Andrew Monaghan [00:00:01]:
Well Rob, welcome to the podcast.

Rob Witmer [00:00:04]:
Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Great to be here, man. Really appreciate it.

Andrew Monaghan [00:00:07]:
Yeah, we got an interesting discussion set out for today, mainly because, let's go back a couple of years. You joined Onyx as employee number 11. You joined when they were in stealth mode and you were the first person outside Tel Aviv and the first person and go to market. So really interesting dynamic as you joined as a sales leader for a company at that early stage. So let's go back to that first week. You kind of get the Monday morning, you get your laptop or whatever, you go, oh good, I've got my slack, I've got my email address all set up. And then what do you do as the person who comes in as a sales leader? Do you just start calling your CISO friends to get some meetings or what's the plan?

Rob Witmer [00:00:55]:
Yeah, it's, it, it's, it's pretty jarring when you describe it like that. And it's, and it's been, it's been almost 16 months now, so, you know, call it a year and a quarter basically that I've been here. But I met the, I met the founders of Onyx back in the, the fall of 24 and it was five people, five, six people at that time. It was, it was through a connection with cyber stars and I immediately gravitated towards the founders, Maxim, our CEO especially. We agreed after some back and forth and getting to know each other that I would come on board then that following February. February. So February 1st of 2025 is when I joined that first week. The reason why the first week wasn't that jarring, I guess for me was because leading up to that I, I, I was already doing things and is in this role.

Rob Witmer [00:01:54]:
You, you know, you never really have a quote unquote start date. You're, you're kind of easing into it. And so I was like my whole network knew where I was going. Guys that had worked with me and for me knew where I was going. Even, you know, CISOs and people that I really respect, I, I made them part of my interview process in some cases. I, I, I had them check out the technology and make sure that it was validated. So yeah, it was, it's like, where do you begin? But, but, but I had a, I had a pretty good starting point and, but, but then the first, you know, kind of 30, 60, 90 days there, there's, you have a plan, but then that plan blows up. When you work for a startup this early, really what, what I, what, what I did and and, and, and this is why I think we've gotten off to such a fast start because we're still so very young as a company is, is I approached it as I, I'm everything right? I, I, I'm the first bdr, I'm the first sales rep, I'm the first operations guy, I'm the first product manager.

Rob Witmer [00:02:58]:
Like, I was going. So we, we went back and, and met with a lot of CISOs as part of the Cyber Starts Sunrise process. We went back and met with a lot of the CISOs that the founders had met with on the first round to show them what we had built. And I was a part of all those discussions. So that was really interesting and really key, I think, for our development as a company and how we were going to sell and how we were going to go to the market.

Andrew Monaghan [00:03:22]:
Any surprises in the reaction from the CISOs when they saw what you built versus what they talked about with the founders months before?

Rob Witmer [00:03:31]:
Well, yeah, yeah, it was really interesting because I'll lead into that, I'll answer that, but I'll lead into that with the story of when, when Maxim, our CEO, when he called me in December of 24 to tell me what we were going to solve for, because a lot of people thought I was insane. I, I signed up to go to a company, I didn't even know what the end product was going to be at the time, but that's how much I believed in, in the founders, especially Maxim. He called me in December of 24 and he said, yeah, we're going to go after agents. I didn't know what he meant. I was like, what do you mean? Like an endpoint agent, like something you put on your laptop. He's like, no, you idiot. An AI agent. And here's what it does.

Rob Witmer [00:04:25]:
But at the time, no one, especially in security, was talking about agents. So that's where we started in the fall of 24, which seems like eons ago. So when we went back in phase two, to answer your question, to phase two of sunrise, and we're showing a lot of the CISOs and just our network what we could build, to be frank, it didn't just pop off the page and say, oh yeah, we need this. Because the feedback was, yeah, we've heard it, we've read, and we know that agents are going to be a thing, but it's probably a year, two years down the road. And so we met them where they were at at that time, around some other AI use cases, AI security use cases. But it wasn't like all of a sudden that they were agreeing that AI agents were going to be the next big thing. It wasn't. So it was a humbling experience a little bit, but it taught us a lot early on.

