Ashwini is a cybersecurity expert, former CISO and the co-founder and CEO of Eydle, a fraud intelligence platform that protects brands from scams and phishing. She had MS and PhD in computer science and computer security and 20+ publications and patents in cybersecurity.
Ashwini is a cybersecurity expert, former CISO and the co-founder and CEO of Eydle, a fraud intelligence platform that protects brands from scams and phishing. She had MS and PhD in computer science and computer security and 20+ publications and patents in cybersecurity.
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Hatchet Ventures website: https://www.hatchetventures.com
Hatchet Ventures LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hatchet-ventures/
Chet Lovegren’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetlovegren/
Ashwini Rao’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ashrao/
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Narrator: 1, 2, 3, 4. Are you a founder, co-founder, aspiring entrepreneur, or just someone who loves to hear about how companies are built? Then join us as we talk with founders and CEOs who have been there and done that. Welcome to the founders Formula Podcast. Sponsored by Hatchet Ventures and now your host, Chet Lovegren.
Chet: All right, welcome one. Welcome all to the Founders Formula podcast to show that it's designed to bring you the latest and greatest insights from founders Worldwide who have been there and done that. To say I'm excited for today's episode is clearly an understatement because our guest today is a cybersecurity expert.
Former CISO and co-founder and CEO of Eydle, which is a fraud intelligence platform that protects brands from scams and phishing. She has a master's and PhD in computer science and computer security, and also has 20 plus publications and patents in cybersecurity. Please welcome the co-founder and CEO of Eydle, Ashwin Rao. Ashwin, welcome to the show.
Aswhini: Thanks, Chet. Very excited to be here.
Chet: Yeah. And we're excited to have you. I think you're probably one of the most experienced, uh, technical founders, both from the education and an experienced standpoint that we've had, and we tend to see a lot of go to market leaders and revenue leaders on the show, so it'll be nice to kind of do a one 180, flip the show and learn a little bit more from the program, the product, the engineering side, and also excited to talk a little bit more about Eydle. But before we do, you're a first time founder. You have some awesome experience on your resume from engineering to the information security space, being at the C level.
Tell us about your story up to the point of becoming the founder of Eydle what's, what's Ashwini's story?
Aswhini: Um, yeah, it's a long story. So let me start from the point where or what inspired me to start Eydle. So my previous role, I was working for a very early state startup. I joined as a lead architect.
Um, and it, this, this startup is also in the cybersecurity space, blockchain space. It enables data sharing in a secure way. I mean, if you think of Equifax, But minus all the breaches. So it's something that's, you know, very challenging, um, from a technology standpoint. Um, so I joined as a lead architect. I did all the design of the architecture.
Then I also wore multiple hats. I was the director of research and then I became the CISO. So I established the research team, the security team. So I would say that this, doing something in cyber security, As well as building a product and wearing multiple hats. It was an amazing experience. And after I quit that startup, I was like, okay, you know, building startups is exhausting, but also very exciting.
And so I wanted to do something my own startup. So as you know, you know, when you look at my resume, it's like I love cybersecurity, but there's also another thing. I love building products. I love helping. So, oh, I was thinking, okay, what's a, what's a problem? That's very common, you know, whether it's businesses or people, and given my cybersecurity background, you know, scams.
Scams are everywhere. And what's the one area where scams are exploding, and that's social media. So that's kind of what inspired me to start Eydle, you know, help people, help businesses protect themselves from phishing and scams. But also we focus on social media because that requires a new kind of technology.
And given my background, you know, I love new technology too. Not just building products and helping people. So that's the idea behind Eydle.
Chet: Awesome. And, and so in terms of that journey there, like walk us through like where did you get your start? What really interested you in this whole IT and security world?
And then what were some of the experiences that you had outside of Spring Labs that led up to you founding Eydle?
Aswhini: Yes, sure. So, I would say my undergraduate professor really inspired me about cybersecurity. You know, he used to say that everything's secure until it's broken. So that was something that was just amazing, right?
