1
00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:04,710
What happens if you have a data
breach? You know what happens?

2
00:00:04,770 --> 00:00:05,603
It's over.

3
00:00:05,670 --> 00:00:10,140
So the best thing for you to do is to
secure your data the best way possible.

4
00:00:10,500 --> 00:00:12,150
And to do that,

5
00:00:12,180 --> 00:00:16,290
you need to know what we're going to
share with you on this edition of the

6
00:00:16,300 --> 00:00:20,550
Inside BSS Show. Hey, now I'm Dave
Lorenzo. I'm the godfather of growth,

7
00:00:20,550 --> 00:00:24,870
and I'm here with my partner Nicki g
Nicola. How are you this afternoon?

8
00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:27,300
Hi Dave. I'm doing great. And how are you?

9
00:00:27,660 --> 00:00:30,300
I'm fantastic, thank you. So Nicola,

10
00:00:30,330 --> 00:00:34,620
you talk to a lot of clients
and a lot of clients who

11
00:00:35,130 --> 00:00:38,940
have data in their business, and
I know this keeps 'em up at night.

12
00:00:38,940 --> 00:00:43,740
What happens if somebody has
a data breach and they didn't

13
00:00:43,740 --> 00:00:46,560
do what they were supposed to do? What
are the legal implications of that?

14
00:00:47,070 --> 00:00:51,270
Sure. So the legal risks can be
significant when you have a data breach.

15
00:00:51,450 --> 00:00:54,030
So I'm setting aside right now
for purposes of this discussion,

16
00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:55,230
all the business risks,

17
00:00:55,260 --> 00:00:57,870
because certainly there are costs
to your business to correct it.

18
00:00:58,140 --> 00:01:01,590
There are reputational concerns you need
to be thinking about when it happens.

19
00:01:01,830 --> 00:01:03,120
But aside from all of that,

20
00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:07,440
you also may have a massive liability
exposure that you need to be thinking

21
00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:09,300
about and thinking about immediately.

22
00:01:09,750 --> 00:01:14,490
Oftentimes what we see when there is a
massive data breach is a lawsuit that

23
00:01:14,490 --> 00:01:18,240
follows it in the civil space, and
oftentimes it's a class action.

24
00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:22,950
So put simply a class action is
a lawsuit brought by one or more

25
00:01:22,950 --> 00:01:27,660
individuals as plaintiffs on
behalf of a class or a group of

26
00:01:27,660 --> 00:01:32,490
similarly situated individuals who share
a similar harm that occurred to them

27
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:36,540
as a result of the defendant's conduct.
So in these particular instances,

28
00:01:36,540 --> 00:01:41,100
what we will see is data was exposed
for a massive group of consumers,

29
00:01:41,110 --> 00:01:44,970
and so a lawsuit is brought on their
behalf to recover those monies for what

30
00:01:44,980 --> 00:01:45,840
they were damaged.

31
00:01:46,230 --> 00:01:50,820
The lawsuit settlements that we have seen
come out of some of these massive data

32
00:01:50,820 --> 00:01:52,410
breaches are immense.

33
00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:57,420
We're talking anywhere from $150 million
in settlement monies to upwards of

34
00:01:57,420 --> 00:02:01,020
700 million. Some of the examples
we've seen are with Uber,

35
00:02:01,020 --> 00:02:03,120
with T-Mobile and with Equifax.

36
00:02:03,420 --> 00:02:06,900
So there are significant liability
risks associated with that from a civil

37
00:02:06,900 --> 00:02:11,070
standpoint that you absolutely need to
be considering along with everything else

38
00:02:11,070 --> 00:02:12,570
that's going on with the
business at the time.

39
00:02:12,780 --> 00:02:17,550
So Nicola, you are so impressive
with your legal definitions.

40
00:02:18,210 --> 00:02:21,120
It's almost as if you're reading
it out of a legal textbook.

41
00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:25,950
One of my clients who is in the
managed service space said to me

42
00:02:26,100 --> 00:02:30,600
one time that a data breach
is drunk driving these days.

43
00:02:30,600 --> 00:02:31,710
It's like a rite of passage.

44
00:02:31,710 --> 00:02:35,490
Almost everybody has had that happen
to them at some point. And I said,

45
00:02:35,490 --> 00:02:38,130
actually, no. You know
what a data breach is like.

46
00:02:38,190 --> 00:02:41,820
It's like if you're a school bus driver
and you're drunk driving and you drive

47
00:02:41,820 --> 00:02:46,050
the school bus off the edge of a
bridge and all the children are killed.

48
00:02:46,170 --> 00:02:50,760
That's what a data breach is
like because it has a massive

49
00:02:50,760 --> 00:02:55,470
impact, not only on you legally, it
has an impact on you financially,

50
00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:58,560
it has an impact on you reputationally,

51
00:02:58,570 --> 00:03:02,350
from the standpoint of the fact that if
you have competitors who have not had a

52
00:03:02,350 --> 00:03:02,620
breach,

53
00:03:02,620 --> 00:03:06,640
everyone's going to flee to a competitor
immediately because they're never going

54
00:03:06,650 --> 00:03:11,530
to trust you with their data
or their money ever again. So I

55
00:03:11,530 --> 00:03:16,390
don't want to spend the rest of this
show talking about how horrible it is to

56
00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:17,200
have a data breach,

57
00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:21,790
but I do want to sufficiently scare
the crap out of people who are

58
00:03:21,790 --> 00:03:26,470
not taking the proper
precautions to secure their data.

59
00:03:26,590 --> 00:03:30,460
And we can spend a couple of minutes at
the end of the show talking about the

60
00:03:30,460 --> 00:03:33,580
proper way to handle a breach
if you've had it. I mean,

61
00:03:33,580 --> 00:03:36,760
you got to engage an attorney first
and then have the attorney hire all the

62
00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:39,790
experts. We can talk about all
that at the end of the show.

63
00:03:39,940 --> 00:03:44,740
I'd much rather focus on what we can do
upfront to make sure that everything is

64
00:03:44,740 --> 00:03:45,370
secure.

65
00:03:45,370 --> 00:03:49,930
And to do that we have the perfect
person as a guest on the show

66
00:03:49,940 --> 00:03:53,020
today. So folks, if you're
listening, if you're watching,

67
00:03:53,020 --> 00:03:57,340
we are going to introduce you to
Kathy Myron. We call her cyber Kathy.

68
00:03:57,340 --> 00:03:58,690
She's the queen of the cloud.

69
00:03:58,810 --> 00:04:03,430
She owns a company called
EI and they specialize in

70
00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:08,320
helping people just like you prevent
all that nasty crap we just talked

71
00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:09,790
about from happening.

72
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,450
But the depth of her knowledge
is so much greater than that.

73
00:04:13,450 --> 00:04:16,180
I can't wait for you to meet
her. Kathy, welcome to the show.

74
00:04:16,180 --> 00:04:17,350
Thanks for joining us today.

75
00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:19,330
Thanks for having me, Dave and Nicola.

76
00:04:20,650 --> 00:04:23,620
Oh, it's so great to have you
here. So Kathy, let's start off.

77
00:04:24,150 --> 00:04:28,050
Why don't you give the folks
your background because
when I listen to a podcast,

78
00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:31,810
the first thing I think of is, all
right, so I know who Dave and Nicola are.

79
00:04:31,810 --> 00:04:35,140
Now they're putting somebody in
front of me and they say she's sharp,

80
00:04:35,260 --> 00:04:39,880
but we can't do you justice as well as
you can. So talk about your background,

81
00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:44,050
talk about how you got to the place
where you are today as an entrepreneur,

82
00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:46,960
but talk about where you were
before that because you, like me,

83
00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:48,370
had a background in corporate America.

84
00:04:48,370 --> 00:04:50,680
So explain to the folks
where you came from.

85
00:04:51,010 --> 00:04:51,670
Sure, Dave.

86
00:04:51,670 --> 00:04:55,840
So before I was the c e O of East Silo
and we're a data backup and cybersecurity

87
00:04:55,840 --> 00:04:56,920
company. As you can imagine.

88
00:04:57,310 --> 00:05:01,120
I spent 15 years at a Fortune
10 multinational organization.

89
00:05:01,690 --> 00:05:04,240
So I was at a company called
ge. You might've heard of them.

90
00:05:04,300 --> 00:05:07,180
They make aircraft engines,
healthcare machines.

91
00:05:07,420 --> 00:05:11,830
We ran or recycled 12 billion of
commercial paper every single day.

92
00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:13,900
We had a lot of different businesses,

93
00:05:13,900 --> 00:05:18,760
and I spent nine of my years
at GE in the corporate audit

94
00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:19,593
function.

95
00:05:19,840 --> 00:05:24,760
So really looking at these different
standalone businesses and evaluating

96
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:29,200
their cybersecurity health, their
business resiliency, their IT systems,

97
00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:32,110
and the quality of the data that came
out of those systems and was used for

98
00:05:32,110 --> 00:05:36,730
everything from financial reporting to
handling of client information and so on

99
00:05:36,730 --> 00:05:37,563
and so forth.

100
00:05:37,930 --> 00:05:42,820
So that's really where I came from and
where I learned that when you think about

101
00:05:42,820 --> 00:05:45,040
technology and cybersecurity specifically,

102
00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:49,360
you might be governed or regulated
by a number of different three letter

103
00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:52,540
agencies. And depending on what
country you're talking about,

104
00:05:52,540 --> 00:05:54,310
there's a whole bunch of
different regulations.

105
00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:58,700
But if you strip all of that
back, what makes good technology,

106
00:05:58,700 --> 00:06:03,590
a good high functioning technology
system or organization is really the

107
00:06:03,590 --> 00:06:06,500
same. The requirements
are by and large the same.

108
00:06:06,860 --> 00:06:10,130
And that is are you protecting
information in the way that it's accessed?

109
00:06:10,580 --> 00:06:14,120
Are you protecting the network
that all of those systems run on?

110
00:06:14,450 --> 00:06:17,570
Are you protecting the systems that are
housing all of that information and how

111
00:06:17,570 --> 00:06:20,510
you interact with third
parties and so on and so forth.

112
00:06:20,540 --> 00:06:23,120
So that's really where
my background comes from.

113
00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:26,990
After I spent nine years in audit,
I actually moved on to a C T O role.

114
00:06:26,990 --> 00:06:30,110
So I was one of the chief technology
officers up at GE headquarters,

115
00:06:30,530 --> 00:06:34,790
and at the time my team was responsible
for all of the productivity tools,

116
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:39,890
mobile and collaboration tools for
a global 350,000 person workforce.

117
00:06:40,220 --> 00:06:40,820
So again,

118
00:06:40,820 --> 00:06:44,750
you think about the variety of
technology and the kind of problems that

119
00:06:44,750 --> 00:06:47,780
organizations like that have,
staying safe and staying compliant,

120
00:06:48,620 --> 00:06:53,270
I take that knowledge and I bring that
to my small and midsize clients and help

121
00:06:53,270 --> 00:06:56,840
them understand and distill down these
are the most essential things that you

122
00:06:56,840 --> 00:07:00,620
need to be putting in place to protect
yourself, to protect your employees,

123
00:07:00,620 --> 00:07:01,880
to protect your clients.

124
00:07:02,210 --> 00:07:05,840
And we help do that in a way where
they're able to leverage tools that maybe

125
00:07:05,850 --> 00:07:08,060
they've never heard of before
or have never been exposed to,

126
00:07:08,840 --> 00:07:11,930
and also implement the right procedures
that are going to keep them out of

127
00:07:11,930 --> 00:07:12,763
trouble in the longterm.

128
00:07:13,310 --> 00:07:16,610
So how did you get into
tech in the first place?

129
00:07:16,610 --> 00:07:20,480
Were you like a little baby crawling
around on the living room floor with your

130
00:07:20,870 --> 00:07:25,790
parents' t r s 80 Radio Shack
computer and tooling around with it,

131
00:07:25,790 --> 00:07:27,410
and that's how you got into tech?

132
00:07:27,410 --> 00:07:31,580
How did you become somebody who
was interested in technology? No.

133
00:07:31,580 --> 00:07:35,930
But what you're describing is my
son, growing up with all the devices,

134
00:07:36,830 --> 00:07:40,010
I always was a really
avid user of technology.

135
00:07:40,020 --> 00:07:44,210
So I was always the first to go out and
buy the MP three player when it came out

136
00:07:44,210 --> 00:07:45,080
or the tiny pocket camera.

137
00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:50,300
So I loved using technology and I was
always excited by the power that it could

138
00:07:50,300 --> 00:07:54,650
bring. But then it wasn't until I
went to college, I studied finance,

139
00:07:54,650 --> 00:07:58,610
information systems and operations partly
because I frankly didn't know what I

140
00:07:58,610 --> 00:08:03,260
wanted to do. And partly because I
knew that I wanted to be in business,

141
00:08:03,260 --> 00:08:04,093
whatever that meant.

142
00:08:04,460 --> 00:08:07,550
And I knew that technology and numbers
were going to be a huge part of it.

143
00:08:07,580 --> 00:08:09,320
So that's really how I got my start.

144
00:08:09,680 --> 00:08:11,570
And I was fortunate that
when I was in college,

145
00:08:11,570 --> 00:08:14,480
they were doing recruiting for a bunch
of different leadership programs.

146
00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:18,680
And so I was lucky enough to get into
GEs information management leadership

147
00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:21,920
program, and that just put me on
the track for the rest of my career,

148
00:08:22,490 --> 00:08:25,730
gave me a lot of opportunity to see
different areas within technology so I

149
00:08:25,730 --> 00:08:29,630
understood what it meant to be on the
infrastructure side versus creating

150
00:08:29,630 --> 00:08:34,220
applications versus sitting with a
business owner and understanding their

151
00:08:34,230 --> 00:08:37,310
problems and translating that into new
technology that we could create and

152
00:08:37,310 --> 00:08:39,890
deliver for them. And that's
really what got me started.