Andrew Monaghan [00:05:26]:
And was there any shift you said do you help somewhere other parts of AI security? Was there a shift in the pro direction at that point?

Rob Witmer [00:05:34]:
It wasn't really a shift at the time. There was this Gen one of AI security companies that were out there. It's funny you call them Jim, I call them Gen 1. But they were only formed like four years ago. Like the prompts and the aims of the world, they were really solving for a couple of problems. One of them was the personal usage of AI. Like what are your employees doing? Like the DLP aspect of AI and then a lot of like protect AI and some others also had a, you know, an AI firewall. We still do those things today.

Rob Witmer [00:06:15]:
Like and we did those things early on. We just, we knew that long term a lot of different solution providers and a lot of different OEM providers were going to solve for those problems and they do today. But we solved those problems early on. So we met them where they were at at the time. But in the back of our mind we knew that the agents were coming and that was going to be a big focus.

Andrew Monaghan [00:06:39]:
That's fascinating. So another cyber stars company, Wiz. I remember I talked to Cullen Jones three years ago now. I think he was the first sales leader for CRO at Wiz. I asked him about his experience, he said, yeah, I got there, started talking to first month, went to talk to a whole bunch of people and he, he came back and said we're going to need a bigger boat because this is, everyone needs this, everyone wants it. Your, your experience was a little bit different. It sounds like it was.

Rob Witmer [00:07:07]:
But, but the, but the, and we're living it today. The great thing about that was it didn't, that, that, that sentiment did not last long. Like we, we slowly started to see more and more interest in, in, in agents. And then you had a couple of very large software companies that really started pushing those agents out in, in drove, you know, in droves. Like, like Microsoft. Microsoft did more for AI agents than anyone else out there because anyone that had an E5 license, an enterprise license from Microsoft were getting Copilot Studio agents in their license agreement. And then all of a sudden they made it so easy to configure those agents. All of a sudden a CISO would wake up and they didn't know about it at the Time, but they, they sometimes had hundreds if not thousands of agents on their network.

Rob Witmer [00:07:54]:
They, but it was, it was non technical people that were configuring and so, so it quickly changed and like the summer, you know, last summer is when we really kind of saw that inflection point hit and it just flipped. It flipped. And we, we knew, we, I mean we knew we had something already, but we knew that the timing, as you know, in this industry, timing is everything. We knew that we were headed in the right way, in the right direction.

Andrew Monaghan [00:08:23]:
So you joined in February. Officially joined in February 2025.

Rob Witmer [00:08:29]:
Right.

Andrew Monaghan [00:08:30]:
When did you come out of stealth?

Rob Witmer [00:08:32]:
We just came out of stealth just before rsa.

Andrew Monaghan [00:08:35]:
Okay. So a year later.

Rob Witmer [00:08:37]:
Yeah, so we were actually in stealth for a year and a half completely in total time, which, which again in today's, in today's timeframe is, is a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we, we, we, you know, we're, I would say we're most similar, especially in the cyber starts family. We're probably most similar in terms of the amount of time we stayed in stealth and, and even how we hired a little bit to, you know, to island who, who, you know, I know I don't know Eric at all, but, but I respect what they built over there tremendously. And, and so yeah, we took our time on the product side, but then we also were very pragmatic and prescriptive around how we were going to go to market. And we hired way before, I mean I was hired way before most typical sales leaders come on.

Andrew Monaghan [00:09:31]:
Yeah, that's the interesting thing. And Eric did the same thing when they came out of stealth. He had a team of, I don't know, 10 or 15 people by that point. Right. How do you take someone who is an experienced and successful salesperson and say, come and join this company that's in stealth mode, that, you know, we kind of have a product but you know, it's got some work to do. Let's say, you know, this is going to be a good move for you. How does that conversation go?

Rob Witmer [00:09:54]:
Yeah, it's. In some cases it's tough. But, but, but if it's too tough, you know, it's not the right person. You know, you just usually like you, you just know, right when you have that discussion and if that excitement is there and, and like we're in this space that, I mean I've been doing this a long time and this is the craziest. But it's, it's not only the craziest environment, but it's, it's the most fun I've ever had. And, and, and so when, when you tell people, hey look, this, this is the opportunity that, that we're going after. This is the potential tam, which, this, this, this TAM is massive. Massive.