Like as you're an undergrad and you know, thinking, oh, what do I go into? So even before that, you know, I, even as a child, I remember enjoying just breaking things. You know, I remember an event where I guess my parents gave me this device, a small device that would change the color based on your emotions.
Like I think it was working based on body temperature. And my first thought was, oh, what would happen if I put this in the refrigerator? And I did, and it broke it, right? So I was always interested in knowing how things. , work Less and less about how building things. So my first passion, first love was always breaking things, understanding how things, how things work, and why they work that way.
But then as I started my cybersecurity career in general, my career, you know, I've done multiple things. I worked for companies like Qualcomm. I've built product. I realized that understanding how things work or how things break is excellent, but when it comes to people, they wanna know, like, how can we, how can they secure themselves?
You know? Um, and during my PhD I did many, I worked on multiple things, including something I'm very proud about. We built a password cracker. Which given that nowadays people use longer and longer passwords, people have started using like grammar in their passwords, like words, sentences.
So we built this cracker and I presented my work to, you know, to many people, every time people will say, show, you know, this is exciting, but tell me Ashwini, how can I build or how can I create better passwords? So, you know, This love for breaking things also became a love for building products because that's how you know one can help people and businesses.
So yeah, in my career I started as, I've done multiple things. I've been a scientist, I've been an engineer, I've been a CISO, built multiple products also, you know, understood that just breaking things is great personally, but building things is better. So that led all the way, you know, after I did my PhD.
So I've also, okay. Another thing is, you know, I did my undergrad. I worked for a little bit, then I went back for my first masters, then worked more, then again, went back for a PhD, then came back. So I've gone back and forth. But through this journey, you know, I've become very passionate about solving problems and part of that is understanding the problem itself.
How, and why. and then what can we do? This is the solution building part. So that's in a nutshell how you know, it it, that's how it was up to Spring Labs and after Spring Labs, like really, you know, startups. That's where one can really build something new and address something that no one else is addressing.
Chet: Yeah, well that's, and that's something I see my two and a half year old son. I'm like, maybe he's got a future in product and engineering cuz he loves breaking stuff. It reminds me like when I was a kid though, you know, one of my favorite parts when I would play with Legos and I'm, I'm a little different because I'm, I'm on the go to market side, but I'm, I look at, I've been told and I know that I look at problems with data.
Problems with processes in a very engineering slash product light. So I've had a lot of people in my network, revops professionals, engineers say like, you don't think of this like a salesperson. You think of it like a, like a product person would or an engineer. And I think that's because like when I was a kid too, I was the same way.
I loved building a whatever the Lego told me to build by the instructions, then I'd drop it and I'd let it break and I go, now I'm just gonna create something random that my brain thinks of. And it was like really fun. You know what I mean? Or see if I can recreate it from memory after what I just did.
So that's, that's really cool to hear you talk about like how you get there and how the whole thing about um, you know, breaking things actually inspired you to learn how they're built. You kind of went the other direction. That's just kind of cool. Cause I feel like a lot of people typically learn how to build stuff and then they see stuff break and they're like, well, when I built it, this is what I did.
So, This is what happened this way, but I think you took like a reverse engineer approach. Pun intended, and you really made it work for you, which is awesome. I'm, I'm kind of curious, where did you and your co-founder decide to really pursue the social media side of it? Is there, are you a lover of social media?
Are you very active on social media or was this more like, Hey, we know what we wanna be in and what we wanna do and how we want to help, but this is a very underserved market. Like how did that come to light where you landed on really penetrating the market as it pertains to social media, phishing and scams?
Aswhini: Yes. Um, So it's a combination of multiple things you just said. Um, you know, as a CISO I'm very well aware of phishing. Phishing happens everywhere. Millions of phishing emails are sent every day, right? I mean, who hasn't seen a phishing email, but phishing? And that's been there. There are multiple solutions for phishing via email, you know, phishing websites.
But in the last few years, I would say three, four years, what has really taken off is phishing on social media. So, you know, as, sure I was a CISO, but I'm also a researcher. So I look at, you know, what are the latest strengths, you know, whether it's market research or just academic research. So where, what are the most pressing problems both from, you know, from a business standpoint as well as a research standpoint.