153
00:08:40,850 --> 00:08:45,830
Hey, Nicki G, did you know you can
also get our show as an audio podcast?

154
00:08:46,490 --> 00:08:50,180
Of course, I know you can get the
show as an audio podcast. I'm on it,

155
00:08:50,630 --> 00:08:51,830
but does our audience.

156
00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:55,010
I don't know. So those of you
who are watching on YouTube,

157
00:08:55,050 --> 00:08:57,450
you can find us wherever
you get your podcast.

158
00:08:57,750 --> 00:09:02,700
Just search up the Inside BSS show
with the Godfather and Nicki G and

159
00:09:02,700 --> 00:09:04,050
you'll find us right there.

160
00:09:04,200 --> 00:09:07,980
Click the follow button so that
you never miss a show. Now,

161
00:09:07,980 --> 00:09:10,800
there's a couple of reasons why you're
going to want to do that, Nicki G,

162
00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:11,910
tell 'em what the first reason is.

163
00:09:12,570 --> 00:09:17,280
You get to ask us questions
that is exclusive to our podcast

164
00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:18,113
listeners.

165
00:09:18,810 --> 00:09:23,790
Yeah, we only answer listener questions
on the audio version of the podcast.

166
00:09:23,790 --> 00:09:25,440
We don't do it on video.

167
00:09:25,560 --> 00:09:29,850
So if you want to hear what everyone's
thinking or if you want to ask us a

168
00:09:29,850 --> 00:09:33,390
question, you got to download the
audio podcast. The second reason,

169
00:09:33,390 --> 00:09:36,150
and my favorite reason is
because you can take us with you.

170
00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:39,180
You can have a little Nicki G in your
pocket while you're working out in the

171
00:09:39,180 --> 00:09:42,270
gym, washing the dishes
or walking the dog.

172
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:45,690
I love me some Nicki G in my
pocket when I'm walking the dogs.

173
00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:47,130
I don't know about you, Nico, Nicola,

174
00:09:47,130 --> 00:09:48,960
but that's one of my
favorite things to do.

175
00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:51,840
Absolutely. Take us with you.

176
00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:54,090
After you watch this
episode here on YouTube,

177
00:09:54,090 --> 00:09:56,160
go to wherever you get your podcast,

178
00:09:56,160 --> 00:10:00,210
click the follow button so we can go with
you on your journey and you can ask us

179
00:10:00,210 --> 00:10:04,380
questions. We will see you
or more like hear you there.

180
00:10:05,280 --> 00:10:09,900
Okay. So when you're at ge,

181
00:10:10,110 --> 00:10:13,500
and let's say you're in your first or
your second year at GE and things are

182
00:10:13,500 --> 00:10:17,550
going great and you're
doing well because ge,

183
00:10:18,180 --> 00:10:19,620
they pay their employees well.

184
00:10:20,340 --> 00:10:24,570
Do you have one eye on always doing your
own thing and being an entrepreneur or

185
00:10:24,570 --> 00:10:26,280
was it something that
was foisted upon you?

186
00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:28,260
Never. It happened by accident.

187
00:10:28,380 --> 00:10:32,040
I could have just as easily
stayed for 40 years and retired,

188
00:10:32,970 --> 00:10:35,820
as you said, they treat you too
well to make you want to leave.

189
00:10:36,630 --> 00:10:40,680
But I had other factors in my life that
happened. I had met my husband at work,

190
00:10:40,680 --> 00:10:44,190
so that was fantastic. But also that
meant that we brought it home every day.

191
00:10:44,670 --> 00:10:47,790
We would always talk about the same
people. Our teams worked together,

192
00:10:48,330 --> 00:10:52,620
which I think made our teams
uncomfortable. But anyways,

193
00:10:52,620 --> 00:10:54,930
he had an amazing opportunity
to come down here to Florida.

194
00:10:55,440 --> 00:11:00,210
So he left the company, came down
here. I stayed remote for another year,

195
00:11:00,900 --> 00:11:03,210
but I realized, and this was back in 2016,

196
00:11:03,510 --> 00:11:08,010
that I spent all of my days in my home
office on a video camera talking to

197
00:11:08,010 --> 00:11:11,190
people in other parts of the world.
Now we all do that post covid,

198
00:11:11,670 --> 00:11:15,420
but at the time I just didn't feel like
I was creating the connections here

199
00:11:15,420 --> 00:11:17,940
where we were going to
live and put down roots.

200
00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:22,260
So that was really the beginning of me
starting to look around and ultimately

201
00:11:22,290 --> 00:11:25,020
shift to be more entrepreneurial
because where I live,

202
00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:26,820
I'm about two hours north of Miami.

203
00:11:26,820 --> 00:11:30,900
There weren't a whole lot of GEs in this
neck of the woods and having a young

204
00:11:30,900 --> 00:11:34,170
family and we had just had my daughter
and we were about to have my son,

205
00:11:34,170 --> 00:11:37,500
I knew that being in the car four
hours a day wasn't going to cut it.

206
00:11:38,070 --> 00:11:39,690
Yeah, yeah. All right.

207
00:11:39,690 --> 00:11:43,980
So you decide that you're going to exit

208
00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:46,830
GE and you're going to
become an entrepreneur.

209
00:11:47,750 --> 00:11:49,260
What was your process like?

210
00:11:49,270 --> 00:11:53,980
Because I know you now for
a year and you like a very

211
00:11:53,980 --> 00:11:58,720
thoughtful, logical person. So I'm
assuming that you had some sort of a plan.

212
00:11:58,720 --> 00:11:59,160
What was your plan?

213
00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:03,370
Of course, I had a plan, I
don't know if anyone knows this,

214
00:12:03,370 --> 00:12:07,480
but Harvard Business School would teach
a course and they also put out a book

215
00:12:07,780 --> 00:12:09,100
about how to buy a business.

216
00:12:09,580 --> 00:12:14,080
And I stumbled upon that while I was still
at ge and it kind of put on the light

217
00:12:14,090 --> 00:12:17,500
bulb and I said, well, I never
considered myself entrepreneurial.

218
00:12:17,500 --> 00:12:21,100
I don't think I have the stomach of
what it takes to start something fresh,

219
00:12:21,820 --> 00:12:24,310
but I can absolutely go and buy
something and make it better.

220
00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:28,210
And I had felt like my time at GE
was very much a real world M B A,

221
00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:31,780
and so all the management training
and leadership skills, I said,

222
00:12:31,810 --> 00:12:36,700
I can go find something that I can
be really passionate about and put my

223
00:12:36,700 --> 00:12:37,240
own market in it,

224
00:12:37,240 --> 00:12:39,820
and hopefully I'm going to find something
that's already successful and I can

225
00:12:39,820 --> 00:12:43,000
just make it better.
So I went out, I devoured the book,

226
00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:45,880
I hired a business broker,
and I went shopping.

227
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:49,360
And I didn't know that
there was a business M L Ss
just like there is for home

228
00:12:49,360 --> 00:12:50,170
sales.

229
00:12:50,170 --> 00:12:54,280
But so you sign a couple NDAs and you
start looking at all these businesses,

230
00:12:54,900 --> 00:12:58,900
and I wanted to think differently and
think more broadly than I had before.

231
00:12:58,900 --> 00:13:01,510
So I entertained a lot of different
business models and companies.

232
00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:04,030
I wasn't dead set on
tech, and to be honest,

233
00:13:04,030 --> 00:13:05,620
most of the technology
businesses for sale,

234
00:13:05,620 --> 00:13:10,520
either I couldn't buy on my own or
there were websites and I wanted a

235
00:13:10,530 --> 00:13:12,070
real business that had a real impact.

236
00:13:12,730 --> 00:13:16,990
But ultimately I got very lucky in the
sense that East Silos founders were

237
00:13:16,990 --> 00:13:17,823
looking to exit.

238
00:13:17,830 --> 00:13:21,880
They had built a very
successful enterprise over
the course of 15, 16 years,

239
00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:26,350
but the founders were a bit tired
of the same thing at the time,

240
00:13:26,350 --> 00:13:28,600
we were exclusively an
offsite backup company,

241
00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:32,350
and we didn't have any of the consulting
work or any of the real cyber focus.

242
00:13:32,950 --> 00:13:37,510
And so I saw that as a chance for
me to pick up a key component of a

243
00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:41,800
good cyber hygiene plan is offsite
backups and disaster recovery,

244
00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:45,730
and what do you do when something bad
happens and really add to it all of my

245
00:13:45,730 --> 00:13:46,870
consulting experience.

246
00:13:46,870 --> 00:13:51,520
So that's ultimately how I found EI
and acquired the company back in 2018.

247
00:13:51,700 --> 00:13:54,250
Gosh, I just want to hear
some more about this journey.

248
00:13:54,250 --> 00:13:58,510
So you purchased EI and tell us
what were the immediate challenges.

249
00:13:58,520 --> 00:14:01,990
So you went right from working with
ge, being in the corporate world,

250
00:14:01,990 --> 00:14:04,750
being thrust into entrepreneurship
voluntarily of course.

251
00:14:04,810 --> 00:14:08,110
But what were some of those early
challenges that you faced in taking that

252
00:14:08,110 --> 00:14:13,030
company and shifting it to
expand what they were offering

253
00:14:13,030 --> 00:14:13,690
to the market?

254
00:14:13,690 --> 00:14:17,050
Some of the best I got advice I got in
the very beginning was for my broker and

255
00:14:17,050 --> 00:14:18,940
he said, don't break what you just bought.

256
00:14:19,390 --> 00:14:22,360
So I had all of these ideas of
the things that I wanted to do,

257
00:14:22,630 --> 00:14:26,410
but I also knew that it was really
important to stop and listen to the team,

258
00:14:26,470 --> 00:14:29,170
listen to the customers,
interview our partners,

259
00:14:29,170 --> 00:14:31,300
and understand what was
working well and what wasn't.

260
00:14:31,660 --> 00:14:34,210
And I had to train myself
to be really patient,

261
00:14:34,220 --> 00:14:38,500
which is not a natural trait for me.
So that was a little bit challenging.

262
00:14:38,500 --> 00:14:42,580
And the other thing I think is it was
extremely humbling because coming from a

263
00:14:42,580 --> 00:14:47,170
large enterprise, it had a level of
confidence over, oh, this will be so easy.

264
00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:51,290
And as all of us know now that
we're here in the real world,

265
00:14:51,590 --> 00:14:53,270
entrepreneurship, owning a business,

266
00:14:53,270 --> 00:14:57,530
running a business is not easy. There
are so many things that you have to do or

267
00:14:57,530 --> 00:15:01,040
find the right person to do or
figure out how to do, learn it,

268
00:15:01,880 --> 00:15:03,140
whereas when you come from corporate,

269
00:15:03,150 --> 00:15:06,950
there's a team and there's a department
or a person that you can always call on

270
00:15:07,220 --> 00:15:11,690
to do those things. So I think
I'm a person who loves to learn.

271
00:15:11,690 --> 00:15:14,660
I'm constantly trying to better
myself and better my skills.

272
00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:16,520
I think that was a good match,

273
00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:20,390
but it also just took me a long time to
learn how to do things that I'd never

274
00:15:20,400 --> 00:15:24,200
done before. I did a lot of
influencing within corporate.

275
00:15:24,320 --> 00:15:27,860
We called that sort of selling,
getting other people to do things,

276
00:15:27,860 --> 00:15:30,140
but I never had to get someone
to open up their wallet.

277
00:15:30,140 --> 00:15:32,540
And that for me was
definitely a big change.

278
00:15:32,540 --> 00:15:36,230
And so just one example of
many as I first got started.

279
00:15:36,770 --> 00:15:38,930
Sure. What would you
say helped you? I mean,

280
00:15:38,930 --> 00:15:42,530
you've identified you're struggling
with these challenges and you're finding

281
00:15:42,530 --> 00:15:43,190
your way through it,

282
00:15:43,190 --> 00:15:46,730
but is there something that really stands
out to you that really helped you get

283
00:15:46,730 --> 00:15:48,230
through that difficult time period?

284
00:15:48,230 --> 00:15:50,090
So I made my own little board of advisors,

285
00:15:50,660 --> 00:15:54,740
so people that I knew and trusted and
had expertise in the domains where I was

286
00:15:54,740 --> 00:15:56,870
weak. So that certainly helped.

287
00:15:57,260 --> 00:16:01,460
I had listened to more business podcasts
and started reading business books.

288
00:16:01,460 --> 00:16:03,590
I never did any of that in
corporate. I was heads down,

289
00:16:03,590 --> 00:16:04,610
this is all I needed to do.

290
00:16:04,910 --> 00:16:09,740
And I realized there's a whole world
out there of consultants and coaches and

291
00:16:09,740 --> 00:16:11,810
people who have helped hundreds,

292
00:16:11,820 --> 00:16:15,140
if not thousands of people that were in
my shoes get over some of those initial

293
00:16:15,150 --> 00:16:15,983
humps.

294
00:16:16,370 --> 00:16:20,750
So realizing that and finally raising
my hand and asking for help and hiring

295
00:16:21,110 --> 00:16:24,200
some good people to
help me was really key.

296
00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:27,410
So yeah. Let me ask Cath real quick.

297
00:16:29,300 --> 00:16:34,250
How did you decide which advice
to take and which advice to

298
00:16:34,250 --> 00:16:35,240
not take?

299
00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:39,950
Because there's so much
out there and there's

300
00:16:39,950 --> 00:16:43,670
so many people who are
giving out so much advice,

301
00:16:43,670 --> 00:16:45,170
that's bad advice.

302
00:16:46,910 --> 00:16:48,860
What was your process to sort through it?