Rob Witmer [00:10:30]:
And here's, here's, who's backing us. Here's the kind of people that we're already attracting. Here's the customers we already have. Like we had early customers way, way before, you know, that some of our peers and even others in the, in the same investment portfolio had. Right. And so we just did things a little early and in some cases people thought we were crazy. Some people thought I was batshit crazy because I went there so early and like with nothing, with no product and with just, there's just nothing on the horizon but the direction and what I knew we were trying to build for, it was a no brainer to me.

Andrew Monaghan [00:11:15]:
Yeah, so you could talk to people and talk to potential candidates and you get a feel for whether they're comfortable with that uncertainty and ambiguousness, things like that. What did you learn though, talking to prospects? Because that would scare off a lot of prospects. Right? And perhaps maybe some would lean in

Rob Witmer [00:11:33]:
because they like the idea of does Overall, you're right. And, and in some cases we were too early for, for some prospects. I, I remember a Fortune 50 retailer that I had personal relationships to and we went in there and it was just, we were just too early. Like, they're like, yeah, guys, it's, it looks pretty cool. It looks like you guys are headed in the right direction. But we, you know, we, we have to solve this problem tomorrow. And funny enough, we'll, we're back in talks with them now. But, but it's like, I think the sentiment overall, even at the customer level has changed.

Rob Witmer [00:12:12]:
The customers are just looking for solutions. And yes, I will admit they, they, they sometimes and oftentimes will start with their platforms. I'm paying whomever $10 million a year. By God, my CFO is going to ask me to see if I can solve with, with that platform. But the platforms just, they just don't move fast enough. And especially in this environment. You know, we were talking before we started like Anthropic is literally releasing something every three days or whatever it is and you come to a call and the customer expects you to support that. And I'm like, well they, they just dropped that yesterday.

Rob Witmer [00:12:51]:
So we have plans to, and we will very soon. But, but I mean the large platforms can't, can't, can't support that. So at the End of the day, the customers just want a solution. And some of them, some of them will, it'll, it'll, you know, they're laggards. Everyone knows who the, you know, there's laggards out there. But I will say even some of the laggards that I, in my career, that I've sold to and that I've worked with in this environment, they've actually even changed. We have one of the largest utility providers as a customer and I would have never in my wildest dreams thought they would be one of our first 20 customers.

Andrew Monaghan [00:13:33]:
But yeah, were there people that you talked to that you thought they'd be a good fit and they thought they were a good fit and you went through the process and then, I don't know, towards the end they go, they hold their hands up. We just, we just can't do this. They're too early. And you kind of find out. You waste a lot of time with them.

Rob Witmer [00:13:49]:
From a prospect standpoint, From a customer standpoint? No, not yet. Not yet. I mean, I mean that, I think that will have, that probably will happen at some point. But, but typically, especially like with, with our, with our validation event, our pov, our POV process, like you, you, we get data very quickly and the customer sees that very quickly and if they want to disengage after that, that's fine. We've not had that happen. Yeah, it's a different world. It's a different world. And even the last couple of years, I think that's really changed.

Andrew Monaghan [00:14:28]:
And how early then in the process do you have the conversation about are you able and willing to work with an early stage company?

Rob Witmer [00:14:38]:
Well, when, when, when I was just, when we were just getting started, it was like in the first, it was, it like we just laid it on the table. We're like, guys, look, we, we've got really, really ambitious goals here, but we're gonna, we're, you know, this, this is, this is who we are now. We're, you know, you fast Forward now we're 85 plus employees and you know, we've got 20 plus almost 30 customers. We'll, we'll double that after this quarter. But, but in the early days, like I say the early days, we're still the early days, but in, you know, the first year of, while we were in stealth, you, like, you, you just have to be very transparent. And there's, there's, there's some like, you'll just, you'll know, you'll know ahead of time, but there's there's, if there's, if there's someone that's going to be, it's going to see that as a problem. It comes out very quickly, very fast.

