#299 - Matt Holland, CEO, Field Effect - on turning a market upside down.

Tech Entrepreneur on a Mission Podcast

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to deliver on the promise of offering the best cybersecurity service in the world. My guest is Matt Holland, CEO of Field Effect.

Matt Holland is an authority in the cybersecurity industry. He started his career at the Communications Security Establishment in 1999 as a leading security researcher for top-secret projects in the Five Eyes community. In 2007, he co-founded Linchpin Labs because he saw the opportunity to provide better solutions to democratic governments and corporate clients globally. The company was sold to L3 in 2018.

In January 2020, he co-founded Field Effect, which he leads as the CEO. Their mission: To turn the global cyber security landscape on its head by creating the technology and tradecraft to protect underserved small & medium-sized businesses from modern cyber security threats.

And this inspired me, and hence I invited Matt to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the cyber security industry, in particular for small and medium-sized businesses. Matt elaborates on the strategic choices he made early on to differentiate the business - being able to offer his solution at a fraction of the price of traditional players. He also shares his formula to build a sustainable business that can successfully compete with very large competitors.

Here's one of his quotes

The mission of the company to protect small and medium businesses around the world is a really neat thing to see in action. We have stopped some incredibly challenging ransomware attacks. And when you think about it, if we weren't there, it would potentially be a business-ending event for the customer. It could potentially shut down a medical facility.

When it comes to job satisfaction, […] It's like a passion flywheel that feeds right back into it to make the entire product and service even better.

During this interview, you will learn four things:

1. How Matt found the underserved markets he could serve like no one else.
2. How he's able to offer game-changing pricing in a very competitive market.
3. What he's steering for to increase the effectiveness of product development
4. What ingredients he's looking for to keep growing in challenging times.

For more information about the guest from this week:

• Matt Holland
• Website Field Effect

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