303
00:16:49,190 --> 00:16:51,770
I will admit at the time, I don't
think I had much of a process.

304
00:16:52,520 --> 00:16:56,000
That's the first thing I can say.
But I've always had this philosophy,

305
00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:59,750
and I used to tell this to the folks that
I would mentor you go ask three people

306
00:16:59,750 --> 00:17:00,770
the same question.

307
00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:03,470
They're all going to give you a different
answer from their unique perspective.

308
00:17:03,470 --> 00:17:06,260
And your job is to triangulate
between those responses,

309
00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:10,610
what resonates and feels true
for you. And that's essentially,

310
00:17:10,610 --> 00:17:11,360
I guess the process,

311
00:17:11,360 --> 00:17:14,750
even though I wouldn't have consciously
realized that that's what I was doing at

312
00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:15,150
the time.

313
00:17:15,150 --> 00:17:19,190
So the stuff that someone would give
me a piece of advice on messaging, oh,

314
00:17:19,190 --> 00:17:21,260
you need to be more
emotive in your messaging.

315
00:17:21,260 --> 00:17:25,430
I'm a very rational matter of fact
analytical person. And they're like,

316
00:17:25,430 --> 00:17:28,430
you sell based on emotion. It's like,
well, I'm how to do that? All right,

317
00:17:28,440 --> 00:17:30,410
let me go read some books.
Lemme go talk to some people.

318
00:17:30,410 --> 00:17:34,280
Lemme hire her to write stuff for
me so that I can learn how to do it.

319
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:38,630
So those are things where I think almost
instantly sometimes you realize, yeah,

320
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:40,940
that makes sense. Let me go and try that.

321
00:17:42,020 --> 00:17:45,860
Whereas sometimes I got advice from folks
and a lot of times one of the filters

322
00:17:45,860 --> 00:17:48,470
I apply is, well, do I want to be them?

323
00:17:48,650 --> 00:17:53,280
Do I look up to them for something that
they've accomplished or achieved in

324
00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:54,960
their personal or professional life?

325
00:17:55,530 --> 00:17:59,070
And I really try to make sure that I'm
taking advice from people I consider to

326
00:17:59,070 --> 00:18:03,240
be role models and who have a lot to
offer because you get a lot of free advice

327
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:04,890
sometimes, but it's not
always good as you said.

328
00:18:05,230 --> 00:18:08,280
Well, yeah. Nicole can tell
you about unsolicited advice.

329
00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:12,810
What's the mantra we have about
unsolicited device? Nicola.

330
00:18:13,500 --> 00:18:17,580
The advice is for you, not the
person on the receiving end of it.

331
00:18:17,970 --> 00:18:20,100
Yeah, a hundred percent. A
hundred percent. Go ahead, Nicola.

332
00:18:20,100 --> 00:18:21,030
You got the next question?

333
00:18:21,090 --> 00:18:25,620
Sure. So let me back up a moment.
When you step into this role,

334
00:18:25,620 --> 00:18:27,510
did you already decide from the outset,

335
00:18:27,510 --> 00:18:31,320
these are the key objectives that I
really like to achieve? And if you did,

336
00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:35,730
how and if did that change from
the time you got through all the

337
00:18:35,730 --> 00:18:38,370
self-education and you're really
getting your footing moving forward?

338
00:18:39,210 --> 00:18:43,140
I wish I could say that I was much
more strategic and intentional when I

339
00:18:43,140 --> 00:18:46,470
started, but the reality is I
didn't know what I didn't know.

340
00:18:46,980 --> 00:18:51,960
So part of this was me jumping in
feet first and figuring it out.

341
00:18:52,710 --> 00:18:57,510
Had you asked me in 2018 if I ever
thought growing a consulting sort of arm

342
00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:00,810
of our service would be a big priority,

343
00:19:01,230 --> 00:19:05,400
I probably wouldn't have said so, or if
I did, it would've been much further on.

344
00:19:05,790 --> 00:19:08,220
So I think things kind
of evolved differently.

345
00:19:08,220 --> 00:19:12,600
I will tell you that one of the first
things that I had intended to do was a lot

346
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:13,830
of work around analytics.

347
00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:18,630
So in organizations and AI is becoming
so popular at this point or so

348
00:19:18,660 --> 00:19:20,550
mainstream I should say,

349
00:19:20,580 --> 00:19:25,320
but I was thinking if we've got
data from 300 different companies

350
00:19:25,650 --> 00:19:27,210
about their internal operations,

351
00:19:27,570 --> 00:19:32,160
wouldn't there be some way to anonymize
that and derive analytics from it so

352
00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:36,930
that we could show you here's how your
operations or transactions compare to two

353
00:19:36,930 --> 00:19:40,740
dozen other peers in your same industry
all across the country. And then of

354
00:19:40,740 --> 00:19:41,340
course,

355
00:19:41,340 --> 00:19:46,320
you quickly realize that some things
that sound good are not very easy to

356
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:50,670
practically implement in a safe
and secure and in a way that

357
00:19:51,210 --> 00:19:52,920
aligns with your core values.

358
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:56,070
And so I ultimately abandoned that idea
and we moved on to different things.

359
00:19:56,070 --> 00:20:00,510
But I'll tell you that my goal
for the business wasn't very

360
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:04,680
specific in terms of products
or services or whatever it was.

361
00:20:05,010 --> 00:20:06,330
I just want to help small businesses.

362
00:20:06,510 --> 00:20:10,140
I just want to help people who don't
have access to the information and the

363
00:20:10,150 --> 00:20:12,720
resources that I had
when I was in corporate.

364
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:15,690
And I'll give you a perfect example,
when you're in a Fortune 10,

365
00:20:16,380 --> 00:20:19,800
the big vendors, everybody comes
to you, Microsoft would come to me,

366
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:21,060
Salesforce would come to me.

367
00:20:21,390 --> 00:20:24,480
I went and had lunch with Steve Ballmer
when he was the c e O of Microsoft. I

368
00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:24,610
mean,

369
00:20:24,610 --> 00:20:28,380
you never get an invitation like that
except for when you're in those large

370
00:20:28,380 --> 00:20:29,213
enterprises,

371
00:20:29,580 --> 00:20:33,450
small and mid-size organizations are
trying to get support when something's

372
00:20:33,540 --> 00:20:36,270
broken and they can't even get
to someone in this country.

373
00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,990
Or you open a ticket and then it gets
routed to 15 different places and then

374
00:20:39,990 --> 00:20:42,600
five days later someone gets back
to you. And I said, that's horrible.

375
00:20:42,930 --> 00:20:47,560
And I wanted my clients to feel that
white glove concierge level service,

376
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:50,950
that level of we actually care
about how your business is doing.

377
00:20:51,460 --> 00:20:55,120
And so that's really where I was focused
on is making an impact and doing the

378
00:20:55,120 --> 00:20:56,590
things that I knew I was really good at.

379
00:20:57,280 --> 00:20:59,830
But for a community that really needed
it and frankly would be a lot more

380
00:20:59,830 --> 00:21:03,640
appreciative than some of
the larger corporations where
you're just a cog in the.

381
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:04,030
Wheel,

382
00:21:04,030 --> 00:21:08,680
give us the kind of
overview of your e silo as a

383
00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:13,630
company and your team. You're virtual.

384
00:21:13,630 --> 00:21:16,450
I see you're working from
an office in your home.

385
00:21:17,410 --> 00:21:18,460
Those of you who are listening,

386
00:21:18,460 --> 00:21:22,480
Kathy has a very nice office in her home
and I've been in there virtually many

387
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:23,290
times.

388
00:21:23,290 --> 00:21:28,180
So is all of your team
virtual and how many folks

389
00:21:28,180 --> 00:21:33,100
do you have and do you have
separate consulting people from

390
00:21:34,340 --> 00:21:38,380
the product or service offerings
that you have? Explain how it works.

391
00:21:38,380 --> 00:21:40,540
Yeah, sure. So we're a
hundred percent remote.

392
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:43,360
Mostly of the team is in South Florida,

393
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:47,290
although we have somebody who's up in New
Jersey and in three days I have a team

394
00:21:47,290 --> 00:21:49,930
member who's moving from
Miami to the Czech Republic.

395
00:21:50,410 --> 00:21:54,400
So we truly embody being able
to work and live anywhere.

396
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:58,180
And I think that's a huge
attraction to what we do.

397
00:21:59,230 --> 00:22:01,390
The team itself is we're fairly small,

398
00:22:01,390 --> 00:22:04,600
so we're about five people
core to the organization.

399
00:22:04,900 --> 00:22:06,370
Most of my team is very technical,

400
00:22:06,370 --> 00:22:08,800
so they run the day-to-day
of the backup service,

401
00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:12,460
they're handling client issues,
they're doing all of that.

402
00:22:12,790 --> 00:22:16,180
Most of the client facing
components are going to be me.

403
00:22:16,510 --> 00:22:19,180
So you think about high
technologists, they're very,

404
00:22:19,180 --> 00:22:24,100
very introverted and they're much happier
with their numbers and their screens

405
00:22:24,110 --> 00:22:27,490
than they are interacting
with the clients every day.

406
00:22:27,490 --> 00:22:31,540
So I love to take that on. I love to
be in that role of the problem solver.

407
00:22:32,110 --> 00:22:35,380
I've always sort of been in that
translation of what are you trying to

408
00:22:35,380 --> 00:22:37,390
accomplish in terms of
business? What's the problem?

409
00:22:37,390 --> 00:22:39,370
How do we make things
better with technology?

410
00:22:39,370 --> 00:22:42,430
And then directing the team behind
the scenes to be able to do that.

411
00:22:43,120 --> 00:22:47,410
So that's essentially how we work when
it comes to cybersecurity assessments

412
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:51,640
where we might be dealing with regulations
in different areas or with different

413
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:52,630
jurisdictions.

414
00:22:52,870 --> 00:22:56,680
I do have a broad network of resources
that I can also call upon if we need

415
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,650
somebody who's a specialist in that field.
And that's all they do all day long,

416
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:02,800
but our core team is
really the five of us.

417
00:23:03,670 --> 00:23:07,570
Is there something that triggered that
passion for working with small and

418
00:23:07,570 --> 00:23:11,260
mid-size businesses, aside from
developing some of that while at ge,

419
00:23:11,260 --> 00:23:13,510
is there's something further back in
your background that made you want to do

420
00:23:13,510 --> 00:23:14,170
that?

421
00:23:14,170 --> 00:23:18,910
I guess I'll say the closest
peak I had into entrepreneurship

422
00:23:18,910 --> 00:23:23,470
was my mother was in real estate and
my father was an electrical engineer,

423
00:23:24,610 --> 00:23:29,050
but on a contract basis. So he was very
much sort of running his own business,

424
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:30,490
but on his own.

425
00:23:30,490 --> 00:23:34,330
So he would work for different
companies as projects would arise,

426
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:39,940
and I saw how hard they worked for what
they were able to provide me and my

427
00:23:39,940 --> 00:23:43,540
family and being a first
generation American.

428
00:23:43,540 --> 00:23:47,780
So my parents were both from Hong Kong,
they came over to the US for school,

429
00:23:47,990 --> 00:23:50,900
for the idyllic American dream.

430
00:23:51,770 --> 00:23:56,690
I wanted to I guess pay
thanks to that and really

431
00:23:56,690 --> 00:23:59,450
respect everything that I
had watched 'em accomplish.

432
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:03,590
I mean when you were in college and
they would ask you to write the essay of

433
00:24:03,590 --> 00:24:06,950
like, who's your hero? I literally
would write about my dad.

434
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:09,170
And when he came to the us,

435
00:24:09,170 --> 00:24:12,890
he didn't speak a whole lot of English.
He got very basic education.

436
00:24:13,130 --> 00:24:16,430
He put himself through school
In three years he worked,

437
00:24:17,150 --> 00:24:20,960
he also has polio. So
ever since he was one,

438
00:24:20,970 --> 00:24:22,250
he's walked with a limp.

439
00:24:22,250 --> 00:24:26,720
And I think people will sometimes
discount you for things like that.

440
00:24:26,750 --> 00:24:31,280
And I just watched him
build the most resilient

441
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:34,340
spirit and he has the
most can-do attitude,

442
00:24:34,340 --> 00:24:38,150
but he does it in a very kind way
where he takes care of other people.

443
00:24:38,150 --> 00:24:42,650
He's never up for one-upping
or any of that type of bss.

444
00:24:43,250 --> 00:24:48,200
And so when I think about the
average small business owner,

445
00:24:48,380 --> 00:24:50,120
they're building a
legacy for their family.

446
00:24:50,120 --> 00:24:53,270
They're working their butts off to
provide for their children and their

447
00:24:53,270 --> 00:24:56,150
grandchildren, and a lot of
them are also immigrants.

448
00:24:56,150 --> 00:25:01,040
And so they don't have always
the best backgrounds come from

449
00:25:01,550 --> 00:25:03,710
all of these opportunities and means,

450
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:07,250
but they're able to make an incredibly
amazing life for themselves,

451
00:25:07,250 --> 00:25:08,960
but also impact on their community.

452
00:25:09,470 --> 00:25:14,270
And so it is playing a very small
part in helping those businesses

453
00:25:14,300 --> 00:25:16,670
thrive because whatever,

454
00:25:16,670 --> 00:25:20,040
85% of businesses in America
are considered small.

455
00:25:20,570 --> 00:25:22,550
I think that's a huge part of what we do.

456
00:25:23,870 --> 00:25:26,240
Kathy, when you were growing up,

457
00:25:27,130 --> 00:25:31,730
how much influence did your
parents' journey to the US

458
00:25:31,730 --> 00:25:36,110
have on you and what

459
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,550
was that influence? You
said your dad was your hero.

