"The NEA guys used to have, a slide that showed the odds that you had of going from founder of tech company to funded to IPOing. It's about 1 in 80,000. And, those are pretty terrible odds until you look at the Powerball lottery odds, and then all of a sudden, they're actually quite good odds." - Martin Roesch, Founder of Sourcefire, part of Cisco & CEO of Netography This quote from Mahendra, Ross, and my recent discussion with Marty on our latest Inside the Network #podcast episode sums up his optimistic approach to entrepreneurship. This trait helped Marty create a completely new way to monetize open-source security software. Marty created #Snort, a free open-source network intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS) software back in 1998. Widespread adoption, led Marty to found Sourcefire in 2001. With $35M of VC funding, he scaled the business to ~$45M revenue and took it public in 2007. In 2013, the company was acquired by Cisco for $2.7B, the largest #cybersecurity M&A exit at the time. Today, Marty has gone back full circle as the CEO of a new startup, Netography, where again he is working to challenge the status quo. We speak about this journey and a lot more. Here are four interesting learnings from the episode: 1) Surround yourself with great people: Marty and Ronald Gula (founder of Tenable) became friends in college at Clarkson University where they lived across the hall from each other. They used to play a combat flight simulator game and talk about whether UFOs were real. They would go on to become lifelong friends. 2) Use analysts and training organizations to build your customer pipeline: "Gartner doesn't make or break the company but it does make the phone ring!" And if you have a free-to-use version of your product, teach at the SANS Institute to help security practitioners understand how to incorporate it into their day-to-day jobs. 3) Understand your victory conditions: Founders need to be ready to answer the question, "When is enough, enough?" Stay humble and ask yourself if things will continue along the same path. 4) Leverage your board but don't resort to Silicon Valley groupthink: Marty had three of the best enterprise investors in the industry - Asheem Chandna (Greylock), Tim Guleri (SIERRA Ventures) and the late Harry Weller (New Enterprise Associates (NEA)) - to lean on for advice. He had to know when to listen and when to push back. If you like what you hear, please leave us a positive review on the podcast platforms and share it with others! And please also send us any feedback (we've already incorporated a few pointers in this latest episode). Apple Podcast: https://lnkd.in/gX62hHvG Spotify: https://lnkd.in/g7DRbJwB Podcast Website: https://lnkd.in/gekFrkbE
Atul Tiwary
2w
Very informative! The 1:80k got me thinking about Bayesian Probability…Securing seed funding can increase the probability of success from 1 in 80,000 to about 1 in 10,000, achieving product-market fit to 1 in 2,000, and raising Series A funding to 1 in 1,000. Subsequent Series B and C rounds can improve it to 1 in 500 and 1 in 200, respectively. Customer acquisition and revenue growth can boost the odds to 1 in 100, industry recognition and strategic partnerships to 1 in 50, and proving scalability and market expansion to around 1 in 20. These milestones progressively transform daunting initial odds into more achievable targets through the Bayesian lens. I’m curious what you and the team think about this?
Chris H.
2w
This was an excellent episode, with insights on building a company around an open source product, the role of channel partners and when to engage them and lessons in leadership and M&A when dealing with well funded competitors. Really enjoyed listening to it Martin Roesch - and agree completely with the future of network security in the cloud-native and hybrid cloud environments. Keep the great work Sid Trivedi Ross Haleliuk and Mahendra R. 👏
Sid Trivedi Mahendra R. this is very good: “Use analysts and training organizations to build your customer pipeline: "Gartner doesn't make or break the company but it does make the phone ring!"
For some reason, that print you are holding stimulates a craving for the Maryland crab soup at Kings Contrivance!
Donald Root
1w
This is awesome. Brings back some great memories
You HAVE to surround yourself with great people. Not an option.
Jon S.
2w
Good stuff. Had the pleasure of working with Marty at Cisco.
Love the Print!!
What an inspiring journey shared by Marty Roesch! His story encapsulates the essence of resilience, innovation, and strategic thinking in entrepreneurship. Surrounding yourself with great people, leveraging industry analysts, understanding victory conditions, and navigating board dynamics are crucial lessons for any founder.Sid Trivedi
Holy cow, where did you find that photo?!? 😂 I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that I had an amazing team to work with and to teach me a tremendous amount about how to build companies and be successful. Many (but not all!) of them have caricatures on the artwork in the photo, I'm a big believer in shared success and every one of them were huge contributors to the success of all of us.