Podcast Transcript

Welcome to the RSAC Cyber at the Top podcast, where security leaders across industries share the strategies, hard lessons, and real experiences shaping modern cybersecurity and AI. Insights are grounded in community and built for every level of profession.

Welcome to The Entrepreneur's Journey, a part of the RSAC Cyber at the Top Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jenny Brock, senior manager of innovation programs at RSAC. On each episode, we'll be talking to founders who participated in the RSAC Innovation Sandbox contest.

We'll hear from them about how they came to entrepreneurship, lessons learned along the way, and the unique joys and challenges that building a cybersecurity company presents. Today, I'm here with Eran Barak, cofounder and CEO of Mind.

Founded in 2023, Mind is an AI native data loss prevention platform that secures sensitive data across every environment for users and AI agents. Eran, welcome to the pod.

Thank you so much, and thank you for having me, Jenny.

So excited to talk to you because I know the last three years have been pretty busy, I think, you know, from 2003 to here. We last got to hear about what Mind was up to when you were on stage at the Innovation Sandbox in 2025. We're, you know, a whole year and a half from there. So maybe fill us in a little bit on what what you've been up to and and the ways MIND has has started to evolve in the last kind of year and a half.

Yeah. No. Absolutely. The the past year has been great for MIND, and we have had tremendous growth.

We just announced a few weeks ago our series b round. The contest was amazing for MIND. Obviously, we got a lot of credibility and validation from the market. It helped us it helped us a ton on the marketing side, and, obviously, we started hiring the sales folks.

So, you know, we grew from a one digit number of customers to dozens of customers that we have today.

Obviously, we also crossed the eight digit in revenue. So all of this really came, you know, right after this innovation sandbox in 2025. And, you know, as we like to say, this is just the beginning now. After the round, we're gonna fill in, and this is a fuel for us to go even higher.

Awesome. We love to hear it.

You know, as we talk about each of these companies and their and their founding, there had to be, you know, a spark that made you think, I need to solve this problem. Maybe start a little further back, you know, a couple years before Mind.

What were you doing, and and what really led you to think, I I need to make this happen on my own?

You know, I always like to be an entrepreneur. And and, you know, before Mind, I had another company called Hexadite, which was the partnering in the auto IR space, automated incident response. And this company was founded in 2014. We were focusing really on the endpoint, which is the end device like every one of us work on. And this company was acquired by Microsoft back in '17.

Now, you know, when I looked back at Hexadite, basically what Hexadite did, it collected these detection alerts and start investigate them as a human would do just in an automated way. When I look back, more than 50% of the alerts came from data loss prevention tools.

And now you would think, one second, this is prevention, why detection? But, you know, reality, these tools are more implemented as a detection and monitoring rather than prevention. Now then going back to Microsoft, I founded the program with another guy at Microsoft called MISA, Microsoft Intelligent Security Association, where we basically build a program to help ISVs go and connect to the Microsoft security product. And with this experience, I worked really closely with the Microsoft Information Protection team, which as you can understand, this is the team that protect the data of all Microsoft stack.

And, you know, again, as I started to know better and better the data security space, I realized that today, and it was again back in 2023, today in the market everything is very silo when comes it to data security. You know? You need to protect the same exact data in different IT environments, but you do it with different tools. And this doesn't make sense because if you think about it, I mean, you create a new document on your laptop, you send it to me via email, and then you store it in Google or Microsoft OneDrive.

And then even if you have a on premise file share next to your LEGO in your room, you even store it there. And it's the same data, but a different kind of IT environment. So it doesn't make sense that you classify differently. You put a policy and enforce it differently.

And this is how we came to the idea of mine. So I joined forces with my co founders, Hod Binoun, who is the VP R and D, and Itay Schwartz, who is the CTO. And we started doing a lot of conversations, dozens of conversations with a security practitioner, and we realized how much data security is broken. And this is how we got to the convention what is mine.

By the way, at the same time AI is starting kind of going up. And this really helped us on the technology side because we use it to our benefit in terms of classify the data in a much more precise way and faster way. But also in today's world, as any one of us use, you know, assistant and AI agents and so on, this create even accelerate the need for better data loss prevention too.

Awesome. Well, I love to hear, you know, the the flow of things of, you know, you've already had this entrepreneurial spirit. You're able to then continue to look for these opportunities, to look for ways to improve the way that people are doing business around you.

Do you feel like that goes back even further? You know, you you spent this time starting your first company.

