Alastair Paterson recently sat down with Rinki Sethi, CISO of Bill.com to chat about the latest trends in security, what successful vendor outreach looks like, the origins of Harmonic, and their first music gigs and albums.
The Good and Bad of Vendor Practices
Rinki: I really care about my network and if my network refers a company or a founder, there will be a higher response rate. However, I do take a lot of cold LinkedIn outreach and I make the effort to respond to founders with interesting ideas.
If you're going to reach out to me, reach out to me on LinkedIn but please put some time into it. I want to see that you've done a little bit of research on what's important to me and what's important to the company I work for. Pay attention to detail, and make sure it doesn’t look like a templated email or you are calling me the wrong name!
Avoid cold calling, please! Please don't cold call my cell phone…. it's gonna put you on the X list. If I don't know it's directly I'll block the number and I think most security leaders are the same way. It just doesn't work.
A common pitfall is when vendors develop cool technologies that don't address real problems or make implementation excessively complex. Solutions that add more visibility without aiding in remediation are particularly unhelpful.
Alastair: This time around, we're going to stay away from anything sort of cold calling and email related for hopefully a long time. It's much better if you get referrals and warm intros because security is a trust business. Building trust through networks and providing clear, relevant value is essential.
Optimism in Security
Rinki: What's exciting to me is all the innovation that's happening in this space; second-time, third-time founders like yourself coming out and driving something new, understanding better because of your prior experience, kind of what's gonna work.
And then just with all of the new LLM and the new capabilities and tech that's out there using the current tech stack to innovate. In cybersecurity, it’s going to be transformative.
The new startups that are emerging are going to be game changers and are really going to give some of the legacy vendors a run for their money because things are going to be easier. You're going to be able to scale. I'm really excited about that.
However, at the same time, there still can be misses. You can still have incidents. And it's because of that one thing we didn't know about as security leaders. And that's the thing. And then are we prepared to respond? That's the part that keeps me up. And that's what we all have to get better at. A lot of this innovation is great but we still have to be on top of the crisis response.
Is Silicon Valley Still the Hub for Security Innovation?
Rinki Sethi: I've been working with many founders in New York and other states. Even the founders out of the country and they make very frequent trips to the Bay area. I've now heard many founders say “if I have to start this again, I would have started it in the Bay Area”. There's an ecosystem here that's really meaningful. I actually think that there's something special about the Bay Area. I'm working with founders from everywhere and it's exciting for me.
Alastair Paterson: Silicon Valley's ecosystem is unparalleled in terms of talent and investment, making it an ideal place to start innovative companies. However, founders must be cautious not to cater exclusively to the Bay Area's unique environment. The broader market dynamics and the needs of diverse customers should drive product development.
The Story Behind Harmonic
Alastair Paterson: We wanted something that was easy to understand and not prefixed with “Cy”, “Digital”, or “Risk”, We decided on having a bit of a musical theme, partly because there are no companies that really kind of own that namespace in the industry at the moment.
But also because my co-founder, Bryan and I have known each other for about 20 years and we played in a band together in our 20s in London. So we've got a bit of history there on the music side and thought that would be a pretty fun place to start. The final reason is that when we were dreaming up the company, we actually had a weekend together and we ended up going for drinks at Harmonic Brewing in San Francisco, Harmonic Brewing. There's quite a nice tie-in. So for all those reasons, it had to be “Harmonic”.
Rinki Sethi: A lot of times I struggle to remember the names of different cybersecurity startups. But I loved Harmonic. That's not one that folks will forget, and I think that it's always the ones with like a unique story that is rememberable.
What was your first gig or music album?
Rinki Sethi: Gosh, I think my first concert was an Usher concert as an adult. I wasn't a concert kid! The very first album that I bought was my No Doubt CD. That was like, I got a warehouse. I got a gift card for the warehouse because I won a jump rope contest. And so I went and bought No Doubt CD and then I bought The Beatles for my dad.
Alastair Paterson: I saw a couple of small gigs as a teenager. Oasis I went to see in 1996 that dates me a little. My first album was Radiohead, which is a bit of a stereotype for British guys. OK Computer – what an album.
.png)