460
00:25:40,850 --> 00:25:45,650
Was it the work ethic? I mean
coming here with nothing,

461
00:25:46,730 --> 00:25:49,130
that's almost like the
entrepreneurial journey,

462
00:25:49,370 --> 00:25:51,950
only high stakes for the whole family.

463
00:25:52,220 --> 00:25:55,100
Did that have an impact on you and to,

464
00:25:55,310 --> 00:25:58,610
did you reflect on that before
you left GE to go out on your own?

465
00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:01,220
It wasn't incredibly conscious,

466
00:26:01,230 --> 00:26:05,540
but it's always been a component of
my personality and something that I

467
00:26:05,540 --> 00:26:09,920
valued. What I got from my
parents was absolutely work ethic.

468
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:14,510
It was also courage to
do something unknown and

469
00:26:15,260 --> 00:26:20,120
to put yourself in unfamiliar situations
if you think that there's tremendous

470
00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:22,280
upside. On the other side of it,

471
00:26:22,580 --> 00:26:26,120
I think about what their parents must
have felt sticking their kid on a plane.

472
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,150
And if I use my dad as an example,

473
00:26:29,690 --> 00:26:32,570
his whole family scraped up
enough money to send him here.

474
00:26:32,570 --> 00:26:34,640
My grandfather was a fisherman,
so they didn't really have a lot.

475
00:26:34,650 --> 00:26:38,300
There were seven kids, he's the
only one that they sent to America,

476
00:26:38,750 --> 00:26:43,470
and he didn't have enough money to get
back home for something like 10 years.

477
00:26:43,470 --> 00:26:44,670
So when his mother passed away,

478
00:26:44,670 --> 00:26:46,500
he didn't have enough money
to come back for the funeral.

479
00:26:47,970 --> 00:26:52,500
But I watched him work hard and save and

480
00:26:52,500 --> 00:26:57,390
create something. And so that level of
work ethic definitely kind of permeates

481
00:26:57,390 --> 00:27:01,890
into my personality. And
also just for a little while,

482
00:27:01,890 --> 00:27:03,660
I had a chip on my shoulder
when I was younger.

483
00:27:03,660 --> 00:27:06,600
And I don't know if it's because
I'm Asian, because I'm a woman,

484
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,550
because I'm smaller, I always look young.

485
00:27:08,550 --> 00:27:11,190
So I would find that people
would often underestimate me.

486
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:16,410
So I wanted to show that I was just
as good as if not better than the

487
00:27:16,420 --> 00:27:19,830
other men in the room or
the other students in the
classroom or whatever it is.

488
00:27:19,830 --> 00:27:23,910
And it took a while for that
fire to kind of wake up inside.

489
00:27:24,180 --> 00:27:26,400
I didn't have that through school. I
was kind of like, eh, whatever school.

490
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:28,560
But as I got into the working world,

491
00:27:28,570 --> 00:27:31,530
I realized that that was going to
be something that set me apart.

492
00:27:31,530 --> 00:27:35,670
And if I didn't stand up and speak
up and have my voice be heard,

493
00:27:35,670 --> 00:27:37,080
I was going to regret that later.

494
00:27:37,290 --> 00:27:41,400
And it was probably one of the best
things that I did in a culture and in a

495
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:45,240
company where that was really
rewarded and diversity was valued.

496
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,680
And so I was very fortunate to be in
the GE ecosystem because I think I got a

497
00:27:49,690 --> 00:27:54,180
lot of opportunities early in my career
when I was younger that in most other

498
00:27:54,190 --> 00:27:58,380
organizations, you wouldn't have a shot
at a job like that until you were 40,

499
00:27:58,470 --> 00:28:01,890
50 even sometimes. So
that was pretty amazing.

500
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,090
Yeah, I really want to pick up on
this, and we share this, Kathy,

501
00:28:06,420 --> 00:28:09,900
I remember growing up and being a woman
who wanted to be in business and there

502
00:28:09,900 --> 00:28:10,733
weren't many,

503
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,790
and you always feel like you kind of
have to overcompensate for you to try

504
00:28:14,790 --> 00:28:16,140
harder, you have to be smarter,

505
00:28:16,140 --> 00:28:20,580
you have to be more driven to be able
to break through a lot of the barriers

506
00:28:20,580 --> 00:28:23,100
that existed. And I
really want to ask you,

507
00:28:23,110 --> 00:28:25,530
because tech is such a
male dominated field.

508
00:28:25,530 --> 00:28:29,250
I mean it's something like less
than 30% of women are in technology,

509
00:28:29,580 --> 00:28:34,080
the percentage of women who are leaders
in technology or even less than that.

510
00:28:34,380 --> 00:28:37,410
So I want to hear just first of all, your
initial impression when you hear that,

511
00:28:37,410 --> 00:28:41,370
if it's something that you consciously
think about or if you did as you were

512
00:28:41,370 --> 00:28:43,680
coming up through the ranks
and owning your own company.

513
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:45,960
Yeah, it's definitely
in the back of my mind.

514
00:28:46,530 --> 00:28:50,490
It's why a lot of the nonprofit work
and volunteerism that I do within the

515
00:28:50,490 --> 00:28:54,750
technology space is focused on girls
in STEM and women in technology,

516
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,050
women leaders, because
there's never enough of us.

517
00:28:58,110 --> 00:29:01,830
And I think the generation needs to
turn around and pull up those that are

518
00:29:01,830 --> 00:29:06,000
coming behind them. And I was lucky
enough to have a lot of women role models,

519
00:29:06,030 --> 00:29:10,980
women mentors who helped me make that
transition. So that's definitely huge.

520
00:29:12,030 --> 00:29:16,050
But I will say that in the last couple
of years, I think it's gotten better,

521
00:29:16,380 --> 00:29:18,630
more women in tech and women in cyber.

522
00:29:18,660 --> 00:29:23,130
We're still one out of maybe
every seven or eight in a room,

523
00:29:24,420 --> 00:29:25,680
but it is getting better.

524
00:29:27,150 --> 00:29:31,350
I just think that when you don't have
enough women in the boardroom period,

525
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:37,050
it's really hard to get
women in leadership in other
places. So the more that

526
00:29:37,060 --> 00:29:40,620
we can be visible, and
I think it's podcasts,

527
00:29:40,630 --> 00:29:44,440
like it's speaking
events, it's conferences.

528
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,200
And I'm looking forward to, in September,

529
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:51,760
I'm going to be moderating a panel on
cybersecurity and disaster recovery at the

530
00:29:51,790 --> 00:29:53,920
Disaster Recovery Journals
conference in Phoenix.

531
00:29:54,370 --> 00:29:59,140
And I was really vocal about the panel and

532
00:29:59,140 --> 00:30:01,840
wanting to make sure that we had diversity
on the panel and really happy that

533
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:03,820
it's an even 50 50 split men and women.

534
00:30:03,820 --> 00:30:06,790
And so those are the types of things
where I think if we push for that more,

535
00:30:08,410 --> 00:30:11,890
the women leaders in the field
get recognized and aren't visible.

536
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,790
Yeah, absolutely. Is there
something that for you,

537
00:30:16,030 --> 00:30:19,750
when you think about this and helping
to advance more women into technology,

538
00:30:19,750 --> 00:30:22,240
is there something else that stands out
to me? Obviously you're giving back,

539
00:30:22,750 --> 00:30:25,210
you're active in these programs
where they're focused on stem,

540
00:30:25,210 --> 00:30:29,350
and I think that's really been significant
in the last few years in showcasing

541
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,430
opportunities for careers and technology
in those other areas to women,

542
00:30:33,430 --> 00:30:37,900
especially in other students. Is there
something else that from your standpoint,

543
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:42,310
would help advance careers
and technology or other ways

544
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,600
companies rather can think about helping
to promote careers and technology,

545
00:30:46,610 --> 00:30:47,443
especially for women?

546
00:30:47,590 --> 00:30:51,010
Yeah, I think when it comes
to companies promoting,

547
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:56,440
I would say make sure that there's
equal opportunity for training.

548
00:30:57,760 --> 00:30:59,860
A lot of times in a group setting,

549
00:30:59,860 --> 00:31:03,220
our unconscious bias creeps in
and even find it with myself,

550
00:31:03,250 --> 00:31:07,300
where you'll see a group of professionals
and then there's a woman in the room.

551
00:31:07,300 --> 00:31:11,890
And sometimes you might assume that the
woman is the marketing person or the

552
00:31:11,890 --> 00:31:16,870
HR person or the intern there to
get everybody coffee as opposed

553
00:31:16,870 --> 00:31:20,110
to the technologist or
the cybersecurity person.

554
00:31:21,460 --> 00:31:26,020
And so I think opportunities for one,

555
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,560
catching that unconscious bias
and educating people on it,

556
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,440
but then sending women to training,

557
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:37,210
giving them opportunity
to be the tech super

558
00:31:37,210 --> 00:31:42,130
user of the systems that you
have or to be the liaison

559
00:31:42,130 --> 00:31:46,900
with the managed IT partner
that does your firm's

560
00:31:46,900 --> 00:31:47,440
technology.

561
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:52,150
I think those all help through
exposure to get them into and

562
00:31:52,150 --> 00:31:55,030
interested in technology.
That's really how I fell into it.

563
00:31:56,170 --> 00:31:57,610
I thought I was going to be in finance.

564
00:31:57,610 --> 00:32:01,840
I did an internship at Morgan Stanley
and they happened to just luck of the

565
00:32:01,850 --> 00:32:02,683
draw.

566
00:32:02,830 --> 00:32:06,250
I got assigned to a team
that was automating a lot
of business processes and I

567
00:32:06,250 --> 00:32:07,810
was like, whoa, this is really cool.

568
00:32:09,130 --> 00:32:11,590
We could do the spreadsheet
thing and all of that,

569
00:32:11,590 --> 00:32:14,530
but the power of technology
in an enterprise like this,

570
00:32:14,530 --> 00:32:15,550
that's what I want to go do.

571
00:32:16,180 --> 00:32:19,450
And so that kind of changed the course
of where I was looking in terms of career

572
00:32:19,450 --> 00:32:20,950
prospects after I graduated.

573
00:32:20,950 --> 00:32:24,340
So I think it's that kind of exposure
that just helps women see that there's

574
00:32:24,340 --> 00:32:27,100
other opportunities and hopefully that's
another woman on the other side of the

575
00:32:27,100 --> 00:32:30,550
table who is already in the field
and can show them the ropes.

576
00:32:30,650 --> 00:32:35,500
I think there's also comfort
in a community of your peers.

577
00:32:36,700 --> 00:32:39,920
And I'll say the same thing for
my financial advisor. He's a man,

578
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:41,000
but he has a woman on his team.

579
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,970
I will call the woman 10 times more than
I'll call the man just because I feel

580
00:32:43,970 --> 00:32:46,240
more comfortable with her
and that's the way that it's.

581
00:32:46,820 --> 00:32:51,560
So Kathy, let's dig into EIS now. So

582
00:32:53,110 --> 00:32:55,940
give us your business model. Tell us what,

583
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,300
we have a lot of hardcore business
folks who listen to the show.

584
00:32:59,300 --> 00:33:01,970
So give us what is the
east silo business model?

585
00:33:02,580 --> 00:33:07,190
How does a brand new client come
to East Silo and what's the client

586
00:33:07,190 --> 00:33:09,500
path along the client lifetime journey?

587
00:33:09,830 --> 00:33:10,340
Sure.

588
00:33:10,340 --> 00:33:13,940
So majority of our new clients come to
us through cybersecurity assessment,

589
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:18,950
and that's usually because they either
just had a breach or maybe they had a

590
00:33:18,950 --> 00:33:21,230
close call, so we almost got hit,

591
00:33:21,230 --> 00:33:24,980
but then the bank was able to recollect
some of the funds that we had wired to

592
00:33:24,980 --> 00:33:27,710
the wrong person or something else.

593
00:33:27,950 --> 00:33:32,210
Or sometimes it's just that they
are either in a regulated industry.

594
00:33:32,220 --> 00:33:36,470
So there's an annual requirement for our
assessment or an external third party

595
00:33:36,470 --> 00:33:37,303
assessment,

596
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:42,410
or in the case of John who's a partner
at a management consulting firm,

597
00:33:42,410 --> 00:33:44,420
and they've been a client of
ours for a couple of years now.

598
00:33:44,750 --> 00:33:47,750
They were courting much bigger clients.

599
00:33:47,750 --> 00:33:49,790
They were recording Fortune 500 companies.

600
00:33:50,300 --> 00:33:55,160
And those companies have a lot more
strict supplier security reviews than your

601
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:58,430
average mid-size customer.

602
00:33:58,730 --> 00:34:01,940
And they knew that they needed to up
their game in order to pass those reviews

603
00:34:01,940 --> 00:34:06,380
and land those deals. So usually they'll
come to us through the course of an

604
00:34:06,380 --> 00:34:07,213
assessment,

605
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,760
we'll determine with them what's the
standard we should be assessing them

606
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,460
against. So what are the
applicable regulations?

607
00:34:14,420 --> 00:34:16,790
Or if there isn't a direct regulation,

608
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:20,870
we'll often do a NIST cybersecurity
framework assessment, NIST C S F,

609
00:34:21,890 --> 00:34:23,840
national Institute of
Standards and Technology,

610
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:28,520
and that's the gold standard
for our industry. Over the
course of several weeks,

611
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:29,960
we'll get really deep into their business.

612
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,500
We'll interview a bunch of folks on
their team, and at the end of it,

613
00:34:33,500 --> 00:34:35,450
they get a very detailed
report from us that says,

614
00:34:35,450 --> 00:34:37,460
here are the places where
you meet those expectations.