Andrew Monaghan [00:15:30]:
Yeah, I advocate for that as well. I think some people feel like I'm introducing a rejection or, you know, they know they're going to find out that you're, you've got 25 employees and you've only got a million in funding or whatever the situation is, you know, you might as well find out early on and not waste everyone's time. Right.

Rob Witmer [00:15:47]:
Yeah. And that's, and that's, that's, you know, I think we had the built in advantages as well of, you know, we had well known investors and, and not not only from an institutional standpoint, but also, you know, leaders of some of the biggest companies in the world had helped us at the seed round. Right. And, and so like that doesn't always matter. It doesn't. Like some people don't care about that, but, but some people do. You know, some people do. And, and I mean when I'm, when I'm, when I was trying to attract people to come here, that, that they, they typically care about that, you know, so, so it's all, it's all related.

Rob Witmer [00:16:26]:
But, but yeah, at the end of the day, customers just want the best solution in my.

Andrew Monaghan [00:16:33]:
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting how you came into to Onyx. You know, there's, there's a prevailing wisdom out there, you know, for what it's worth, that, you know, what really should happen is the founders sell for the first million dollars. They bring in some junior sellers who are just sellers, not a leader. But some sellers train them in what they've learned. And then as you know, once you get to, I don't know what the magic number is, 5 million, 10 million, you know, 50 customers, then you hire a sales leader. Clearly that's not what happened with you. So.

Andrew Monaghan [00:17:03]:
Yeah, can you look back on situations you were involved in that you go, it was really good that an experienced sales leader was in the room at this point rather than either no salesperson or a very junior one.

Rob Witmer [00:17:18]:
Yeah, I mean, it's, you're right, It's a catch 22 in some cases because if you go too early and if the product's not even close to being ready, then what are you going to do? What are you going to do for that entire time? You can't be a product manager the entire time, but if the product is advancing and you're getting customers and prospects leaning in, you you need that go to market perspective. And like our, our founders and, and, and our, our CEO Maxim, like, he's, he's, he's unbelievably good. Like he, I say all the time, like, he has, he, he has, he's one of these guys that graduated from College at age 16, right? He had a degree in CS and Mathematics at age 16. But, but he also has extremely high emotional intelligence. People gravitate towards him and he can, he, he's able to read the room. Not, not all founders can do that. So, so he, he, he has, that, he had that good sense already of what mattered when we were talking to prospects, but it's the execution, it's, it's okay. What do we do with that information? That, that, that.

Rob Witmer [00:18:36]:
I think when I, when I joined, I, I was able to add that perspective and, and ultimately I think what you do with that information, those next two to three steps is really, is really what matters at the end of the day. Like if, if you don't, if you don't, if you don't know how to take that data that you're, you're collecting and, and ultimately put yourselves in a position to make the next interaction better, then why are you there? Right? Why are you there? And I think we did that early on. Certainly how we engage today is way different than how we engaged even a year ago, heck even four months ago. And that's how quickly this stuff is changing. But it gave me a sense. One of the things that really, I think helped us move so fast, and I think guys like Eric and others that not, and I don't, not many people come in this early, but people that do, I think, will agree it just gave you a sense of what type of reps you needed, what types of SES you needed, what are the, what are the other pieces of the puzzle that you're going to need when the gas, when you have to hit the gas pedal extremely hard and you know, most of the time you're right, you get to a million or two, whatever the number is, and then you go out and hire a team and then everyone's kind of starting fresh and starting new. You have a ramp time and it takes six to nine months for that ramp. We've been able to fit those pieces in and collectively make the ramp much less.

Rob Witmer [00:20:17]:
And so that's what's helped.

Andrew Monaghan [00:20:19]:
It feels like when people say those comments, it's usually backed up with the sales leaders, I don't know, not the right person for early stage. As if somehow you're gonna join a company and sit behind a desk and you know, work on Salesforce dashboards and workflows all your life and you know.

Rob Witmer [00:20:38]:
Yeah.

Andrew Monaghan [00:20:38]:
And I imagine it's the last thing you did. Right?

