A decade ago, log management was commonly used to capture and retain events for compliance and security use cases. As adversaries and their TTP’s grew more sophisticated, simple logging evolved into security information and event management (SIEM) and the power of rule-driven correlation made it possible to turn raw event data into potentially valuable intelligence. Albeit challenging to implement and make everything work properly, the ability to find the so-called “needle in the haystack” and identify attacks in progress was a huge step forward.

Today, SIEM’s still exist, and the market is largely led by Splunk and IBM Q-Radar. Many customers have finally moved into cloud-native deployments, and are leveraging machine learning and sophisticated behavioral analytics. However, new enterprise deployments are fewer, costs are greater, and — most important — the overall needs of the CISO and the hard-working team in the SOC have changed. These needs have changed because security teams have almost universally recognized that they are losing against the bad guys. The reduced reliance on the SIEM is well underway, along with many other changes. The SIEM is not going away, but its role is changing rapidly, and it has a new partner in the SOC. …

Competing head-to-head in business can be an expensive, cutthroat, and often frustrating effort yielding diminishing returns. Throughout my 25-year experience in Enterprise and SaaS software startups, I have observed countless companies try to pull ahead by “out-innovating”, adding new functionality, or offering cheaper solutions. When this happens, companies tend to converge along the same competitive dimensions and become overly focused on beating one another, and lose sight of the customer. This is a losing battle for vendors, investors, and pretty much everyone involved.

Three times in my career I have been fortunate to be part of a team where we found ourselves in heated, competitive situations in crowded markets and we collectively found the courage to think exponentially and completely redefine competitive boundaries by creating a new category. Twice, this occurred at SaaS cybersecurity companies and the other time was at enterprise software company Mercury Interactive. In each case, the effort required a different pattern of strategic thinking. Instead of looking within the accepted boundaries, we identified unoccupied territory that represented a breakthrough in value. …

I have been a 2-time CEO and 2-time COO hired to help technical founders realize commercial success. I am lucky to have been a part of some great teams in my career. During that time, those same teams have realized over $5B in successful software company exits. Those successes were the result of two things: great people and solutions with what is known as ‘product-market fit’. When one, or especially both are missing, success is less likely, if even possible at all.

Not achieving true product-market fit is not only something that plagues early-stage companies, but I have also witnessed an absence of product-market fit (PMF) at companies both early and late-stage companies. …

Throughout my several decades-long career in the software industry, I have encountered scores of companies that have had great ideas, but never achieved success. They checked all the boxes: they hired a talented team, built great products, established a global presence — yet they were not nearly as successful as they could be. Why not? The complex mix of strategy, messages, products, and overall execution, known as their ‘go-to-market strategy, just wasn’t right. That is one of the primary reasons that over 90% of startups ultimately fail. Unfortunately, just one flaw with a company’s go-to-market can make success seem like a distant mirage in a desert. …

Set clear goals, communicate in real-time, and other advice for keeping far-flung teams on the same page.

Maintaining a healthy, productive, and fast-moving team that’s located all over the globe can be a real challenge. In my company, much of our work spans multiple offices, with nine different time zones on three continents.

I’ve learned first-hand that to successfully manage a distributed workforce, it’s less about managing offices and much more about managing people, their priorities, and the work they do. …

This is the story of a small, innovative SaaS startup that fought above its weight class, built a meaningful relationship with several multi-billion dollar industry leaders, made millions of dollars, and achieved a spot on center stage.

Yep, that startup is a company I led as the CEO for over 5 years called Redbooth, and we made task and project management software for teams.

But, those successes didn’t happen by accident. How did we do it? In a nutshell, we followed three simple rules. …

It’s no secret that meetings are almost universally hated. More often than not, they’re tedious, repetitive or a flat-out waste of time. After spending the last 23 years as a CEO, COO, and executive in cybersecurity and enterprise software, I can say that I have been a part of countless ineffective meetings where I likely wasted months, if not years of my life. Sometimes I led those meetings, but for much of my early career, I was an unwilling participant. This led me to spend a lot of time thinking about how to help people work more efficiently.

A recent study of 19 million meetings revealed that half a trillion dollars in the US and the UK alone — was lost due to poorly organized meetings. Some of the biggest challenges were unclear actions and confusion, poor organization and inefficient processes. All this is a tremendous drag on business effectiveness. …

Imagine you were responsible for the protection of a building. You’d probably start by analyzing its entire interior and exterior, mapping every square foot to determine what defenses you need to put in place and where.

Along with your locks and alarms, you’d want to install a network of surveillance cameras positioned to give you real-time visibility of the entire structure, i.e., anywhere a burglar could possibly show up. It’s a pretty clear-cut formula that, once implemented, ensures you’re ready to defend against intruders.