615
00:34:37,700 --> 00:34:38,720
Here's where you're doing well,

616
00:34:38,900 --> 00:34:40,580
and here's all the places
where maybe you're not,

617
00:34:41,150 --> 00:34:45,200
and here's a roadmap for the next
three months, six months, 12 months,

618
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:48,950
of the things that you need to do in
priority order to close those gaps and

619
00:34:48,950 --> 00:34:53,810
reduce your risk of a cyber attack or a
data breach. And I think a lot of folks

620
00:34:53,900 --> 00:34:56,780
when they think about cybersecurity,
they think about tools, right? Oh,

621
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,510
I just go buy this tool and I
install it and everything's fine.

622
00:34:59,900 --> 00:35:03,770
And I think the marketing for those
companies that make those tools,

623
00:35:04,310 --> 00:35:06,980
they don't do anybody any favors
because they oversimplify the problem,

624
00:35:06,980 --> 00:35:10,580
they oversimplify the solution, just
buy this one thing. When in reality,

625
00:35:10,580 --> 00:35:12,080
just like many other things,

626
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:15,830
cyber is a people process
and tools conversation.

627
00:35:16,250 --> 00:35:20,840
And we pride ourselves in not shying
away from the conversation around people

628
00:35:20,870 --> 00:35:25,040
and process. It's very easy
to buy and resell tools.

629
00:35:25,070 --> 00:35:27,170
We will do that in some
cases, but to be honest,

630
00:35:27,180 --> 00:35:29,540
that is not core to our
business model at all.

631
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:34,070
It is really partnering with our
clients from a strategic point of view,

632
00:35:34,070 --> 00:35:36,260
how are you setting
your technology budget?

633
00:35:36,260 --> 00:35:41,040
Are you investing in cybersecurity
compared to your peers? Here's what the

634
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:42,240
benchmark is.

635
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:47,580
Here's how you should be thinking about
investments in hardware and software and

636
00:35:47,580 --> 00:35:51,180
cloud services. And in a lot of cases,

637
00:35:51,190 --> 00:35:54,900
they're stuck with some older
technology that's been around for many,

638
00:35:54,900 --> 00:35:58,920
many years, maybe it used to meet
their needs, but it doesn't any longer.

639
00:35:58,950 --> 00:36:01,290
But they don't know how to
get into something better.

640
00:36:01,620 --> 00:36:05,610
They don't know how to modernize. So no
matter what it is that their problem is,

641
00:36:05,820 --> 00:36:10,410
we'll advise them on how to solve
that through better technology.

642
00:36:10,710 --> 00:36:12,630
Some of that's going to
be a cyber conversation,

643
00:36:12,630 --> 00:36:15,720
but some of it's just going to be let's
introduce you to partners who develop

644
00:36:15,720 --> 00:36:19,920
custom software or let's introduce
you to platforms that out of the box,

645
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:22,890
do what you're looking for and maybe
it's an opportunity for you to move and

646
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:27,990
save some money and save some hassle
in the process. So that's how they

647
00:36:27,990 --> 00:36:31,710
get in. Once they are in as
part of that action plan,

648
00:36:31,710 --> 00:36:35,520
we're usually sitting down and helping
them write information security policies,

649
00:36:35,910 --> 00:36:39,090
business continuity policies,
incident response plans,

650
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:44,640
helping them put in place the
right capabilities so that

651
00:36:44,670 --> 00:36:48,390
if and when an attack does happen,
they know how to properly respond.

652
00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:52,080
And that's where the backup side of our
business comes in. So as I mentioned,

653
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:54,360
when I bought eai, we were
exclusively offsite backup.

654
00:36:55,230 --> 00:36:59,490
So for a law firm or an accounting
firm or a medical practice,

655
00:36:59,490 --> 00:37:04,020
we would be their offsite backup
storage. So if they had an issue,

656
00:37:04,020 --> 00:37:08,280
whether that was a tornado or hurricane
or a cyber attack, they would call us.

657
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:12,240
So we would be the ones to help restore
their data working in concert with their

658
00:37:12,240 --> 00:37:14,010
IT people. We still do that,

659
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:19,470
but we don't often lead with that as the
first part of the conversation. That's

660
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:24,060
a component in our toolkit for how we
help them be prepared for those types of

661
00:37:24,070 --> 00:37:24,903
events.

662
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:30,210
So after or as a part of that action plan,

663
00:37:30,330 --> 00:37:35,310
we'll often work with them on an
ongoing basis as their fractional C I O,

664
00:37:36,150 --> 00:37:37,740
so chief information officer,

665
00:37:37,740 --> 00:37:42,690
that's your C-suite level
person who is overseeing

666
00:37:42,690 --> 00:37:45,840
your technology, not
doing the hands-on work,

667
00:37:46,170 --> 00:37:50,250
but overseeing your vendor or your
team that's doing it and providing that

668
00:37:50,250 --> 00:37:53,880
strategic level guidance to the board
and the management on what needs to be

669
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:54,270
happening.

670
00:37:54,270 --> 00:37:58,530
So that's kind of the third leg of our
stool as far as the things that we do for

671
00:37:58,540 --> 00:37:59,373
our clients.

672
00:38:00,150 --> 00:38:02,220
That's great. If somebody's
buying a company,

673
00:38:02,220 --> 00:38:07,050
would you do a technology
assessment like upfront as a way to

674
00:38:07,380 --> 00:38:10,230
assess the vulnerabilities
that may be there?

675
00:38:10,230 --> 00:38:14,040
So if you're buying a company and a lot
of what you're buying is the database of

676
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:15,630
their clients and the goodwill,

677
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:20,310
is there a way that they could connect
with you to look over what they have and

678
00:38:21,390 --> 00:38:26,370
get an estimate for how much it would
cost to shore up whatever data they

679
00:38:26,370 --> 00:38:27,300
may have? Yeah.

680
00:38:27,300 --> 00:38:31,230
So I'm glad you asked that because I
think it's something that gets overlooked

681
00:38:31,230 --> 00:38:35,190
in m and a transactions is
the potential cybersecurity

682
00:38:36,010 --> 00:38:40,150
cyber of what you're acquiring. And we've
seen that happen time and time again.

683
00:38:40,150 --> 00:38:44,320
So somebody gets acquired and then they
discover that six months before the

684
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,740
acquisition there was a leak, but
nobody knew it until post close.

685
00:38:48,130 --> 00:38:51,790
So that's absolutely something that
people can come and ask us to do an

686
00:38:51,790 --> 00:38:55,420
assessment. So they get an idea of
how well was the company operating,

687
00:38:55,570 --> 00:38:57,250
how buttoned up are their systems?

688
00:38:57,610 --> 00:39:00,340
And I think that'll give you a really
good indication of the rest of their

689
00:39:00,340 --> 00:39:02,530
operations too. It's a
good leading indicator.

690
00:39:03,310 --> 00:39:05,530
The one thing I will say that
we're not specialists at,

691
00:39:05,530 --> 00:39:07,990
because I like to be very transparent
about what we're good at and what we're

692
00:39:07,990 --> 00:39:11,050
not is valuing the technology.

693
00:39:11,050 --> 00:39:14,170
So if it's a company that has
its own proprietary technology,

694
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:16,090
we're not experts in that valuation,

695
00:39:16,090 --> 00:39:19,570
but we also work with and have a lot of
companies that we could refer them to

696
00:39:19,570 --> 00:39:20,650
for that component of it.

697
00:39:21,220 --> 00:39:24,310
But really what we focus on is the
technology that supports their internal

698
00:39:24,310 --> 00:39:26,170
operations and how they
run their day-to-day.

699
00:39:26,710 --> 00:39:30,370
How early should a company come to you
if they do want you to take a look at

700
00:39:30,370 --> 00:39:32,290
that in m and a transaction.

701
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,560
As early as they've got a
potential target in mind?

702
00:39:37,300 --> 00:39:40,690
And the reason I say that is
because my business experience,

703
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:44,650
there's a whole bunch of other things
besides just looking at the technology

704
00:39:44,860 --> 00:39:49,360
that I'm going to ask them questions
about that third parties and suppliers,

705
00:39:49,540 --> 00:39:52,180
how are they thinking about how
are they managing that risk?

706
00:39:52,510 --> 00:39:56,470
One of the big things that we talk about
a lot with the companies that we work

707
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:59,770
with is supplier related risk almost.

708
00:40:00,460 --> 00:40:01,870
I don't want to quote the wrong number,

709
00:40:01,870 --> 00:40:06,310
so I'm going to say a significant number
of breaches are as a result of third

710
00:40:06,310 --> 00:40:10,060
parties that are compromised. You
look at Target, that was a huge,

711
00:40:10,060 --> 00:40:12,400
very popular breach many years ago,

712
00:40:12,940 --> 00:40:14,950
but they were compromised
their HVAC provider.

713
00:40:15,490 --> 00:40:20,380
So you think about how large
companies are very well protected and

714
00:40:20,390 --> 00:40:21,610
very well resourced,

715
00:40:21,910 --> 00:40:26,320
but their suppliers tend to be smaller
and tend to not be. Those are the ones

716
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,050
that are a target. So a lot of
times we'll have people say, oh,

717
00:40:29,050 --> 00:40:32,740
but I'm not big enough to be
a target of a cyber attack.

718
00:40:32,740 --> 00:40:36,730
I have no valuable data.
We're not on anybody's radar.

719
00:40:37,090 --> 00:40:41,980
And it's not that you specifically are
targeted, it's who your clients are.

720
00:40:42,100 --> 00:40:44,470
And frankly, sometimes it's
just that no one's targeted.

721
00:40:44,470 --> 00:40:48,580
It's just easy pickings. If you leave
your car unlocked in the mall parking lot,

722
00:40:48,580 --> 00:40:51,250
someone one day will eventually pull
the handle and take everything that's

723
00:40:51,250 --> 00:40:51,790
inside.

724
00:40:51,790 --> 00:40:56,740
So sometimes it's also just a matter
of opportunity that you have to be

725
00:40:56,740 --> 00:40:57,573
aware of.

726
00:40:57,880 --> 00:40:59,560
I tell the story all the time, Kathy,

727
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:04,120
of how when I switched to a business

728
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:08,150
fiber internet connection, I went from

729
00:41:09,710 --> 00:41:12,400
a variable IP to a static ip,

730
00:41:12,700 --> 00:41:17,290
and they didn't tell me that they were
moving me to a static ip and they didn't

731
00:41:17,290 --> 00:41:21,160
tell me the risk of having an ip
that didn't change all the time,

732
00:41:21,430 --> 00:41:23,320
every time we we logged in.

733
00:41:23,860 --> 00:41:28,720
So my phone vendor happened
to say to me, Hey, listen,

734
00:41:28,730 --> 00:41:31,330
now that you're on fiber,
you have a static ip,

735
00:41:31,330 --> 00:41:33,370
so you absolutely need a firewall.

736
00:41:33,740 --> 00:41:38,720
And I ordered one and it took two
days for the firewall to get there.

737
00:41:38,900 --> 00:41:42,260
During that two day period,
I woke up one morning,

738
00:41:42,410 --> 00:41:45,410
the second day that I had
this turned on my computer.

739
00:41:45,470 --> 00:41:50,420
There was a text file on the desktop
and the text file when I opened it had

740
00:41:50,690 --> 00:41:55,580
a digitally drawn smiley
face with zeros and ones,

741
00:41:55,790 --> 00:41:59,540
and it said, your data is
exposed. You need a firewall.

742
00:41:59,690 --> 00:42:02,420
You're lucky you have nothing
of value, or it would be mine.

743
00:42:02,900 --> 00:42:06,860
And I freaked out, I unplugged everything,

744
00:42:06,860 --> 00:42:08,270
turned everything off,

745
00:42:08,450 --> 00:42:13,130
and I got in the car and drove and
bought the firewall and installed it

746
00:42:13,190 --> 00:42:17,390
like that day. So I mean,

747
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:18,770
you think it can't happen to you.

748
00:42:18,770 --> 00:42:23,540
I'm a guy operating a business out of
my house with a dozen contractors that

749
00:42:23,540 --> 00:42:24,380
work for me.

750
00:42:24,620 --> 00:42:29,270
I got nothing of value yet within like 24

751
00:42:29,270 --> 00:42:32,000
hours of having a static ip,

752
00:42:32,300 --> 00:42:37,130
somebody found my vulnerable
system and was in it incredible,

753
00:42:37,430 --> 00:42:38,720
absolutely incredible.

754
00:42:39,110 --> 00:42:44,060
So it's amazing to me explain
for the people who don't know,

755
00:42:44,180 --> 00:42:47,390
right? There's an
entrepreneur here who is,

756
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,690
he owns a railroad in
Pennsylvania. I know.

757
00:42:50,720 --> 00:42:53,960
We actually have one guy who listens to
the show who actually owns a railroad in

758
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:55,430
Pennsylvania. I met him through Vistage.

759
00:42:55,610 --> 00:43:00,380
So he may not know what backing up

760
00:43:00,380 --> 00:43:02,030
stuff to the cloud means,

761
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:05,600
and he may not know how to select
the right vendor to do that.

762
00:43:05,900 --> 00:43:10,760
So what is the difference
for that guy for hiring

763
00:43:10,940 --> 00:43:15,410
you to back up all his data to the
cloud versus dragging and dropping a

764
00:43:15,410 --> 00:43:17,210
file into Dropbox?

765
00:43:17,630 --> 00:43:20,270
So there's a whole bunch of differences.

766
00:43:20,510 --> 00:43:22,970
The first thing I'll say is if
you're running a real business,

767
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,400
you need a real business backup solution.

768
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:28,340
You don't want to use a
consumer tool to do it.

769
00:43:29,330 --> 00:43:33,890
You don't want to use a Dropbox
or OneDrive or a Google Drive.

770
00:43:34,670 --> 00:43:37,910
Those are actually cloud sync tools.
They're not cloud backup tools.

771
00:43:37,910 --> 00:43:42,440
It's a common misperception when
you think about it like this.