Rob Witmer [00:20:40]:
Yeah.

Andrew Monaghan [00:20:41]:
You're rolling the sleeves up and you're having conversations and being a quasi product manager and you know, feeding things back. Right.

Rob Witmer [00:20:49]:
I have founders to even like added RSA last month I, I had several founders that, that, that I met and they were asking me like, well what, who, what should I be looking for? Like, you know, we're, we're, we just raised a seed round and we want, we want to bring someone in pretty early, but I'm like, look, you, a professional manager at this stage doesn't work. And I, I, I was, this is my 26th year in software. I'm, I'm, I'm old, I've been around forever and, but, but, but out of the, I was a rep for 19, 20 years. 20 years I was in IC out of those 26. I've only been in leadership for the last five, six years. And, and, and so you need someone that's going to get their hands dirty. Now. You, you, you, you don't want someone in this role to be a super rep like that, that doesn't scale.

Rob Witmer [00:21:39]:
But I will say when you, when you first come on in this role, that's what you like. You are everything. You, you have to, you, you have to be everything. And not everyone wants to do that. It's, it's, it's chaotic. It's, it's chaotic and it's, it's, I told someone the day, it's, it's, it's. Someone used the term organized chaos. I'm like, man, it's not even organized sometimes it's not so you better get used to it.

Rob Witmer [00:22:04]:
And, and, but, but what we do is like our whole mantra here is especially on the go to market side, but really through the whole company is speed and lack of friction. Like we want to do everything super fast, but we also want to have the least amount of friction. We want to be known as the easiest company to do business with. Least friction on pricing, least friction on, on legal negotiations, least friction on POV process like that is our entire goal. Because as a differentiator to those platforms and to those bigger players that, that have been around forever, that, that's like we feel we have better technology, of course, but that's also what we have. We have those, we have those in our favor and we have to make sure that we Uphold them.

Andrew Monaghan [00:22:44]:
Let's see if we can distill that down. So let's imagine now you go to Black Hat and some other founder says, rob, look, I love what you did at Onyx coming in. I want to hire Rob, but for my own company. And they said, give me the three characteristics I should look for in that person I hire. What would you say the three are?

Rob Witmer [00:23:04]:
Yeah, I mean, number one, it has to be someone that's just willing to put, put in the effort. Like that. I know that sounds, that's a boring answer, but, but not everyone's willing to put in the effort. I, I kid around all the time. I know, you know, the, the guy who hired me into security at no Name, Mike Baker, that dude's done it like 18 times. And I'm like, I'm like, how do you. Like, I don't know how. Like, I don't know how, because I see how much, how much you have to put into this.

Rob Witmer [00:23:35]:
And, and, and it's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And, and so you, you, you have to, you have to find someone that, that understands that and, and not everyone does. So if you go out and you hire someone from, that's been in crowdstrike for, for 10 years or whatever, nothing wrong with, with being a CrowdStrike for 10 years. They've probably been ultra successful, but it's not the same. I mean, they, they have resources surrounding. You're just not going to have that at this stage. You know, number two, is, is just the ability to recruit.

Rob Witmer [00:24:10]:
Like, if you don't have the ability to recruit at this stage, then you'll die. It's that simple. You, you can't rely. And we've got great, we've got great recruiting partners. But, but if, but, but if you don't have that built in gene of like knowing what to look for and then being able to attract them, then, then, then, then good luck to you because that's, that's you're gonna struggle because like that's, you have to be able to get someone very excited and, and also you, you, you have to be able to create the culture that's going to attract those people. And, and, and then number three, I, I would, I would say is, is, you know, someone that's, this. With aligning with the different functions like the product team, for example, not everyone wants to do that either. Like you, you, you, you, you have to be aligned with your founders, but also with, with that product team.

Rob Witmer [00:25:08]:
And I've so this is my second Israeli, you know, startup that I work for in a row. And, and not everyone can is used to that number one that, that mentality that they have of, of just working non stop until it's fixed or until something's built. But also that, that directness and that ability to, to ultimately be on the same same wavelength with, with, with, with your, with your product.

