Idan Tendler, SVP of Application Security at Palo Alto Networks, on Nailing Go-To-Market and Learning From Mistakes
Mar 23, 2023
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Idan Tendler, Senior VP of Application Security at Palo Alto Networks and co-founder of Place-IL, shares his entrepreneurial journey. He reflects on lessons learned from past ventures, including navigating failures and achieving product-market fit. Idan discusses creating Checkov to make security enjoyable for developers and emphasizes community-building through open-source solutions. He also highlights his nonprofit work connecting immigrants to tech jobs in Israel, advocating for diversity in the industry.
Idan Tendler's entrepreneurial journey emphasizes the importance of genuine product-market fit and a balanced focus on customer engagement and sales strategies.
The establishment of Place-il highlights a commitment to enhancing diversity in Israel's tech industry by facilitating internship opportunities for underrepresented communities.
Deep dives
Idan Tenler's Entrepreneurial Journey
Idan Tenler began his entrepreneurial journey unexpectedly, having originally pursued a career in industrial engineering and management. After working at Elbit Systems, he realized his knack for building teams and businesses, which ultimately led him to found two companies, FortScale and Bridge Crew. His experience at FortScale taught him significant lessons about the importance of product-market fit, effective sales strategies, and the pitfalls of focusing too much on technology instead of the business aspect. These insights laid the groundwork for his second company, Bridge Crew, which adopted a more customer-focused approach right from the ideation stage.
Lessons Learned from FortScale
Although FortScale was acquired successfully, Tenler viewed its outcome as a personal failure due to unmet expectations and lack of significant market traction. He identified three critical mistakes during his time at FortScale: the absence of genuine product-market fit, an overemphasis on technology without considering sales strategies, and building a company with an exit in mind rather than focusing on solid business operations. After selling FortScale, he reflected on these experiences and took a sabbatical, realizing the need to approach his next venture differently. This introspection was key to the success he experienced later with Bridge Crew.
Building Bridge Crew with Purpose
Tenler founded Bridge Crew with a mission to address cloud security issues while prioritizing product-market fit and customer engagement. Unlike his previous experience, he ensured that no code was written until they engaged extensively with potential customers to understand their needs and pain points. This led to early paying customers from small and medium-sized businesses, which helped validate the product direction. Furthermore, he dedicated equal energy to marketing strategies and sales as he did to developing technology, creating a foundation for sustainable growth.
Empowering Underrepresented Communities through Place.il
Tenler co-founded Place.il, a nonprofit initiative aimed at enhancing diversity within Israel's tech industry by bridging gaps for underrepresented populations, particularly among the Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities. Recognizing the significant contribution of tech to the Israeli economy yet the low participation rates from diverse groups, Place.il seeks to create internship opportunities in collaboration with leading tech companies to provide valuable experience. By screening and providing internships to promising candidates, the initiative enables industry teams to recognize untapped talent from these communities. The early feedback from participants and companies has been overwhelmingly positive, indicating the potential for meaningful change in the Israeli tech landscape.
Idan Tendler is the Senior Vice President of Application Security at Palo Alto Networks, as well as the chairman and co-founder of Place-IL, a nonprofit tech initiative. Idan discusses his previous cybersecurity analytics startup, Fortscale (later acquired by RSA Security), and some key lessons he learned from his experience building the company. Before Fortscale, Idan founded Bridgecrew, a company that helps developers better secure their cloud environment. With the goal of to making developers love security—a seemingly impossible task—Bridgecrew built an open-source product called Checkov, which allowed the company to get millions of developers to use their product. Today, Idan is also busy building Place-IL, a non-profit initiative that helps connect immigrants to Israel with job opportunities in the country's tech industry.
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