772
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:44,630
If your computer gets compromised,

773
00:43:44,630 --> 00:43:47,930
you click on a bad link that came
through an email of somebody that looked

774
00:43:47,940 --> 00:43:48,590
familiar,

775
00:43:48,590 --> 00:43:52,970
and all of a sudden your computer
is infected with a virus and your

776
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,900
files all get corrupted. So they
get jumbled up. They're all there,

777
00:43:56,900 --> 00:43:59,630
but you try to open them. You can't
actually make heads or tails of it.

778
00:43:59,630 --> 00:44:01,520
You can't see it. You
can't use any of the data.

779
00:44:02,420 --> 00:44:05,930
If you are using Dropbox
Sync or OneDrive sync,

780
00:44:06,380 --> 00:44:10,820
then the copy of that file that lives
in your cloud that you think is your

781
00:44:10,820 --> 00:44:12,860
backup is now also corrupted to,

782
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,260
right?
So the changes are kind of indiscriminate.

783
00:44:15,620 --> 00:44:17,810
If you delete a file from your computer,

784
00:44:18,140 --> 00:44:21,020
then the copy in the
cloud can be deleted also.

785
00:44:21,590 --> 00:44:25,640
So what we always tell folks is that you
don't want a constant synchronization

786
00:44:25,650 --> 00:44:26,483
of your data.

787
00:44:26,780 --> 00:44:31,440
A real backup is going to be as
of a point in time where eight

788
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:34,050
o'clock every night, you're going
to take a backup of your files.

789
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:36,720
If something happens after
that backup at eight o'clock,

790
00:44:36,720 --> 00:44:40,710
you can roll back everything on your
system back to a single point in time.

791
00:44:40,710 --> 00:44:42,270
So there's consistency there.

792
00:44:42,900 --> 00:44:47,820
The other thing is that
a tool like Dropbox won't
allow you to control when new

793
00:44:47,820 --> 00:44:52,290
versions get made and how many versions
get saved, right? You buy a plan,

794
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:54,300
the plan includes however many versions.

795
00:44:54,300 --> 00:44:57,330
They often don't tell you because they
want to be able to change that behind the

796
00:44:57,330 --> 00:44:59,310
scenes.
It's not part of what you pay for,

797
00:44:59,700 --> 00:45:02,850
and you don't get to control that
version history. Whereas again,

798
00:45:02,860 --> 00:45:04,110
if you have business grade backup,

799
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:08,220
you can decide that the backup
happens once a night at eight o'clock.

800
00:45:08,580 --> 00:45:11,730
It happens every six hours. It
happens every two hours, right?

801
00:45:11,730 --> 00:45:15,030
So you control frequency and
you also control retention.

802
00:45:15,090 --> 00:45:18,810
I need that backup to be
saved for 30 days, 60 days,

803
00:45:18,870 --> 00:45:22,140
seven years because of my
regulatory requirements.

804
00:45:22,150 --> 00:45:24,570
And so you now have a lot more control.

805
00:45:25,230 --> 00:45:27,930
So that's really one of the first things.

806
00:45:28,230 --> 00:45:30,810
The second thing is you want to make
sure your backups are encrypted,

807
00:45:31,230 --> 00:45:34,200
because if something ever
happens to that provider,

808
00:45:34,470 --> 00:45:36,600
if something ever happens to that storage,

809
00:45:36,610 --> 00:45:39,750
you want to make sure that even
if it falls into the wrong hands,

810
00:45:40,050 --> 00:45:43,170
nobody can actually view the
files and take them and use them.

811
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:48,180
And if you were to have a leak of
private information, if it's encrypted,

812
00:45:48,180 --> 00:45:52,170
that's going to help you quite a bit as
far as your breach responsibilities and

813
00:45:52,170 --> 00:45:56,220
what the implications might be. And then
the other thing is that you want those

814
00:45:56,230 --> 00:45:58,140
backups to be completely automatic.

815
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:02,700
There's a lot of organizations I talk
to where the backup is so-and-so's job

816
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:07,290
when so-and-so gets sick or is on vacation
or just gets really busy and forgets

817
00:46:07,620 --> 00:46:08,640
your backups don't happen.

818
00:46:08,970 --> 00:46:13,770
And too often we find companies that
think they have a set of backups and a set

819
00:46:13,770 --> 00:46:17,820
of routines, but nobody's checking on
them. So you don't realize that, oh, well,

820
00:46:17,820 --> 00:46:20,040
that was a task of somebody
that we fired six months ago,

821
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:21,030
and so they haven't been happening,

822
00:46:21,510 --> 00:46:25,140
and then they go to restore from a
cyber attack or a ransomware incident,

823
00:46:25,620 --> 00:46:26,730
and lo and behold,

824
00:46:26,730 --> 00:46:31,020
there are no backups or the backups that
they have are two months old because no

825
00:46:31,020 --> 00:46:32,370
one's been watching the store.

826
00:46:33,060 --> 00:46:37,620
So when you have a business grade
backup service and business backup

827
00:46:37,620 --> 00:46:40,230
software that's happening
for you automatically,

828
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:44,220
it's run by outside people. So that's
like my team. That's all they do.

829
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:46,560
They run the backups, they
check 'em every morning.

830
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:51,150
We call clients proactively when
something happens. I'll never forget,

831
00:46:51,180 --> 00:46:53,220
in the beginning of covid,
people started traveling a lot.

832
00:46:53,230 --> 00:46:58,050
And so we saw one organization,
their clinical psychologist,

833
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,110
and we noticed that the backups
hadn't happened for a while.

834
00:47:01,110 --> 00:47:03,390
So one of our team members
called her up and said, oh,

835
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,480
I'm working for a beach house in
Delaware. I got a new computer. Oh, well,

836
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:10,890
you kind of got to let us know that
so we can get you set up for your new

837
00:47:10,890 --> 00:47:11,310
equipment.

838
00:47:11,310 --> 00:47:15,030
So that's an example of the level of
personalized service that when you have a

839
00:47:15,570 --> 00:47:18,330
good system, someone's watching for you,

840
00:47:18,330 --> 00:47:23,250
think about it like an outsourced IT
department dedicated just to managing your

841
00:47:23,250 --> 00:47:24,083
backups.

842
00:47:24,300 --> 00:47:27,930
Whereas you can swipe your credit card
on a website and get access to some

843
00:47:27,940 --> 00:47:31,540
software, but there's nobody who's
monitoring that for you. Trust me,

844
00:47:31,540 --> 00:47:34,480
the call center in the Philippines is
not paying attention to your backups and

845
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:37,960
going to give you a call when
something that they spot is unusual.

846
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:40,900
Oh, that's great. This reminds me of,

847
00:47:40,900 --> 00:47:42,160
it's almost like being
in the medical field.

848
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:46,060
Someone's monitoring where your
heart rate is at a regular basis.

849
00:47:46,060 --> 00:47:47,560
There's doctors behind
the scenes doing it.

850
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:51,190
If you're someone who has had the device
implanted, you have the monitor on,

851
00:47:51,340 --> 00:47:53,530
and then they're watching it in
real time calling you. I mean,

852
00:47:53,530 --> 00:47:55,240
this is really first level service.

853
00:47:55,240 --> 00:47:58,960
What we're talking about here is someone
is out there watching out for you,

854
00:47:58,990 --> 00:48:02,890
calling you when it's happening, so that
they can work with you immediately to,

855
00:48:02,900 --> 00:48:03,250
I'm sure,

856
00:48:03,250 --> 00:48:08,020
catch this a lot sooner and prevent
a major issue then when they start to

857
00:48:08,030 --> 00:48:08,380
notice it,

858
00:48:08,380 --> 00:48:12,130
which for those of us who
are unsophisticated handling
data or cybersecurity

859
00:48:12,130 --> 00:48:14,230
issues, that could be
well down the road, I'd.

860
00:48:14,230 --> 00:48:17,470
Imagine. Yeah, no, absolutely.
And I'll tell you a quick story.

861
00:48:18,970 --> 00:48:23,410
One of the things that people tell me
often is that while I don't need backups

862
00:48:23,410 --> 00:48:25,930
from a third party, my team's
already got that covered.

863
00:48:26,110 --> 00:48:30,700
We pay this vendor to manage all of our
IT and backups are included as a part of

864
00:48:30,700 --> 00:48:35,650
it. And while that may be true, a
couple years ago there was an M S P,

865
00:48:35,650 --> 00:48:38,320
A managed service provider, one of
these outsourced IT departments.

866
00:48:38,350 --> 00:48:41,890
They have about 200 or so clients
in the South Florida area,

867
00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:45,640
including sports teams that teams
you and I would've watched on tv.

868
00:48:46,030 --> 00:48:48,610
So they serve big clients.

869
00:48:49,630 --> 00:48:54,070
The M S P was hit with a ransomware
attack. And unfortunately,

870
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:59,230
all of the clients who
that M S P served and

871
00:48:59,470 --> 00:49:02,950
had access to their systems,
they all got infected too.

872
00:49:03,790 --> 00:49:07,690
And there was about a dozen or so of
those companies that we happened to share

873
00:49:07,690 --> 00:49:12,670
in common. So way earlier on, they'd
been with us for 10, 15 years.

874
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:17,050
They called us up right away and they
said, look, this is the situation.

875
00:49:17,890 --> 00:49:20,980
Our M S P can barely return. Phone calls.

876
00:49:20,990 --> 00:49:24,460
Their folks were working around the
clock and no knock against them. I mean,

877
00:49:24,460 --> 00:49:27,670
they were literally pulling people off
of the billing desk to answer level one

878
00:49:27,670 --> 00:49:32,110
help desk calls and try to troubleshoot
what was going on. But they said,

879
00:49:32,110 --> 00:49:35,380
it's been several hours. No
one's getting back to me.

880
00:49:35,380 --> 00:49:39,550
Can you just restore my backups from
your copy because I can't wait for them.

881
00:49:39,940 --> 00:49:42,520
And so we did, and lo and behold,

882
00:49:42,820 --> 00:49:47,620
all of those local backups that were
managed by that M S P were completely

883
00:49:47,620 --> 00:49:50,110
trashed. And it was just because you have,

884
00:49:50,740 --> 00:49:54,010
one of the things you learn when you're
in the resiliency business is you don't

885
00:49:54,010 --> 00:49:58,120
want a lot of things that look the same.
Too much commonality puts you at risk.

886
00:49:58,150 --> 00:49:59,230
It's concentration risk.

887
00:49:59,620 --> 00:50:04,360
So you had the same people
who were managing the
production servers and machines

888
00:50:04,540 --> 00:50:07,870
that were also managing the backups.
Same accounts, same passwords, right?

889
00:50:07,870 --> 00:50:10,780
Same personnel. And so
when they were compromised,

890
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:14,320
everything they touched was
essentially poisoned. Whereas our team,

891
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,680
it was a different team, different
accounts, different platform.

892
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:20,620
We don't actually run and
save our backups on windows.

893
00:50:20,890 --> 00:50:25,060
We use Linux for added variety. We
store them on a different network.

894
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:29,150
We store them offsite. So we had all
these different factors where we've,

895
00:50:29,150 --> 00:50:32,690
at this point in that situation, but
also ever since I bought the business,

896
00:50:32,690 --> 00:50:37,010
we have a 100% ransomware recovery
rate. And we actually tested that,

897
00:50:37,010 --> 00:50:39,440
just I want to say two, three weeks ago.

898
00:50:40,010 --> 00:50:42,350
We're a regional healthcare
provider client of our same thing.

899
00:50:42,380 --> 00:50:46,520
They got ransomware, their internal
backups were hosed, ours were not.

900
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:49,040
So you got to ask yourself the
question, right? If my data is really,

901
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:49,880
really important,

902
00:50:50,240 --> 00:50:54,380
how many layers of protection am I willing
to put in place to ensure that when

903
00:50:54,380 --> 00:50:58,310
that worst day happens, I
have a means to recover?

904
00:50:58,320 --> 00:50:59,870
I have experts who I can call upon,

905
00:50:59,870 --> 00:51:02,840
who will roll up their sleeves and get
into my systems and actually do it for me

906
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:07,640
or do it with me. That's really
the value of having EIS backups.

907
00:51:08,240 --> 00:51:13,100
So you must have to segregate
data from specific industries

908
00:51:13,700 --> 00:51:17,690
from everything else. So for
example, medical data has to be,

909
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:19,190
everybody has to have their own,

910
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,500
I don't know if they have their
own separate server or whatever,

911
00:51:21,500 --> 00:51:26,180
but everybody has to have their own
separate little area where you can't,

912
00:51:26,570 --> 00:51:30,470
because that can never be
compromised if that gets out.

913
00:51:30,860 --> 00:51:32,960
There's a huge issue with that. I mean,

914
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:36,560
there's an issue with all data getting
out, but medical data especially,

915
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:39,980
or client specific data for a law firm,

916
00:51:39,980 --> 00:51:42,770
I have a client who got hit
with a ransomware attack,

917
00:51:42,830 --> 00:51:47,540
and the entire firm was rendered helpless
for a week because they didn't have

918
00:51:47,540 --> 00:51:50,510
access to their information.

919
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,480
And they were very tight-lipped about
it because they didn't want the word

920
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,850
getting out that they had gotten
hit with a ransomware attack.

921
00:51:55,850 --> 00:51:59,360
And I have to believe they didn't have
an effective backup system like you're

922
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:03,560
talking about. Otherwise it
wouldn't have been as big a deal.

923
00:52:03,830 --> 00:52:08,660
But how do you segregate that
data and how is it tested for

924
00:52:08,660 --> 00:52:09,950
compliance purposes?

925
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:16,040
How is your backup data tested for
HIPAA compliance or for compliance with

926
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,050
FINRA's rules for financial
data, that sort thing.

