New Chapter: Netwrix Acquires Remediant

Earlier today, we announced that Remediant is now part of Netwrix, a 16 year old cybersecurity company that serves more than 13,000 customers, globally. The acquisition will bring new capabilities to Netwrix's PAM offering, further delivering on the promise of Zero Standing Privilege (ZSP) -- and bringing new capabilities to Remediant's current customers. Timothy Keeler and I are proud to have brought Remediant through this journey and are excited about the prospects ahead.

Sustainable, and sustained

My core nature is a behind-the-scenes guy -- always has been. When I was a youngling, I didn't want to be Senior Class President -- the focus of attention and the one in the spotlight -- I wanted to be (and was!) Senior Class Vice President, because that's the person who made things happen. As an IT Project Manager, I was more than happy to give the stage over to the IT Leads and Business Leads; my job wasn't to give speeches, it was to execute. I've loved being the behind-the-scenes guy at Remediant, focused on making sure the company operates. This meant different things at different stages of the company -- at various times I've run our Finance, HR, IT, Legal, Analyst Relations, Industry Relations, Technology Alliances and Partnerships and Customer Success functions -- but it always centered around the idea of creating a sustainable (and sustained) version of Remediant. Sustainable for our customers, sustainable for our employees.

"[T]he most sane/ethical place I've ever worked"

It was in the spring of 2015 when, at the encouragement of my former bosses (+ lifelong mentors, + future Remediant Board members), Shobie Ramakrishnan and Christopher Jones , Tim and I reconnected over a pizza lunch in Burlingame and decided to make the SecureONE product a thing that existed in this world. I remember talking about the kind of company culture we wanted to create even then -- inspired in no small part by the culture that we had seen Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann and Art Levison create at Genentech -- but scaled for the size of cybersecurity company we were creating.

Of everything we created at Remediant, our culture is one of the things I'm most proud of. Around a company cultural slogan of "Casual Intensity", we had five core tenants: Bring Your Whole Self To Work; Work/Life Balance; Talk to Anyone; Innovation & Driving The State of the Art Forward; Passion For Success of Our Customers. We added a sixth one later on: Build Expertise Through Challenges. I think just about every company can point to a cultural statement of one kind or another, but they're often forgotten about because a) they generally end up being the average of all input provided in their creation (and thus: terrible) and b) they aren't backed up by policy. I once worked for a company that had a culture statement about their faith and trust in their employees -- but then my buying authority, as a manager, was exactly $0.01. I couldn't purchase a pencil. We vowed to create a culture at Remediant that was backed up the policies that employees connected with every day -- that led to policies like our $2,000/year/employee Wellness Stipend and the M3 Day. You can erode a company's culture very easily -- as my dad says, there are a thousand ways to fail -- and it's a tricky thing to build and sustain. I was deeply honored when one of our employees remarked "its been the most sane/ethical place I've ever worked" -- I love that, and it speaks volumes to the culture that every employee at Remediant felt and contributed to.

Solve the problem vs Answer the question

After we hit ~10 customers, it was shockingly apparent that we really needed a Customer Success team (in defense of everyone else at Remediant: it was probably really apparent to everyone else even before this point... this is when I finally woke up to the need!). Me picking up customer calls, emails, texts and tickets inbetween other COO duties wasn't leaving our customers with the feeling of excellent support that we all felt they deserved. From our first Customer Success hire ( Craig Harper : you're a miracle worker) through to the team that last met up in Denver in November ( Thanos Hunt , Karl Wood , Ari Lloyd ), it's not hyperbole to say that this is the best team I've ever had the pleasure to work with.

