#210 CEO & Co-Founder Huntress Kyle Hanslovan w/ Ev Randle: Deep Roots
Sep 30, 2024
auto_awesome
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.
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.
Importance of Transparency in Leadership
Transparency in leadership fosters trust and open communication within an organization, particularly during challenging times. The speaker discusses the practice of sharing unredacted board slides with both the board and the entire company, which allows for genuine discussion about successes and failures. This openness cultivates an environment where real and sometimes uncomfortable conversations can occur, enabling the team to learn and grow together. By promoting transparency, leaders can address issues head-on, which can ultimately improve team cohesion and performance.
The Value of Trust in Team Dynamics
Trust is critical in team dynamics, influencing how team members interact and engage with one another. The speaker shares a philosophy of defaulting to trust first, believing that assuming positive intent opens up more opportunities for collaboration and innovation. This approach contrasts with a more cynical mindset, which can hinder relationships and progress. Emphasizing the idea that occasional trust-based risks may lead to setbacks, the speaker argues that the long-term benefits of fostering trust are worth it.
Customer-Centric Growth Strategy
A strong focus on customer needs is fundamental for driving business growth, particularly in the cybersecurity space. The speaker narrates the importance of understanding customers' unique challenges and how engaging directly with them can inform product development more effectively than traditional methods. By prioritizing customer love and consistently delivering value, businesses can build lasting relationships that drive retention and advocacy. This customer-centric approach also emphasizes the significance of positive feedback and community support in creating a successful brand.
Navigating the Journey of Entrepreneurship
The journey of entrepreneurship is marked by continuous learning and adapting to changing circumstances, often requiring difficult decisions along the way. The speaker reflects on the need to be open to adjusting leadership styles and team compositions as the company grows, underscoring that early successes may not translate linearly into future growth. Recognizing the importance of aligning roles and expectations with the evolving needs of the business can lead to healthier team dynamics and improved outcomes. Ultimately, the speaker views the path to success as a series of learning opportunities that shape the company's trajectory.
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 andHigh 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.