927
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:23,030
So we treat all of our clients as if
whatever information that they're backing

928
00:52:23,030 --> 00:52:24,890
up with us is the most
important thing in the world.

929
00:52:25,220 --> 00:52:26,990
So we apply the same level of protection,

930
00:52:26,990 --> 00:52:30,620
the same high bar to everyone and
everything because to be honest,

931
00:52:30,950 --> 00:52:33,440
by the time the data comes to us,
we don't actually know what it's,

932
00:52:33,470 --> 00:52:38,000
we can't see it. Even our staff can't
unencrypt and view our client's data,

933
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:39,050
and we do that on purpose.

934
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:44,270
We have no reason to need to see any
of the information that you back up and

935
00:52:44,270 --> 00:52:48,860
trust with us. So we have separate
encryption keys for each of our customers,

936
00:52:49,130 --> 00:52:53,270
which means that even if we were to have
some kind of a widespread breach that

937
00:52:53,420 --> 00:52:56,090
you couldn't get to all the
data of our individual clients,

938
00:52:56,090 --> 00:52:57,470
only they have those keys.

939
00:52:57,710 --> 00:53:01,730
So that's one of the protection measures
that we have. The other thing is,

940
00:53:01,730 --> 00:53:03,920
what I'll say is it's logical separation.

941
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:08,000
So even though the data
might be physically stored
on the same physical server

942
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:09,530
as part of our private cloud,

943
00:53:09,950 --> 00:53:12,860
because of the way that we
store it and how we store it,

944
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:16,400
it is logically separated. And
so there's no crossover access.

945
00:53:16,400 --> 00:53:20,330
There's no ability to see
from your backups. Nicola,

946
00:53:20,330 --> 00:53:22,310
could you see Dave's
data on the other side?

947
00:53:22,730 --> 00:53:26,790
And so the encryption piece
though is incredibly key to that.

948
00:53:27,750 --> 00:53:31,920
The other thing I would say is that
when you are in the business of data

949
00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:35,730
protection, you design, we
call it security by design.

950
00:53:35,730 --> 00:53:40,080
So everything from the ground up is
designed to ensure that things are

951
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:42,000
segmented, that there's zero trust,

952
00:53:42,030 --> 00:53:46,860
that there isn't the ability for
if somebody were to get into our

953
00:53:46,860 --> 00:53:48,990
environment to be able
to move between servers.

954
00:53:48,990 --> 00:53:52,590
So that's ultimately how I'm able to
sleep at night because I know that we've

955
00:53:52,590 --> 00:53:56,820
put in place those correct protections.
To be honest with you,

956
00:53:57,210 --> 00:54:01,890
the weakest link in the entire chain,
and this is often where it happens,

957
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:06,930
is people and my clients
have to have access,

958
00:54:07,140 --> 00:54:09,840
username, password that gets
them into their own backups,

959
00:54:09,870 --> 00:54:13,890
and that is what I worry about the most
because they use the same password for

960
00:54:13,890 --> 00:54:16,530
that as they use for other things.

961
00:54:16,530 --> 00:54:21,510
So a lot of what we do is
education with our clients on here

962
00:54:21,510 --> 00:54:26,430
are good cyber hygiene practices
that you should be applying

963
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:27,690
in every area of your life,

964
00:54:27,720 --> 00:54:30,870
not just as it pertains to
data that you protect with us,

965
00:54:31,410 --> 00:54:33,960
but you should be turning on
multi-factor authentication.

966
00:54:34,020 --> 00:54:37,080
If you don't know what that is, message
me and I'll help you get it set up.

967
00:54:37,770 --> 00:54:42,390
That is the single best thing that you
can be doing to protect your accounts,

968
00:54:42,390 --> 00:54:46,140
whether that's your bank account, your
Amazon account, your backup account,

969
00:54:46,150 --> 00:54:49,350
all of it. And that just ensures
that when you log into something,

970
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:53,550
you're using multiple ways to
authenticate yourself to that system.

971
00:54:53,970 --> 00:54:55,620
It's a combination of something you have,

972
00:54:55,620 --> 00:54:59,850
which is a password and something which
is often like a six digit code they get

973
00:54:59,850 --> 00:55:04,200
sent to you on your phone, and there's
even layers of security within that.

974
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:06,900
There's good M F A practices
and not so good ones.

975
00:55:07,530 --> 00:55:10,830
So that's where we do a lot of just
education on here are the things that you

976
00:55:10,830 --> 00:55:14,970
need to do to play your part
in securing your own data.

977
00:55:15,750 --> 00:55:19,320
So let me ask a question that I'd imagine
there's a lot of people sitting in our

978
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:23,610
audience right now that are thinking,
I have a million passwords. Kathy,

979
00:55:23,610 --> 00:55:25,950
where's the best place to store those?

980
00:55:25,950 --> 00:55:30,330
Because I'm sick of saving and worrying
about every password that I have to

981
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:31,890
every different account. I was.

982
00:55:31,890 --> 00:55:33,240
Going to say, so before I.

983
00:55:33,240 --> 00:55:34,140
Tell you, definitely don't write them.

984
00:55:34,150 --> 00:55:36,270
Though. You tell me where
you're storing yours.

985
00:55:37,890 --> 00:55:38,723
Oh, Dave.

986
00:55:40,950 --> 00:55:41,880
Nicola, what do you do?

987
00:55:43,380 --> 00:55:44,910
What do I do? I have, well,

988
00:55:44,910 --> 00:55:47,880
I have a password protected file
that have passwords in them.

989
00:55:50,250 --> 00:55:53,400
So you have an Excel
spreadsheet that has a password,

990
00:55:53,550 --> 00:55:58,200
and it's the password spreadsheet
and the password is password 1, 2, 3.

991
00:55:59,230 --> 00:56:02,850
Then no password whatsoever.
Mine is not a complicated one.

992
00:56:02,860 --> 00:56:06,030
All of them are unique and
they're complicated. They're long.

993
00:56:06,660 --> 00:56:08,910
There's nothing that's
uniquely identifiable.

994
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:14,910
So I use LastPass and I used an assigned,

995
00:56:15,180 --> 00:56:19,230
I used a randomized password
to get me into LastPass,

996
00:56:19,500 --> 00:56:21,570
and so every time I forget the damn thing,

997
00:56:21,570 --> 00:56:26,200
it takes me an hour to get all my
passwords, but I think it's safe.

998
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:29,020
I mean, I think they had
a breach at one point, but

999
00:56:30,610 --> 00:56:32,620
I think that's the best I can do, right?

1000
00:56:32,710 --> 00:56:36,520
Yeah, so a password manager or
password vault, like a LastPass,

1001
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:40,630
but maybe a different one would
be the easiest thing to do.

1002
00:56:40,690 --> 00:56:44,140
So I love what Nicole said
about having totally unique,

1003
00:56:44,200 --> 00:56:47,170
totally randomized passwords,
hopefully really long ones.

1004
00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:51,190
You can Google time it
takes to crack a password,

1005
00:56:51,190 --> 00:56:55,000
and you get these really scary charts
that'll show you that even if it has eight

1006
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:58,390
characters and it has a combination
of upper and lowercase and numbers and

1007
00:56:58,390 --> 00:56:59,170
symbols and all that,

1008
00:56:59,170 --> 00:57:02,530
it takes like 0.3 seconds for somebody
to breach it with the right hardware.

1009
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:06,880
So you really need a long,
strong, complex password,

1010
00:57:07,210 --> 00:57:11,500
but then you store it in a vault like
one password is a good one or there's a

1011
00:57:11,500 --> 00:57:13,840
whole bunch of them out
there. If you're on LastPass,

1012
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:17,290
I would recommend moving away from it
because of the breach that happened.

1013
00:57:17,890 --> 00:57:19,600
Interestingly enough, in the breach,

1014
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:24,130
the attacker stole a backup
copy of the databases.

1015
00:57:24,220 --> 00:57:28,960
So that's why I advise people
against it or to move on to

1016
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:31,750
something else. But that's
really the best that you can do.

1017
00:57:32,980 --> 00:57:35,350
But I would say if you
have a password vault,

1018
00:57:35,350 --> 00:57:39,580
you've got unique passwords and you've
turned on M F A in every system that

1019
00:57:39,580 --> 00:57:40,450
supports it,

1020
00:57:40,810 --> 00:57:45,100
then you've at least covered off the
basics of the things that you should be

1021
00:57:45,110 --> 00:57:46,930
doing to secure your accounts.

1022
00:57:47,410 --> 00:57:51,880
Kathy, explain to people,
when I travel, I use A V P N.

1023
00:57:51,890 --> 00:57:56,560
Explain to people the value
of using A V P N and why

1024
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:58,870
people need to use A V P N.

1025
00:57:58,990 --> 00:58:02,110
Yeah. V P N stands for
Virtual Private network,

1026
00:58:02,710 --> 00:58:07,570
and it creates a secure tunnel between
your computer and the websites that

1027
00:58:07,580 --> 00:58:08,650
you're communicating with.

1028
00:58:09,100 --> 00:58:14,020
And why that matters is if you
travel often and you're in airports,

1029
00:58:14,020 --> 00:58:16,720
hotels, Starbucks, you're on public wifi.

1030
00:58:17,170 --> 00:58:19,600
If that wifi is not properly protected,

1031
00:58:19,610 --> 00:58:24,400
any other individual who's on that same
network can potentially be spying on

1032
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:28,900
your communications or even intercepting
and changing the communications that

1033
00:58:28,900 --> 00:58:33,040
are occurring between your computer
and your bank's website or whatever,

1034
00:58:33,190 --> 00:58:34,300
whatever it is that you're doing.

1035
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:38,110
A V P N helps to eliminate that
by creating that secure tunnel.

1036
00:58:39,250 --> 00:58:42,040
The other thing that's nice
for folks who travel a lot,

1037
00:58:42,040 --> 00:58:43,150
especially if it's out of country,

1038
00:58:43,150 --> 00:58:47,530
is they'll use a V P N to be able to
watch American shows and countries where

1039
00:58:47,530 --> 00:58:50,980
that stuff is blocked. But from my
point of view, that's a nice to have.

1040
00:58:50,980 --> 00:58:54,820
It's the security value that I think is
really important for anyone who's on the

1041
00:58:54,820 --> 00:58:55,653
road.

1042
00:58:56,680 --> 00:58:59,140
If you've ever been on an airplane and

1043
00:59:00,730 --> 00:59:05,200
you open your Bluetooth or you
click on the wifi and you see Joe's

1044
00:59:05,210 --> 00:59:09,550
iPhone pop up as an option,
that's why you need a P n,

1045
00:59:09,670 --> 00:59:11,620
because if Joe's iPhone is popping up,

1046
00:59:11,620 --> 00:59:15,790
you can be damn sure your computer's
going to pop up there too. So,

1047
00:59:17,140 --> 00:59:22,070
oh man, that is, for me, that is the
scariest, the absolute scariest thing,

1048
00:59:22,250 --> 00:59:26,690
especially people who have
access to confidential client
information and they're

1049
00:59:26,990 --> 00:59:31,880
sitting in the airline club doing
their work on that confidential client

1050
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:36,740
information using the
airline club wifi without any

1051
00:59:36,740 --> 00:59:40,340
type of protection whatsoever.
It scares me. Alright, Kathy,

1052
00:59:40,340 --> 00:59:42,710
before we let you go, let's
talk a little bit about

1053
00:59:44,270 --> 00:59:45,410
how you get clients.

1054
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:50,120
So how does EIL find
companies to work with?

1055
00:59:50,150 --> 00:59:52,610
99% Of our clients come through referrals.

1056
00:59:53,210 --> 00:59:56,030
So we work with trusted advisors,

1057
00:59:56,040 --> 00:59:58,460
whether that's attorneys or accountants,

1058
00:59:59,030 --> 01:00:01,610
also their IT provider.

1059
01:00:01,610 --> 01:00:06,530
So you think most small to mid-size
organizations do some level of outsourcing

1060
01:00:06,530 --> 01:00:08,000
to another IT provider,

1061
01:00:08,210 --> 01:00:11,150
and those are often the ones that bring
us in because they know that what we

1062
01:00:11,150 --> 01:00:15,560
offer in terms of expertise and services
is going to be a little different than

1063
01:00:15,560 --> 01:00:19,700
what they do day to day. So that's
always been our best source of.

1064
01:00:19,700 --> 01:00:20,360
Clients. Kathy,

1065
01:00:20,360 --> 01:00:25,100
what's the most frequently asked
question that leads to clients doing

1066
01:00:25,110 --> 01:00:25,943
business with you?

1067
01:00:26,030 --> 01:00:26,300
Yeah,

1068
01:00:26,300 --> 01:00:31,130
I think probably the most common place
that they're at when they come to us is

1069
01:00:31,140 --> 01:00:35,030
if I had a security incident
tomorrow, I don't know how I would do.

1070
01:00:35,810 --> 01:00:40,520
And it's that fear of the unknown and
the recognition that whatever I'm doing,

1071
01:00:40,520 --> 01:00:41,750
it's probably not enough,

1072
01:00:42,140 --> 01:00:44,900
is really what motivates them
to reach out and call us.

1073
01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:49,040
I want to touch on one more thing
and then I'll turn it over to Nicole.

1074
01:00:49,050 --> 01:00:50,210
And that last thing is,

1075
01:00:50,930 --> 01:00:55,820
your business as an entrepreneur
is a really good business model

1076
01:00:55,820 --> 01:00:59,510
because when you onboard
a client, I would guess,

1077
01:00:59,510 --> 01:01:00,710
and you can tell me if I'm wrong,

1078
01:01:00,710 --> 01:01:05,690
probably upwards of 90% of your clients
are recurring revenue clients in that

1079
01:01:05,870 --> 01:01:10,580
you bring them on and then they're going
to pay you for a service monthly or

1080
01:01:10,580 --> 01:01:13,040
annually, over and over and over again.

