Building Verkada, the $4.5B Physical Security Company | Filip Kaliszan, Founder and CEO

Filip Kaliszan is the Founder & CEO of Verkada, the physical security company.

Verkada started in 2016 by building the best camera for physical security teams, and has since evolved into a full suite of security products for buildings. Filip takes us inside Verkada’s rapid growth to almost a billion in annual revenue, over 2,000 employees, and raising capital from investors like Sequoia, Meritech, First Round, General Catalyst, and Next47.

We get into how AI and LLMs are changing hardware, the power of customer therapy, how Filip iterated on early startup ideas, inside Verkada’s very difficult first funding round, how signing their first big customers changed the trajectory of the business, and how to think about adding new products over time.

We also talk through Verkada’s commitment to in-person work in the summer of 2020, how you should evaluate joining a startup as an employee, Verkada’s “software zero” employee bonus policy, and building a rooftop bar for the office.

Thanks to Numeral for supporting this episode, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://bit.ly/NumeralThePeel

Timestamps:

(4:20) Verkada, the physical security technology company + Demo!

(11:02) Building software powered hardware

(12:56) LLM opportunities in cameras

(15:49) Filip’s lifelong fascination with photography

(17:57) Taking one year to come up with the idea for Verkada

(22:27) Building his own home security system to learn the $16B market

(27:14) Why hardware experimentation is cheaper and easier than you’d think

(30:36) The importance of customer therapy

(32:37) How to get your first customers, importance of quick time to demo

(35:06) Why early fundraising was so hard

(40:38) Verkada’s first big customer

(42:23) How to decide what startup to join

(45:45) The opportunity in “smart building tech”

(50:34) How to launch new product lines

(58:07) Re-architecting the security industry to be software-native

(1:02:31) How hiring and managing a team changes as you scale

(1:08:55) Why each team at Verkada has its own recruiters

(1:14:00) Adding senior leaders to the team as you scale

(1:17:06) Evolving from introverted engineer to CEO of multi-thousand person company

(1:21:59) Verkada’s cool office and focus on in-person work during COVID

(1:28:12) Building a rooftop bar on the office

(1:32:20) Verkada’s Software Zero employee bonus program with 40x ROI

(1:36:00) How Filip thinks about IPO vs staying private

Referenced

Verkada: https://www.verkada.com/

Open roles at Verkada: https://www.verkada.com/careers/

Follow Filip

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaliszan/

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