Grit

#210 CEO & Co-Founder Huntress Kyle Hanslovan w/ Ev Randle: Deep Roots

Sep 30, 2024

01:08:29

Snipd AI

Kyle Hanslovan, CEO and co-founder of Huntress, shares insights from his journey to building a $1.5 billion cybersecurity firm. He emphasizes the importance of integrity and transparency in leadership, advocating for open communication and even sharing personal finances to foster trust. Partner at Kleiner Perkins, Ev Randle, highlights the rarity of deep diligence in founder-investor relationships. The duo discusses the evolution of leadership in tech, the significance of resilience, and the core values that drive success in high-growth environments.

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Quick takeaways

Overcoming challenges as an entrepreneur fosters resilience and teaches valuable lessons essential for future success and growth.

Transparency in leadership encourages trust and open dialogue, allowing teams to engage in meaningful discussions about successes and failures.

Placing customer needs at the forefront of product development creates lasting relationships and drives business growth, particularly in cybersecurity.

Deep dives

Building Resilience Through Adversity

Experiencing hardship can lead to resilience, much like plants that develop deeper roots to find water during droughts. The speaker emphasizes that challenges foster patience and deliberate behavior, which are essential for overcoming obstacles in entrepreneurship. While reflecting on the difficult times as a founder, the realization arises that these struggles ultimately strengthened the ability to withstand future challenges. This perspective suggests that adversity can serve as a critical learning experience and is not just a burden to bear.

Intro

2min

Navigating Trust and Technology in Cybersecurity

3min

Embracing Transparency and Trust in Leadership

3min

Evolving Leadership and Accountability in Tech

5min

Fostering Transparency in Leadership

20min

Investment Philosophy and Market Potential in SaaS Companies

4min

Journey to Cybersecurity Success

32min

Guest: Kyle Hanslovan, CEO & co-founder of Huntress; and Ev Randle, partner at Kleiner Perkins

Talk is cheap, says Huntress CEO Kyle Hanslovan: “I learned real early on that integrity is like one of the very few things, if not the only thing, you can't buy.” En route to Huntress’ current status as a $1.5 billion firm with $100 million in ARR, he took a long time to hire new execs, or partner with VC firms.

Indeed, Kleiner Perkins partner Ev Randle recalls the deliberation Hanslovan underwent before signing KP’s term sheet. “It's pretty rare for a founder's diligence process on you to increase your conviction on them and the business that they're building,” he says. “You just saw that the effort extended across to so many different places and so many details that it's typically not.”

Chapters:

(01:03) - Learning how things work
(03:31) - Default trusting
(05:07) - Over-sharing
(10:50) - Kyle’s leadership style
(15:44) - Hiring for conflict
(19:24) - Scaling execs
(22:52) - Evaluating VCs
(28:55) - Pattern-matching
(32:13) - Why Huntress is worth $1.5 billion
(38:34) - Kyle’s childhood and early career
(42:00) - The 99 percent
(47:49) - Bootstrapping
(51:14) - Deep roots
(57:47) - Customer love
(01:01:14) - “Nothing will stop us”
(01:05:50) - Who Huntress is hiring
(01:07:22) - What “grit” means to Kyle

Mentioned in this episode: Sony, Sam Altman, Nike, Elad Gil and High Growth Handbook, Kim Scott and Radical Candor, JMI Equity, Vinod Khosla, Todd Park, Capterra, Reddit, FUBU, Rippling, the NSA, QuickBooks, Amazon AWS, and South Park.

Links:

Connect with Kyle

Connect with Ev

Connect with Joubin

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

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