1081
01:01:14,090 --> 01:01:18,410
Did that factor into the type of
business that you were looking to buy?

1082
01:01:19,070 --> 01:01:21,830
And if it didn't explain,
or even if it did,

1083
01:01:21,830 --> 01:01:25,970
explain the benefits of having a
recurring revenue model in your business?

1084
01:01:26,840 --> 01:01:27,230
Yeah,

1085
01:01:27,230 --> 01:01:31,940
so having recurring revenue was an
absolute core criteria as part of my top

1086
01:01:31,940 --> 01:01:34,280
three criteria when I was
shopping for businesses.

1087
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:39,500
And what I loved about this
business model was that you

1088
01:01:39,500 --> 01:01:42,530
build the technology once, I
call it build once, sell many,

1089
01:01:43,130 --> 01:01:46,760
just like people with cloud
websites, it's same sort of thing.

1090
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:48,890
You build it once and every improvement,

1091
01:01:48,890 --> 01:01:51,770
every enhancement can be
shared by all of your clients.

1092
01:01:51,770 --> 01:01:53,990
So that was the big appeal for me.

1093
01:01:54,620 --> 01:01:56,450
It's actually why the
consulting side of the business,

1094
01:01:56,720 --> 01:01:57,980
it was a little bit surprising.

1095
01:01:58,250 --> 01:02:01,100
We do strive to make that
a recurring relationship,

1096
01:02:01,160 --> 01:02:03,980
but a lot of it sometimes is one time,

1097
01:02:03,980 --> 01:02:06,800
and that wasn't necessarily our
focus in the very, very beginning.

1098
01:02:07,460 --> 01:02:09,740
But what I would tell you
is that in this space,

1099
01:02:09,770 --> 01:02:12,320
if you treat your clients
well and you do good work,

1100
01:02:12,380 --> 01:02:13,580
they will stay with you forever.

1101
01:02:14,330 --> 01:02:18,110
We've got customers that have
been with us for 15, 16, 17 years.

1102
01:02:18,470 --> 01:02:21,420
When I bought business, that was the
last time I did the analytics on it,

1103
01:02:21,420 --> 01:02:24,510
but at the time, our average retention
was like nine and a half years,

1104
01:02:24,510 --> 01:02:28,350
and it's only increased since
then. So I think that's huge.

1105
01:02:28,980 --> 01:02:33,600
That's part of what enables us
to do what we do is we've got a

1106
01:02:33,610 --> 01:02:36,270
core base, core service
that we can offer them,

1107
01:02:36,270 --> 01:02:38,100
and everything else is
kind of value on top.

1108
01:02:38,970 --> 01:02:41,850
So that's really one of the things
that I love the most about this.

1109
01:02:42,510 --> 01:02:43,920
What do you think, Kathy, what's,

1110
01:02:43,920 --> 01:02:45,900
what's your vision for the
company for the next few years?

1111
01:02:45,900 --> 01:02:48,180
Where do you see the company,
and I'll use the benchmark 40,

1112
01:02:48,190 --> 01:02:49,800
where do you see the
company in five years?

1113
01:02:50,250 --> 01:02:53,990
That's a hard question. Where
do I see it in five years?

1114
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:59,100
So I would like to say that we're 50

1115
01:02:59,100 --> 01:03:03,600
50, the cybersecurity
consulting side and backups.

1116
01:03:03,900 --> 01:03:06,930
As much as I love the
backup side of the business,

1117
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:10,740
it is harder and harder to sell
standalone backups as a service.

1118
01:03:10,980 --> 01:03:15,720
There are so many other service providers
that bundle that with other things.

1119
01:03:16,530 --> 01:03:21,480
So I would say we would be 50 50 on
that mix and we would play an even

1120
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:24,990
bigger role in terms of disaster recovery
and business continuity planning.

1121
01:03:24,990 --> 01:03:28,410
And what I mean by that is a lot of small
businesses don't put a lot of thought

1122
01:03:28,410 --> 01:03:33,390
into those business continuity plans,
but mid-size organizations absolutely do.

1123
01:03:33,720 --> 01:03:37,320
And they understand that it's an
orchestration of not just technology,

1124
01:03:37,330 --> 01:03:42,090
but also their whole operations
and people process as well as

1125
01:03:42,090 --> 01:03:46,830
tools. And so I think we are uniquely
positioned to help them build business

1126
01:03:46,830 --> 01:03:47,650
resiliency,

1127
01:03:47,650 --> 01:03:52,620
business continuity plans that take into
account both the technology component

1128
01:03:52,620 --> 01:03:54,150
but also the cyber side.

1129
01:03:54,840 --> 01:03:58,710
So things that intersect
across those different areas.

1130
01:03:59,250 --> 01:04:03,990
That's where I would love to be and twice
the size of where we are right now in

1131
01:04:03,990 --> 01:04:04,950
those couple of years.

1132
01:04:05,970 --> 01:04:09,000
Kathy, when you're thinking about,
and I know you've thought about this,

1133
01:04:09,150 --> 01:04:12,750
I know you, when you're
thinking about how this ends,

1134
01:04:13,590 --> 01:04:15,000
what would an exit look like?

1135
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:19,350
Would an exit look like East Silo being
acquired by one of the bigger players?

1136
01:04:19,530 --> 01:04:24,060
Or would an exit look like
you merging with another local

1137
01:04:24,150 --> 01:04:27,750
technology provider that's
complimentary to you where you

1138
01:04:29,130 --> 01:04:32,670
remain an investor, but you
step out of the day to day?

1139
01:04:32,820 --> 01:04:35,100
What's your vision for
an exit from East Silo?

1140
01:04:35,670 --> 01:04:38,010
It'd be a strategic
acquisition by another,

1141
01:04:38,100 --> 01:04:40,770
and I'm going to use local in quotes
because it doesn't have to be in South

1142
01:04:40,770 --> 01:04:41,603
Florida,

1143
01:04:42,210 --> 01:04:47,040
but most likely another service
provider where what we do and what they

1144
01:04:47,040 --> 01:04:49,440
do is very yin and yang,
very complimentary.

1145
01:04:50,220 --> 01:04:54,540
I don't foresee us being acquired
by a big player in the industry.

1146
01:04:54,540 --> 01:04:59,250
We're not that tools focused where
I think we would be an attractive

1147
01:04:59,250 --> 01:05:03,240
acquisition candidate in that regard.
But definitely on the services side,

1148
01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:04,470
I think that's where
we would have our play.

1149
01:05:05,100 --> 01:05:09,870
And do you envision yourself as
kind of a serial entrepreneur,

1150
01:05:09,870 --> 01:05:12,900
maybe investing in
something else or, I mean,

1151
01:05:12,900 --> 01:05:16,380
you could do that as the c e o of East
silo and invest in something else.

1152
01:05:16,390 --> 01:05:17,223
I mean,

1153
01:05:17,560 --> 01:05:21,460
is that something you see yourself
doing or are you just sticking to the

1154
01:05:21,460 --> 01:05:23,170
knitting and focusing on East Silo?

1155
01:05:23,770 --> 01:05:28,210
I would say I'm a very, what's here and
now, what's right in front of me person?

1156
01:05:28,210 --> 01:05:31,480
I give it off my full attention.
When I bought the business,

1157
01:05:31,480 --> 01:05:33,640
I remember someone asked me, well,
what's your exit strategy? I said,

1158
01:05:33,650 --> 01:05:36,730
I don't get married to plan my
divorce. I get married for life,

1159
01:05:36,730 --> 01:05:38,530
and this is what I'm going
to do until I'm unhappy.

1160
01:05:38,530 --> 01:05:40,930
And then I'll start thinking about
options if I ever get unhappy.

1161
01:05:42,010 --> 01:05:44,110
But I would say that a dream of mine.

1162
01:05:44,380 --> 01:05:47,290
So my husband is also in
the cybersecurity space,

1163
01:05:47,740 --> 01:05:50,980
and he's pretty active in the
scene here in South Florida.

1164
01:05:50,980 --> 01:05:53,770
He's actually on Governor
DeSantis cybersecurity committee,

1165
01:05:54,070 --> 01:05:57,580
and he has all of these amazing
ideas. He's a big ideas guy,

1166
01:05:57,970 --> 01:06:02,380
and I would love for us to be able
to go into business together where

1167
01:06:02,770 --> 01:06:06,490
he's executing on the vision and I'm kind
of standing behind him and making sure

1168
01:06:06,490 --> 01:06:10,090
the trains run on time. So I would
love to do something like that,

1169
01:06:10,090 --> 01:06:14,230
but I'm not sure that I'm ready to
have both of us take the leap into

1170
01:06:14,230 --> 01:06:14,890
entrepreneurship.

1171
01:06:14,890 --> 01:06:17,320
It's nice that he's still on the
corporate track and I'm able to have the

1172
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:19,510
freedom to do this. So we'll have to see.

1173
01:06:20,620 --> 01:06:22,930
There it is. Complimentary partnerships.

1174
01:06:23,260 --> 01:06:26,650
Complimentary partnerships. We need
to have a conversation about that.

1175
01:06:26,810 --> 01:06:30,790
Let me tell you, oh boy. The
way you have it set up now,

1176
01:06:30,790 --> 01:06:33,880
Kathy is probably ideal. You
both can understand each other,

1177
01:06:33,970 --> 01:06:37,720
but your worlds are completely
separate, which is fantastic.

1178
01:06:39,390 --> 01:06:42,790
Exactly. All right, Nicole, what have
you got for Kathy? Before we let her go?

1179
01:06:43,540 --> 01:06:45,400
What I want to do is kind
of bring this full circle.

1180
01:06:45,400 --> 01:06:49,180
So we've spent a good deal
of time getting to know you,

1181
01:06:49,180 --> 01:06:52,690
really digging into some of the technical
aspects of cybersecurity for our

1182
01:06:52,690 --> 01:06:55,300
audience. And we've buried
the lead a little bit.

1183
01:06:55,300 --> 01:06:59,170
We want to have you come back as a
reoccurring guest free segment with Cyber

1184
01:06:59,170 --> 01:07:03,490
Kathy. And so I just wanted
to hear your thoughts on that,

1185
01:07:03,700 --> 01:07:04,870
what might be,

1186
01:07:04,880 --> 01:07:07,900
and you can just give a short preview
in store for some of the things we can

1187
01:07:07,900 --> 01:07:11,470
discuss with and bring to
the entrepreneurs who are
listening to the podcast.

1188
01:07:12,190 --> 01:07:13,720
Well, I would absolutely love that.

1189
01:07:14,530 --> 01:07:17,860
I have so much that I always want to
share with other business leaders.

1190
01:07:18,610 --> 01:07:22,600
There's a lot of myths, I think that
people believe about cybersecurity,

1191
01:07:22,630 --> 01:07:24,700
either how easy or how hard it is.

1192
01:07:25,090 --> 01:07:27,520
And so I'd love to dispel
a lot of those myths.

1193
01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:30,460
I do a ton of different trainings for
business leaders on those exact topics.

1194
01:07:30,460 --> 01:07:33,400
So I think that's a great opportunity.

1195
01:07:33,760 --> 01:07:36,940
And then the buzzword
right now is generative ai,

1196
01:07:36,940 --> 01:07:39,370
and everybody's thinking about how
to apply it in their businesses.

1197
01:07:39,380 --> 01:07:41,230
And not that I ever want to be a naysayer,

1198
01:07:41,260 --> 01:07:45,790
because us cybersecurity and risk
management people can get a reputation for

1199
01:07:45,790 --> 01:07:47,170
being the poo-poos of things.

1200
01:07:47,170 --> 01:07:52,150
But I think being smart
about how you use tools like

1201
01:07:52,150 --> 01:07:56,770
that and where your data goes and how
to still take advantage of those tools,

1202
01:07:56,770 --> 01:07:58,000
but in a safe way,

1203
01:07:58,000 --> 01:08:00,910
I think would be a really important
topic for us to dig into on a future

1204
01:08:00,910 --> 01:08:01,743
episode.

1205
01:08:01,990 --> 01:08:06,130
Oh, that's great. I love that.
I think that's a fantastic idea.

1206
01:08:07,030 --> 01:08:10,120
Alright, so cyber, Kathy Myron,
thank you for joining us.

1207
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:12,460
I want everybody we're going
to put down in the show notes,

1208
01:08:12,460 --> 01:08:15,290
I want you to subscribe to
Kathy's YouTube channel.

1209
01:08:15,590 --> 01:08:20,030
I see her shorts pop up all the
time, and her shorts are outstanding.

1210
01:08:20,030 --> 01:08:24,980
You're doing a great job
with the information that
you're sharing with folks on

1211
01:08:24,980 --> 01:08:28,670
YouTube. And I will tell you that every
time I watch one of those, I'm like,

1212
01:08:29,000 --> 01:08:31,040
oh man, there's another
thing I didn't know.

1213
01:08:31,610 --> 01:08:35,690
Which is, and I got to go do Thank you
for watching and for listening us today.

1214
01:08:35,750 --> 01:08:39,290
It's been such a pleasure having you,
Kathy Myron, join us today on the show.

1215
01:08:39,560 --> 01:08:40,460
We've learned so much,

1216
01:08:40,490 --> 01:08:44,150
and yet there's so much more in store
for those of you who are following our

1217
01:08:44,150 --> 01:08:47,600
podcast. So if you enjoyed today's
episode, please watch another one.

1218
01:08:48,320 --> 01:08:51,920
This is the Inside B Show.
I'm Nicki G, and you are.

1219
01:08:53,270 --> 01:08:55,940
I don't even remember Dave
Lorenzo, the Godfather of Growth.

1220
01:08:57,470 --> 01:08:58,490
We'll see you tomorrow. We'll see.