Alex Bovee sees three critical ingredients to building a high-growth startup: a founding team with innate grit for entrepreneurship, a good idea, and great timing. ConductorOne has all three. In this episode of Spotlight On, Alex shares his founding journey and encourages entrepreneurs to focus on building unique solutions that address unmet market needs.

ConductorOne is an access control solution that helps companies secure identity across their cloud and on-premises apps and infrastructure. In 2020, Alex joined Accel as an Entrepreneur in Residence (and was our first virtual EIR, for obvious reasons) before we partnered for their Seed later that year. The episode covers the founding story, identity market, ConductorOne’s unique approach to building a company out of Portland, Oregon, and the advantages of getting a startup team together in the same room. Alex also discusses the challenges faced during the early iteration phases, the importance of timing, and the inspiration that can be found in competing against large incumbents.

Conversation highlights:

00:00 – Alex’s background and early interest in entrepreneurship

04:51 – Identifying current gaps in the access control experience

07:44 – Complementary skillsets that make startup founders successful

08:50 – Transitioning from COVID to an in-person culture in Portland, Oregon

17:00 – Early iteration phase challenges

19:00 – Finding inspiration as an underdog competing against large incumbents

25:18 – Takeaways from RSA 2024 and the biggest trends in security, AI, and identity