Andrew Monaghan [00:25:37]:
How comfortable were you with the directness that the Israeli culture is famous for?

Rob Witmer [00:25:43]:
I mean I, I, I always like, I think people that have worked with me and, and especially for me the last few years will, will tell you that that is what I always strive to be is, is just very transparent. But there's transparent and then there's Israeli transparent. And so, and I love it. No, I love it. And, and you know where you stand with it. It took me some getting used to though. It did take me some getting used to definitely when, when I, when I first went to no Name, you know, even like Mike warned me about it. But, but until you kind of, until you kind of get used to it, it does take because you know, Americans like even Maxim and Gil, my other co, our other co founder, they, they love to say yeah, don't give me the American answer, give me the Israeli answer.

Rob Witmer [00:26:32]:
Don't sugarcoat it. You know, so, so you, you, you have to distill things down and, and yeah, it took some getting used to. But, but it, but, but after, but after, after experiencing it, I wouldn't go back. I wouldn't go back.

Andrew Monaghan [00:26:46]:
Well, it's an example of something that you could sit there and go, gosh, if I was working for a Silicon Valley company, we'd have danced around this for three months because two people, people might be afraid to say something or upset people, but it just works so much better in the Israeli culture.

Rob Witmer [00:27:02]:
So it's funny, I just, I just had a conversation yesterday that, that this came up and it was with, it was with one of our resources in Tel Aviv who is unbelievably talented and such a good, good guy and, and, and just a hard charger. But he was, he was in the room with, with our CEO and another R D team member. And like I started talking in general generalities to, to the subject and, and he called me on it right away. He's like, he's like Rob, you're talking about me? Like, just say it, just say it. Right? And in, in Silicon Valley or, or anywhere in the US that would have never, no one would have ever said that they would have just been kind of like duck their head down and continue the conversation. And I laughed when he said that to me. And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, of course I am. I'm, I'm trying to like paint the broader picture here.

Rob Witmer [00:28:00]:
But if, okay, if you want to go there. Yeah, that's exactly I, what, what I'm talking about. He didn't care. Right? He, he just, but he just wanted to call it out and, and it, it was a good lesson for me just in that moment that, that I, I should have just, I shouldn't have danced around it. I should have, I should have just, you know, addressed it right on. And then, and then we, we had a, we had a good discussion. The three of us or the four? The four of us. And then even after that I had a one on one with him.

Rob Witmer [00:28:25]:
And like, we're, we're great. But you know, you, you kind of learn in those moments of just, just do it, just say it. And, and, and that's, that's how they are like 24 7. There's, there's no, there's, there's no like, oh, right, this is the time I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this or the time I'm gonna say that. It's, it's always, it's always on for them.

Andrew Monaghan [00:28:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny, you were saying you're talking about the evolving market that you're in. You know, I don't know, easier saying 16 months ago, 12 months ago, people weren't really sure about agentix security or AI Security. It feels like looking in from the outside that while that might be true, 12, 16 months ago. I mean everyone's in some sort of AI security these days and everyone, their dog has some sort of gentic message that they give. So I'm kind of curious how you handle that as a sales team.

Rob Witmer [00:29:19]:
Right?

Andrew Monaghan [00:29:20]:
When you're sitting there go, how do we differentiate? How do we stand out? You know, our stuff is realer than their stuff is. You know, how do I really get that point across? What do you learn about how to have those discussions?

Rob Witmer [00:29:30]:
Yeah, it's, it's like right now it is the noisiest segment of the market that, that you'll ever, that you can ever imagine, right? It's, it, it's, it's insane. You've got everyone saying they do it. So what I've, what I tell the team all the time and what I try to do, even in just like conversations. I was at an event last night in New York that I, that I have is educate first. You have to educate like in, in customers and prospects are coming to these conversations. They, you know, they're, they're, they're pretty well equipped a lot of times because the Reese, like the ability to research things is, is that, you know, it's such a level now that people can find things out very, very quickly. However, there's so much to cut through that sometimes they, it's, it's sensory overload and, and, and so you have to distill it down and educate them and make sure they understand, look, this is what we're really good at. This is, this is what our differentiation is.