And when I was thinking, okay, what should Eydle do? What should we pursue? We found that social media phishing is what is just exploding. And the solutions that address website phishing and email phishing don't really work for social media. And I'll just simply put, imagine an Instagram profile. Imagine how visual it is, right?
Like how many times the content changes. On a weekly or a daily basis. Now compare that with email or compare that with a website. Sure. The content on a website changes, but how often? Right. So the way the solutions work for email and website don't really work for social media. So what's really required for social media is a lot of visual analysis.
So if I say Chet, look at this social media profile and look at this other one Do you think this other one is impersonating the first one? What would you do? You would probably look at is the logo same or the post same, you know, is the bio same? So it's, it's a lot of visual comparison. And for that you need, if you wanted to automate that process at scale.
I mean, imagine social media. I mean, how many posts happen. So we need AI. AI specifically deep learning. technologies Which helps us do this visual analysis at scale and in automated way. So I am a cybersecurity expert. My co-founder is an AI expert, so he works with a lot of AI deep learning. And so we were like, all right, so we wanna solve this real complex social, you know, problem, which is phishing.
But there is this huge opportunity both technology wise and business wise, which is social media, so let's build it. I mean, who's better to build it than a cyber security expert and a AI expert? Let's join forces and let's build a solution for this. So that's how we decided to get into the social media phishing.
But I would like to add that, you know, this whole deep learning technology we are building also applies to. If you think of fake apps on Android store or ads that you see, the visual ads that you see, it's the same technology, but you know, as a startup, we have to start somewhere. And that's why I focus on social media.
Chet: Yeah, that's really cool. That's kinda like your mvp, right? That's your, yeah, that's your v1 what's gonna break into the market and that's really cool cuz Yeah, like, you know, there's lots of different security products for a lot of different things. Cloud security, network security, all these, you know, I use single sign on at this company that I'm working with.
There's a whole thing, verification process. But yeah, social media feels like very underserved, you know? Um, and I wouldn't, you would probably know better than me, but I don't feel like there's anything similar to that out there. Right? So while there's. People that do a fraction or something similar in some way of what you do.
You're probably really the first one doing that. But again, I don't know the space extremely well. So there, there might be something. But that's really cool that you two put that together and that you're kind of taking each of your skill sets appropriately into building, building what's necessary. I have a question about that.
Um, as I was kind of doing my research, I saw that while you and your, your co-founder both have a lot of great security and engineering and and product experience, it doesn't look like either of you have a lot of, as we called out the intro, like go to market sales leader experience. I'm kind of curious as you're a first time founder and you're getting this thing off the ground and really working and, and seeing the strides being taken that you want to take, what has been very challenging or the biggest challenge for you two so far?
Not having that traditional like sales leadership experience that we see a lot of now in first time founders?
Aswhini: Yes, absolutely. Um, so my co-founder is also a professor at, uh, university of Southern California. So he does work for his own research. He needs to write grant applications. So he does do sales, but in a different.
So convincing. I, I believe, you know, for me, the core of sales is convincing someone that they actually need it . So he does have that kind of experience, but, uh, slightly tangential In the past, he certainly has worked for companies like Schlumberger, where he was involved in more the consulting side again.
Dealing with clients, selling them a certain solution, but certainly not the traditional sales enterprise sales experience. And I did some of that, not really sales, but as a C I S O I had to deal with vendors. But yes, you know, that's been one of the very challenging things. It's like drinking from a fire host.
And although, you know, we are tech technical founders, but we also have leadership. Some sales experience, but we also believe that unlike like some technical founders who really go and build things from the get go, we wanted build only that's required and build more if people are willing to pay for it.
So, That's been a mantra for us, and it's been challenging because the moment we built our, even before building our mvp, we were talking to like a hundred plus, you know, potential customers. Like, but how do you ask questions? You don't wanna ask leading questions. If you ask someone, Hey, would you like to use this?
Pretty much everyone will say yes. I mean, you know that no one wants to upset you, right? So we were reading books like, how do we ask questions in. A way that we actually get their answer. You know, instead of asking, Hey, are you going to use this? We are like, what are you doing today? How do you address this problem today?
