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Boise Entrepreneur Week

Daniel DeCloss

Helping teams win the right security battles.

发布日期: 2024年10月9日

What I’ve Been Thinking About

Last week Boise hosted yet another successful Boise Entrepreneur Week. Congratulations to Tiam Rastegar and the whole team that put on a great week. I have always enjoyed seeing the Boise startup community grow and thrive and been humbled to be a small part of it. I had the privilege of speaking at the event and the opportunity to share what I’ve learned along my journey as an entrepreneur. I wanted to share some of the key takeaways from my talk as I hope it may resonate with you even if you don’t become an entrepreneur:

Separate your identity from your business. You and the business are separate entities, and you must calibrate decisions on what’s best for each. Generally speaking the odds are the business will fail, or at least not progress according to original plans. This doesn’t make you as an individual a failure, and it certainly doesn’t mean you won’t learn valuable lessons to be shared with others. I have always tried to discern where the business needs me and my skills the most. In the early days, that meant some days I focused on sales vs. marketing vs. development. But most importantly, the business doesn't define who I am, and I appreciate the journey for being exactly that.
People are your biggest asset. The team will change as you grow, that is inevitable, and you won’t get every hiring decision right. But at every stage it’s important to focus on your people and the culture you’re building. The right people will do the right thing and take care of your customers as a result.
Learn, grow, iterate, and adapt. I don’t know that there’s much more explanation needed than that phrase, but just remember that building a business is a process and you won’t get everything right.
Know your numbers at all times. You never know when you’ll have a random conversation with someone that could really influence your funding path or trajectory. Furthermore, investors want to make sure you have a handle on your operations and that means knowing your numbers like the back of your hand.
Trust your gut. This may not always be easy, and your gut may be wrong sometimes, but generally speaking I’ve found that my gut tends to be right more than it is wrong. So if you’re gut is telling you something, dig in and make sure you’re making the right decision. If you still don’t know, trust your gut and move on.
Build relationships, not agendas. What’s it all worth at the end of the day? This is a lesson for everyone, not just founders. I have enjoyed the relationships so much during this journey, whether it’s employees, investors, partners, or customers. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know everyone and building relationships is one of, if not the most, fulfilling part of the journey.

Being a founder isn’t easy, and it can feel like a lonely job at times. But to me, the challenge has been worth it. I’ve enjoyed the journey and grown so much through the ups and downs. It’s not for everyone, and that’s just fine, but I highly encourage you to take the journey if that’s what you’re seriously contemplating.?

Finally, I finished my talk with one final life lesson — not just for founders — and that is to not get disuaded or dejected by the critics, especially the folks who aren’t doing what you’re doing. Don’t get discouraged by the ones who don’t believe in you, or aren’t willing to accept their own insecurities. But rather continue to focus on yourself and your own endeavors, knowing that you’re the one fighting the good fight. Strive for your own definition of success, not someone else’s. The famous words of Teddy Roosevelt ring true to this day:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

—Theodore Roosevelt

Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

All This Talk About “Founder Mode”

My Musing on Leadership

In the past few weeks, there has been a lively discussion around “founder mode” sparked by Paul Graham’s essay on the topic. I’ve debated whether to chime in on this, since I am a founder and may have some insight to share on the topic. But I do think it’s an important topic and have some observations. When first seeing the debate about “founder mode” vs “manager mode” my immediate question was, “Isn’t this really just a discussion about good leadership?”?

And as I’ve continued to contemplate it, I do believe it is a discussion about good leadership, from both an individual and operational perspective. What sparked some of the negative criticism was the implication that founder mode is the only way for a company to truly succeed and that it encourages toxic behaviors. And I tend to agree, toxic leadership will cripple a company, regardless of the person or persons. I think the fundamental truth about building and growing a successful company is the fact that individuals don’t build companies, teams do.?

Good leaders surround themselves with talented people to execute. Every company needs a visionary, and that’s what I believe founder mode truly implies. The founder is usually the person with the original vision and as such is the ideal person to promote and maintain it. But the founder must be good at communicating and sharing the vision in such a way that others catch it and can not only maintain it but execute on it and even enhance it. I also believe that every company needs a visionary leader regardless of whether they are the founder or not. This is sound operational leadership.

So when hearing the debate and the emotions it has sparked, I think it truly was exposing a discussion around what makes a good leader and leadership team. How does that team communicate the vision and set the culture of the company? I’ve found that through effective casting of the vision, people are motivated to do their best and be engaged in the mission. I think that as leaders it’s important to remember that without a good vision, people lose motivation. To build a great company, people are your biggest asset, and it’s the responsibility of leaders of the company to build the right team and right culture to execute at each stage of the business. I don’t believe this conversation is as much about founder mode vs. manager mode, but more about a well-communicated vision paired with good leaders.

Salt Typhoon Attack Illustrates Critical Infrastructure Weakness

My Thoughts on the Latest Cybersecurity Headlines

Recently we’ve seen reports of a breach by Chinese spies on three (as of now) major telecom providers. We are lacking many details currently, but the details we have are that it’s being attributed to Chinese spies that attacked systems set up for government authorized wiretapping.

I think this is a serious issue to pay attention to as more details emerge. Espionage is ubiquitous. And regardless of the actor involved, critical infrastructure (CI) security is crucially important. This breach highlights that CI security remains a huge challenge. I know that sounds simple, but I also know it is not.?

That said, I feel that stories like these tend not to get as much attention until an actual disruption occurs. This type of espionage is the long game, allowing for the gleaning of secrets and information over years and decades for a variety of motivations. As security professionals, I think the practical takeaway is to operate with the assumption that all unencrypted traffic is being monitored by threat actors and take the notion of zero trust very seriously. I will be monitoring this story as more details emerge, and encourage you to do the same.