Because you're right, the returns don't come right away. It takes years and years to build the enterprise technology space to start getting those returns and getting the validation from the market in terms of revenue and customers that ultimately now is how we measure our success. Well, let's hope that we get to it down next year or I say you can tell me more about the exciting things that have been happening. So, yeah, let's just thank you for your time and we'll be happy to see you put in.
Absolutely. We appreciate your time. No, thank you for everything and I enjoyed the conversation and hopefully somebody listening to this will say, hey, this is something that we should pursue or let's go after this and let's take it for a run. Great, good luck.