In this episode of the DTC Podcast, Deepak Jeevankumar interviews Slavik Markovich, co-founder of Sentrigo, Demisto, and Descope. Slavik shares lessons learned from his previous startups and discusses the acquisition of Demisto by Palo Alto Networks. He also talks about his current venture, Descope, which focuses on authentication and authorization. Slavik emphasizes the importance of solving real problems for customers and offers advice to founders. He predicts that AI (of course) and consolidation across cybersecurity vendors will be key themes that follow the 2024 RSA Conference.

Takeaways

• Solve a problem that matters to you and your customers. 
• Identify and build a team around you with complementary skill sets who have the same vision of solving the problem for your customers.
• Maintain transparency and open communication within your team.
• Focus on execution and customer satisfaction while maintaining a position of strength as the company grows. Acquisition opportunities will come.
• Consolidation and AI will be prominent themes following the RSA conference.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and initial challenges in founding companies
08:17 Lessons learned from building multiple startups
10:34 The journey of scaling Demisto and the acquisition by Palo Alto Networks
21:59 The importance of solving real problems for customers
31:17 Maintaining a strong company culture and open communication
33:30 Looking forward: challenges and opportunities in cybersecurity