You know, what's most bothering you about this? So we learned how to like ask questions when doing customer discovery, and then of course they're all same from CRM to how do you do leg gen? You. So we had to learn a lot of things and it's been nice learning because I love learning. But yeah, it's one of the challenging things.
I would also say that selling to small businesses, we have found it easier. Like one, because there are way too many of them, right? But enterprise sales even more challenging. So that enterprise sales has been probably the most challenging thing to do for. But we have done it. We do have a big enterprise client now.
We just like onboarding them. So hey, we are making progress.
Chet: I'm in. I'm in the same boat as someone who's done sales and sales leadership for 10 years now. I've always said like, I actually had an exchange on TikTok with somebody the other day, another sales leader, and I was like, Nope, put me in SMB mid-market all day long.
I'd rather go sling SMB & mid-market all day than waste months away at Enterprise to see a deal or two to not come through that I really needed. Enterprise is a really, really, It's a very tricky thing to get right. A lot of companies have enterprise functions, but it's why that's like the last one for them to build.
It's like, okay, we figured all this other stuff out. Let's go build an enterprise motion. Um, because it is, it's very tricky to get right, but I'm in the same boat. I love the smb, the mid-market, like. Let me talk to smaller companies that are ready to have a conversation. Plus those people that you're talking to probably have more ownership of what's going on than needing to wrap in three people for every tiny little thing that you're talking about.
You know, . Yes, absolutely. Now, what's interesting is you're talking about how the two of you kind of. Analyze these things that, these skills that you said, Hey, we need to improve upon somebody's skills. We're gonna go read some books, figure out more, you know, more, more valuable questions to ask a discovery, to have better discovery.
We're gonna learn about CRM and, and lead gen and how that all wraps into everything. Um, did you two find that? You kind of delegated those two things between each other. Like did one of you kind of focus on like the discovery questions and presenting in those sales meetings more and somebody else was focusing more on the operations and legion and how that worked?
Or did you two tackle that whole entire gamut together? 50 50,
Aswhini: I would say I took more leadership of that or responsibility for that. Um, my role. The CEO and my co-founder is a chief scientist, so he focuses primarily on the AI models and building the AI models. And I focus more on the sales aspects, but we do share some of the tasks.
But the way we work is we said, you are responsible for this, the success of this thing, and I am responsible for the success of. But that doesn't mean we can all share task, you know, once, once we, for example, with this enterprise client, it's a long, as you said, it's, it's a long process. It takes months, and while I'm, I hold myself responsible, there are multiple things, right?
Once you have to keep following up with someone, Hey, have you done this, have you done that? And some of that I delegated to him, but ultimately if it fails, it's on me. So that's how we share because it's just impossible to just take responsibility for everything. But at the same time, you don't wanna end up doing everything, even whatever you're responsible for all the time.
So yes, sales, mostly it's on me. You know, I go ahead, you know, I go to some of the security conferences, I walk up to these people, whether it's from cyber threat intelligence, and I start asking them, oh, how do you do this? How do you do that? And then, you know, get those people interested in Eydle. Then once we get them interested, you know, I do go to my co-founder and say, Hey, can you help me with this particular task?
Chet: Mm. Yeah, that's awesome that you two have kind of figured out how to delegate those, but then also understanding like, hey, this is when it comes to the delegation, this is what you're responsible for, the success of this function. But there might be a task or two that I rope you in on, on both sides, right?
That I might help you with something, you might help me with something because it's that, that, um, you know, combination of duties on what's a priority and what we're going after. We're, we're, we're coming up on time here, and I, I had, uh, something regarding fundraising that I wanted to talk to you about. I know that your company is bootstrapped and there's an opportunity to potentially raise funds on the horizon, but up to this point, you've been bootstrapped and as a bootstrapped, uh, co-founder, I, I'm curious to hear what maybe one or two of your biggest challenges have been when it comes to keeping the company going with no help from VC funding or angel investors.
