🛡️Issue #68: Cybersecurity For Everyone
Claremont alumnus Alex Ruiz shares fundraising advice, entrepreneurial lessons learned, and how he's taken a consumer-first approach to cybersecurity with his new company 3GO
💬 Welcome to issue #68 of Between the Lines
Good morning & happy Thursday. If you thought October only had Halloween to claim, let us be the first to tell you that it’s also Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Time to go change up that same password you use for all your accounts…
Also, a huge congratulations to Claremont alumnus Akshata Murty and her husband, Rishi Sunak, who was just announced as U.K.’s next Prime Minister. 🥂
This week, Alex Ruiz shares why and how he left Google to go build a consumer-centric cybersecurity startup — 3GO. Don’t miss the other exciting job openings below at space, wellness, and education startups. 👇
~ Josh & Miles
👤 Community Spotlight: Alex Ruiz & 3GO
Alex graduated from Pomona and is the son of two Colombian immigrant parents. Growing up in-between two cultures taught him never to take the status quo for granted, and having the opportunity to see how different groups approached challenges and opportunities increased his interest in entrepreneurship. Alex spent the first decade of his career in numerous product roles before spending the next decade at Google in various biz ops and strategy roles. He is now the co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup 3GO. Outside of entrepreneurship, Alex enjoys the outdoors and travel — a passion that was first ignited at Pomona’s Outdoor Club.
After over 12 years at Google and a career in big tech, you co-founded a consumer and SMB cybersecurity company 3GO. Can you tell us more about what 3GO does and why you decided to build the company?
Successful cyber-attacks are more than doubling every year, costing consumers and small companies billions. Increasingly, people are looking for help in understanding how at risk they are and what they can do to protect themselves. I found myself in a situation where friends and family members were increasingly asking me for help on what they could do. I quickly realized the current set of cybersecurity products is either too confusing or does too little to proactively protect most people. The combination of need and opportunity was too great of a pull and ultimately led to me moving on from Google.
The common belief is that most people don’t want to deal with cybersecurity because it is too hard or not interesting. We’ve found that this misses a key nuance. Ultimately, people want to see an immediate benefit to the things they spend their time on. Without understanding how much safer they are for their efforts, they are reluctant to take on some of the key actions that will get them safer. 3GO’s tool gives members immediate feedback on their progress to becoming Certifiably SaferTM. That, in turn, increases motivation and engagement in this important area of their lives.
Last winter, I know you raised a Seed round led by prestigious investors, including Sequoia Scout, Precursor Ventures, and Spider Capital. What were a few practical things you did differently that you think separated you from the pack and helped you partner with those investors?
We have been fortunate to find some amazing institutions to partner with us on 3GO’s journey. A few things we did that really helped us were:
Do your research beforehand on who your ideal partners would be. Make sure they fit your company’s product, industry, vision, and even your own experience level. Everyone says this, but I didn’t realize how true it was until we started talking to institutional investors. Unless they can quickly fit you into one of their models, you will have difficulty convincing them to invest.
Practice your pitch early with either friendly investors and/or investors who are not your most important targets. Regardless of how great your idea is, it will take a few iterations to get your pitch to a good place. You don’t want to get in front of one of your key targets before fine-tuning your pitch.
If possible, leverage your extended network to get warm introductions. The difference in how quickly we got a meeting and even the receptiveness of the person we met with was night day if we had a warm introduction. By being connected to the Claremont Colleges, you already have an amazing network you can leverage.
Most importantly, be passionate about your company! You will face feedback from investors who will tell you why your product or approach is wrong. You have to be able to pick out constructive nuggets while being steadfast in your vision.👇
🚨Claremonster Call-Out: David Carroll & Spotter
David Carroll is a Claremont alumnus, a renaissance technologist, and the co-founder and CTO of Spotter – a data-driven technology company fueling the creator economy. Founded in 2019 to help YouTube creators scale their brands, Spotter has deployed over $600M for YouTubers to reinvest in themselves and accelerate growth. Their portfolio of licensed content has generated over 40B minutes of watch time per month and reached over 1.2B subscribers as of February. Spotter has raised over $200M in VC funds and landed deals with top creators like MrBeast, Like Nastya, and Dude Perfect. Read more about them in Protocol’s recent article:
Every social media platform has its own approach to supporting influencers, from TikTok’s creator fund to YouTube’s advertising revenue. But there’s one growing company outside these platforms that’s quietly fueling the creator economy before creators even get big.