Rob Witmer [00:30:32]:
This is also where we're going. This is our vision. And, and if, if, if, if, if, you know, if, if you wanna, if you wanna solve this one problem today, we can do that are going here in the future. It's. At the end of the day, you, you just have to make sure that everyone that you're talking to understands some of those snippets. If, if you try to just right away go into a pitch or whatnot, it just doesn't, it doesn't resonate these days. You, you, you have to, you have to be human, right? You have to be vulnerable. You, you, you, you people, people see through the bs, you know, and at least I, I think they do.

Rob Witmer [00:31:15]:
I know I, I know I do. I get reached out to all the time now being sold too. And, and, and I, I just want somebody to be authentic. You know, like, that's, that's what you, I think that's what everybody wants. And that's what I always, that's what we always try to tell the team is just to be authentic, be a good person, be truthful. And, and if, if, if it's not a good fit, it's not a good fit, we'll move on.

Andrew Monaghan [00:31:39]:
Yeah, you have to be comfortable with that last bit, right? To say this is what we don't do. Don't let's not get into these discussions. You know, that's not what we don't do.

Rob Witmer [00:31:46]:
Well, it's, it's a fine line because again, back to the point of, of you know, like what anthropic in the, in the frontier models, what, what they're, what they're coming out with on a, on a weekly basis is insane. Well also now the development side of, of product is so fast. I mean, I've never seen it in my life, like how we literally can turn things around in hours, sometimes minutes. It's ridiculous. But you do not want to say yes to everything. You can't, because then who are you? You're always shifting. And there's a lot of pivots going on in this industry right now, and a lot of those pivots are to the very category we're in. But you just can't continually do that and be successful.

Andrew Monaghan [00:32:40]:
I think that's a good call on the differentiation. I'll just give you my perspective on it. Since I've been doing this now for six years, I've probably listened to well over a thousand first meetings from my clients to listen to their gong calls and whatever. One of the consistent themes that I take away from them, that, you know, I know what this company does, I know how they're different. I know all these things, but I'm a, well, well over 50% of the time. I'm not convinced that the other person on that call knew why we were different. Yeah, it's all inferred. Right? And you might even say this is, you know, might even say the thing that we're different, but they don't call it out as something.

Andrew Monaghan [00:33:19]:
It's just like one thing we do. Oh, he's just going to, you know, goes by. Right. I say to people, you know, you gotta imagine the person you're talking to is, you know, looking at the screen, but, you know, looking at their text messages, looking at the window, something buzzed in their phone. They're only paying 50% attention to you, really. So you kind of have to, you know, not literally, but figuratively, kind of grab them through the screen a little bit and say, pay attention. This is the, this is the bit we're different at.

Rob Witmer [00:33:43]:
Yeah, no, it's, it's so true. And we're all guilty of it. Yeah. Know, just, just the multitasking that goes on and a lot of, a lot of the differentiation and a lot of the pitches that, that are thrown, these, these buyers ways, they all sound the same. It's, it's, it's, it's why relationships matter. They always have, they always will. But, but, but also, you know, just, just categorizing and attaching to outcomes and not just selling on zeros and ones and features, like, you just, you just can't do that. And if you look at any category or if you look at any big platform that's become a dominant player in any category, that's, that's what they've always done is they, they've, they've geared towards outcomes and they geared towards, hey, we can solve these general Problems for you.

Rob Witmer [00:34:37]:
It's, it's, it's not the individual features. There's, there's a lot of feature companies out there and those feature companies won't last. A lot of them are getting gobbled up already for the cheap and you know, like it's just part of the industry now. The founder starts with an idea. That idea sounds great but in this world, in this environment, that feature quickly becomes or that idea quickly becomes a feature in some larger platformers even with the frontier models.

Andrew Monaghan [00:35:14]:
I noticed that Tim Youngblood joined Onyx and he's the former assistant McDonald's, Dell T Mobile. How does someone like Tim get involved and shape your go to market?