What's been challenging about that? So,
Aswhini: So as a first time founder, you know, there's so many things to learn. So when I joined this previous company, I was a very early employee and this company was also very well funded. Like really, really, I think they had just a seed round of like 15 million, and that kind of gave me, I would say, the wrong impression.
You know? I said, oh, if you have a great idea and you know you'll have a great background. It should be easy to raise funds, but unfortunately I've learned that that's not always the case. As a first time founder, there's a lot more to do. So we tried to raise, so in the very beginning when we had this, you know, idea, we tried to raise a little bit.
At that point we, I mean, it was so early that we had to learn, okay, what are the different types of investors, you know? Oh, there's angel investors. Oh, there are like small firms. Oh, there are VCs. Oh, this is a term sheet. Like even just like understanding everything, like what is this fundraising process look like?
Right. Who are all the stakeholders and why would they be interested in funding us? That itself was a learning for us. So that was seven, eight months. at the, we tried for maybe a month, or yeah, around a month we talked to, you know, some investors and we realized, okay, we do have the runway to build an MVP We can get more traction, you know, whether it's SMBs or enterprise, and we'll then be in a better position, you know, to raise. So that's where we are today. And now we are also working with, you know, hatch a Ventures. You know, we have great advisors who are helping us position ourselves in the best possible way.
And you know, whether it's the pitch deck or just, just what's the story about ourselves. So we are getting ready to raise in about three months time, cuz I think. As a first time founder, we learn so many things. We think the idea is the most important thing, or the traction is the most important thing, but there's also this whole idea of selling ourselves, like why we, you know, why are we best positioned to do so?
So that all has been learning and it's getting better. As we have spent more time working with our advisors, just, just learning. It has definitely become much easier thinking about, okay, there's going to be a fundraise and this is what we have to do and we are going to do it, and it'll be done.
Chet: Yeah. Sounds like it's a really exciting time. Um, as we, as we, uh, part ways, would you have any words of advice or words of wisdom for first time founders or founders that are bootstrapping their venture? What would you, what would be your, your piece of advice or, or lasting wisdom to them?
Aswhini: Yes. So I would say the one thing that I've really learned, and I've been really convinced is as a first time founder, You really have to focus on yourself and your team.
Like why you? Why are you best positioned to build this? And I think a lot of us, including me, I kind of just thought, oh, I do have a great background. And investors would see that, no, you really have to talk about it. And the earlier you talk about it in your pitch, the better do focus on your team slide and why you are the.
Team to build this solution. Because everyone knows that a lot of times we pivot. You know, we start with an idea about we, but what will, if they in investor did give us money, what will keep us going? What will we do to succeed? And that depends on the team. So it's very important to draw attention. Early on, and I would then say, the other thing is work with some advisors.
You know, like get some good advisors who are on your side who have done fundraising before. Maybe they're not first time founders. They have built companies before. Talk to them, get their feedback. I think that that's an amazing learning experience too. Just having them on your side highly, highly advise them.
Chet: Ashwini's Founders Formula to, for uh, to success. Community plus advisement, , that's the way to go. And your story. Storytelling plus community equals success. There we go. We'll round it out there. Well, Ashwini, thank you so much for taking time to stop by the show and share your insights. If people want to connect with you or connect with Eydle, um, where can they find you?
Where's the best place for them to do that?
Aswhini: Uh, they can contact me on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. I do check my LinkedIn messages. Um, I can also give my email address. It's my first name dot last name at eydle.com. So love to chat with other founders if someone needs help with, you know, social media security, any security issue in general, happy to talk to, talk about that.
Chet: That's awesome and we'll put a copy, uh, and a link, I'm sorry, to Ashwini's LinkedIn, as well as a link to Eydle's website in the show notes below. If you're interested in engaging with Hatchet Ventures, the podcast myself any further. Um, we'll also have a link in the show notes below to the. Various platforms that the podcast is posted on.
Don't forget to review us on Apple Podcasts and check us out on LinkedIn and engage with some of our content that we post when we have our weekly releases on Tuesday mornings. In the meantime, thank you again for listening. Thank you, Ashwini, for being here and we will catch everybody on the next one.
Aswhini: Thank you, Chet