This is exactly the customer success team I wish I had had supporting me (from any vendor!) in my days as an IT practitioner and solution owner. With respect to Remediant, our Gartner Peer Insights reviews speak more clearly than I ever could about the excellence of this team -- nearly every review cites the strength of the Customer Success team as a key factor in their positive rating of the solution. I saw my biggest role with this team as: getting them what they needed, and getting out of their way. If there was one guiding light we had, it was: solve the customer's problem, don't just answer their question. We have some extremely talented customers who, in a field as complex as cybersecurity, are used to having to do all of the hard work themselves. Most of the time they'd come up with the best way to accomplish something on their own, but sometimes, if we knew what problem they were trying to solve, we could suggest an easier path. This guiding light encouraged our Customer Success team to lead with empathy, ask questions and understand the problem space before trying to solve the answer the customer's question -- and the results were happy customers and a team that was (and felt) empowered.

My deepest thanks

I owe endless thanks to so many people for making Remediant a success. There isn't a microblogging platform out there with a word limit high enough for me to thank everyone -- so let me issue a general THANK YOU to everyone who helped us along this journey. Startups are a team sport, and I'm thankful for everyone who was part of our team.

Especially our employees: early engineers Ivan Tam , Tyler Garrett and Scott Griffin ; SLT members Brian Hanrahan , Frank Dye , Bill Ronca and Stephen Burgio ; President/CEO Raj Dodhiawala -- I've learned so much from this journey, and have you all to thank.

First, to Tim, my co-founder: thanks for the challenge, the opportunity and the trust. There just isn't anyone else I've ever met that could have steered the course for Remediant that you did. Your patience, creativity and care were the cement that held things together through the roughest parts, and your technical vision kept us centered on achieving our customer goals. There are no easy jobs in startups, and I think the founder-CEO job must be the most difficult of all.

To our independent board members, Chris and Shobie and frequent advisors including Zane Lackey , Caleb Sima , Dr. Joshua Belk, CISM , Andy Horwitz , David Damato , Todd A Pierce , Darran Rolls and Jim Pflaging -- your advice and counsel was helpful in ways I don't know that you'll all ever be able to fully appreciate. The simple fact that each of you was willing to spend time with Tim and I to hear about our challenges, listen with empathy and provide us with the wisdom of your own experiences was deeply meaningful because you showed us, with the gift of your time, that you believed in us. The advice itself was also great! We are unfairly lucky to have had you all pulling for us.

I was so lucky to have some amazing friends in the information security business to encourage me and tell me that this whole journey wasn't crazy. A few that stand out: David Lee , Heather Adkins , Adam Creaney , Chad Anderson , Joel Johnson , Ronald Hoering , Adam Zollman , David Pascal , Bill Neumeister , Carolyn Guglielmi , George Irungu , Patrick Gray , Aziz Gilani , Kevin Gibbs -- each of you provided words of encouragement, and showed your faith in me and in Remediant in your own special and specific way. Several of you that I met along this journey I now count as life-long friends, and we have this company and this time to thank for bringing us together. It's truly a special pleasure to have had the opportunity to get to know each of you. Similarly, I'm indebted to Mike Kelley at Gartner for being the first analyst to really latch on to the concept of Zero Standing Privilege and Just In Time Access in the PAM world. Your thoughtful questions challenged my own thinking, and helped Remediant to deliver a better product to customers.

To our investors, Deepak Jeevankumar and Don Dixon , Alberto Yépez and William Lin - there aren't thanks enough for everything you've done for Remediant. I am fond of telling people that our board was made of people who I'd want on my board, even if they hadn't made the choice to invest in Remediant. You've been amazing partners to Tim and I, and I am so deeply thankful for everything you've done for us.

Last, I want to thank my wife, Kristin Lowland Lanzi and Tim's wife, Sarah Pope . I don't know that you two knew what you were signing up for 7 years ago when we started down this path (I sure didn't!) but your unwaivering support of Tim and I, along with your forgiveness for endless conference trips, stressed-out husbands and your patience with endless infosec babble is an embodiment of kindness that none of us was worthy of.

Two Guys And A Server

Tim and I are hilariously bad at celebrating our successes. When, as "two guys and a server" (credit to Mike Gordon ) we closed our first commercial customer -- Lockheed Martin -- I think we (maybe?) expensed our lunch that day to Remediant. Today, I'm so happy to be celebrating the next chapter for Remediant, our customers and our team... I might even have a cookie.