Rob Witmer [00:35:27]:
Yeah, Tim's awesome. I met Tim, I had known about Tim. I mean a lot of everyone knows Tim. It seems like he's been a CISO at like four Fortune 500 companies. Number one. He's, he's great human. He's just a, he's just a good dude and, and, and I met him and, and I knew he, culturally he would be a great fit for us but from a go to market perspective he, he just brings credibility because he's lived, he's lived it, he's breathed it, he's been in that sea. He knows what matters.

Rob Witmer [00:36:00]:
Like that, that what I just said about attaching to outcomes and attaching to how do we go in and prove that we can solve these problems? That's what he talks about all the time. And it's not just the technology. Again we feel like we have the best solution in the space and we're going to continue to iterate on it and make it the best. But it's also the people process, the people process behind the technology is just as, it's actually more important and so we, we really, we really key on those elements as well. Tim's a big part of that because he's also seen the best tools that have been selected at his former employers but they didn't, they weren't successful because the people process were not alone. And so, so we're, we're gonna like, we, we, we, we dig in on that early here and, and not most startups don't like mo especially at our stage, especially in cyber they don't and, and I, I, I came, you know, I came from an infrastructure and application background for most of my career prior to joining no name and, and you know like that side of the house I think was earlier in, in kind of attaching to you know, to that people process side. Cyber is still evolving in to do.

Andrew Monaghan [00:37:19]:
So I think I feel that's a miss for companies that don't hire someone like that early on. I mean, yeah, it's just such an important role in all sorts of different aspects. As you were saying. Right. You know, something like that can make an impact all over the company. I don't know why more companies don't do it.

Rob Witmer [00:37:33]:
Agree, agree. And, and, and, and he was like when, when I met him in Atlanta six months ago or whatever it was and, and just hearing his vision and hearing how he, he wanted to align with what we were building, it was, you know, it was a no brainer and I mean we all feel very fortunate that someone like that has joined us. So. Yeah.

Andrew Monaghan [00:37:58]:
What does the next nine months hold for Onyx Rob?

Rob Witmer [00:38:02]:
Oh man, that's a loaded question.

Andrew Monaghan [00:38:05]:
I mean 45 new products from anthropic and 65 from corporate AI.

Rob Witmer [00:38:11]:
We've, we've got big, big aspirations. I mean we think that we can become the winner in this crazy category known as agentic AI and AI security. And really our messaging, if you saw our messaging come out of stealth a month or five weeks or whatever it was ago, it's really around a secure control plane for AI and in some cases it may not just be around security. Right. And so I mean I won't get into the details there, but it's how do you control AI and enable it for these enterprises? That's what we hear over and over and over again is look, we don't want to stop AI. In fact, it's the opposite. Most CEOs and most boards are being tasked with, with, with pushing out more AI. That's some, that's sometimes how they're, how, how CEOs are being graded.

Rob Witmer [00:39:10]:
So they never want to, they never want to stop it, but they want to safely enable it. And that's, that's really what we're all about. But over the next nine months, I mean we, we've, we've got, I mean we, we, we think we can become the, the biggest player already in this space in the next nine months. And, and, and we're gonna, we're gonna continue to grow like crazy. I mean we'll, we'll will probably by this time next year have double the headcount. You know, the rep, the revenue numbers will, will, Gosh, I don't even know from a percentage standpoint what that increase will look like, but it will be significant. And yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's all about timing and the market and the right solution and then ultimately the right people and we feel like that we have the right pieces in place for that. So big aspirations.

Rob Witmer [00:40:04]:
That's from every employee though at Onyx. It's not just our board, it's not just our investors. It's everyone that is here wakes up and understands that we think we have something special.

Andrew Monaghan [00:40:19]:
Well, we're going to enjoy watching from afar, watching your progress and supporting you on along the way. So you wish you every bit of luck that you need this year and next.

Rob Witmer [00:40:28]:
It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun but I really appreciate it, you know, really, really respect what you've done and I remember listening to you interview Mike, you know, just gosh, three, four years ago and you know, so get to be able to do this is really cool. I appreciate it.

Andrew Monaghan [00:40:46]:
Thanks for joining us.

Rob Witmer [00:40:47]:
Yeah, thanks.