Spotter is like a VC for YouTubers. The company gives YouTube creators up-front cash to help them pay for expenses like travel and video equipment in exchange for licensing their back catalog. It’s given $600 million total to creators as of late September and hopes to eventually dole out $1 billion by the first half of 2023.
💼 Who’s Hiring?:
NOOCI is a for women designed by women supplements company on a mission to modernize Traditional Chinese Medicine. Their plant-based supplements harness the time-honored wisdom of herbal medicine but are formulated specifically for the high-stress, fast-paced lifestyles of women today. The founder and CEO, Stephanie Tan, and the Strategy & Finance Lead, Michelle Lee, are both Claremont alumni. They’re currently looking for a Sales & Partnerships Associate to take the lead on the company’s partnership initiatives:
GoSchoolBox is a customized platform that connects educators with students, saving them time and tracking their progress automatically. Co-founded by Claremont alumnus and CTO Alejandro Mendoza, GSB’s platform interface allows school districts and other educational agencies to easily manage and scale their academic intervention programs. Alejandro's previous startup, Tutorfly, was also acquired last year by a publicly traded company. Learn more about their team and their openings:
Co-founded by a friend of Claremont and CEO Rema Matevosyan, Near Space Labs is an aerial imagery company that designs, builds, and operates a fleet of proprietary stratospheric balloons. Their balloons fly to the edge of space to deliver high-quality and updated imagery of our planet. Near Space is backed by top investors and has raised over $14M in funding to launch more mapping balloons into the stratosphere. They’re looking to hire more Flight Technicians to join their team:
Check out the other ~5,000 open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 1,000+ remote jobs, 100+ internships, or 40+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention, Claremonsters!
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or, if you are an employer looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s Claremont financing 💸
Justin Fenchel is a Claremont alumnus and the co-founder of BeatBox Beverages – the #1 fastest-selling ready-to-drink cocktail & wine brand in the U.S. BevNET has more on their recent $15M raise and $200M valuation.
Congratulations to Claremont alumnus Heather Callender-Potters and PharmaJet on their recent $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. PharmaJet is a private drug delivery company that has the only commercial-stage needle-free jet injection technology serving the immunization market.
This week’s top listens 🎧
Claremont alumnus and Founder David Katz joined Raman Sehgal on his podcast to talk about the formation of Sparrow Pharmaceuticals – a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel, targeted therapies to address unmet needs in both endocrinology and rheumatology.
Roya Amini-Naieni, Claremont alumnus and co-founder of Trilobio, recently joined Quinn Emmett to chat about her life’s mission and work in synthetic biology. Trilobio is a genetics engineering lab working on revolutionizing synthetic biology by developing a novel and cost-effective end-to-end automation solution for DNA parts assembly.
Everything else you need to know💡
Headway, founded by Claremont graduate Daniel Ross, is making mental healthcare more accessible to everyone by building the first software-enabled network of therapists who accept health insurance. Fierce Healthcare has more on Headway’s expansion to California.
Can’t get enough of Between the Lines? Follow and connect with us on Twitter!
🍽️ BTL Snacks:
😮💨 The First Whiff Of A New Partnership….. Claremont alumnus and Green Thumb Industries CEO Ben Kovler shares their partnership with CircleK gas stations to sell medical marijuana in Florida. He also highlights the strength and size of Florida’s cannabis market and the U.S. cannabis market trajectory for regulation and expansion. GTI is a public cannabis consumer goods company/retailer that owns and operates RISE retail cannabis stores. Headquartered in Chicago, GTI has 13 manufacturing facilities, 96 retail location licenses, and operations across 12 U.S. markets.
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