Did you have a childhood urge to be an entrepreneur, or were there any any times maybe in college that you did anything? You know, I'd love to hear I'm always curious with people if it's if it's the problem that that makes them really want to fix it or if there's if there's something innate in people.

It's funny because I ask this question myself oftentimes. Right? Now doing it again, I was like, okay. How did you how did you even I ended up like that, right? Like even always ask me, hey, why you can't have a normal job? And I was like, what do mean normal job that you work from nine to five?

And, you know, I looked back and to be honest, I did grow up in an upper middle class home. I had everything I wanted, we had a very comfortable life, but always as a kid I wanted to create things for myself and not to be dependent on anyone.

So I did many things as a kid when I think about it. This is kind of building a business, but I didn't think about it as building a business. So for example, when I was a kid I made and sold earrings. Every time in my town, hometown, we had before going back to school, we had one day of kind of a market, and, you know, you can put a small booth and do whatever you want, and I did that.

Another time, I was I was offering typing and printing services to people in my community. So, you know, I didn't think of it as a business. I just enjoyed creating something and seeing that people wanted to buy it. But, you know, if you look back, it's actual entrepreneurship.

So Absolutely.

Absolutely. Well, and I love the the typing and printing one too where you you saw this need that you could fill. You saw something that, you know, maybe people, you know, weren't able to do themselves or they didn't have the time, and I feel like that that flows seamlessly into you now seeing the opportunity with with AI and with with the tools that you're building now. I think that makes a lot of sense. You know, as you're looking across, you know so now we've we've kind of gone all the way back to the beginning of your career. As you're looking across these these different iterations of entrepreneurship, do you feel like there, you know, is some key insight that you've taken from one to the next or or something that you learned, you know, kind of earlier on in your career that helped you build a stronger company each time around?

Yeah. Of course. I mean, you know, every every time is a different company. And, you know, I I look I I'm lucky, and I I say lucky because I work at this company with a different set of partners, so you always learn different things.

But yeah, definitely, you know, people ask me, what are lessons learned that you took from your first company to this company? And there are many of them, you know. I mean, I can speak about it ours. But I think that the first part is obviously the people.

And this is where we were focusing here at the beginning at mind, like, you know, attract top talent people because at the end of the day, you can have the best idea. You can be the smartest person on the planet, but with not, you know, talented people, you can do it yourself. It's always a team And this is one. The second one was the marketing side of the house, which, you know, as a young entrepreneur I didn't value that that much. And then in fact I thought, okay, let's first develop the product. We have something and then we go to market.

Reality, you need to do it in part. And this is where we brought here our first VP marketing really early in the day that became chief marketing officer today. And and, you know, this is kind of lesson learned that that you learn.

But, you know, with this company, I have another I have other kind of lesson learned that I learned, you know, on the job.

Absolutely. That's super fascinating to me too because I think that's something that early entrepreneur entrepreneurs or maybe those in the first round, you know, you have so many different things to balance as you're deciding to build a company. You know, how much are we just fully focused on product and and getting to that MVP? You know, are we spending more time listening to potential customers or, you know, how much of their feedback are we taking?

What are we taking in? And I really you know, as someone who who comes from a little bit more of the marketing side of the house, love to hear that that there was an early emphasis on building, you know, what is our brand? You know, who are we? Are we market?

Things are moving so fast these days that really being able to establish that market presence is, I think, really important, you know, to to be able to be competitive out there. And so I think it's really fascinating that that was one of the things that you decided, to emphasize early. What were some of the other roles that you focused on as you were kind of building that that core team? You know, you've got this idea from Microsoft.

You now you've you've got these partners. What were some of the other things that that you guys focused on really kind of filling in in terms of those key roles early on?

Yeah. Definitely. So so, you know, I mean, as I mentioned, marketing was our first kind of US based employee after myself because when we started the company, I was here already in The US and my other two co founders were in Israel. People is critical. And, you know, I mean, as much as you do it yourself at the beginning, putting the right person, HR person that can help you accelerate that, really kind of this is what we did as well.

Really early, even when we had like three, four employees, we kind of hired someone to start managing the HR aspect of the company. So obviously, we did that. And last but not least is is obviously you you touched on it in terms of customers is being close to customers. This is where we leverage our previous network and connection, our investors connection, and so on, and really work closely with the customer to make sure we develop what they really need and not what we think they need.

Yeah. Absolutely. I think that's one of the hardest things when you're working in that early stage of, okay. I've got this.

Oh, this idea is so great, and I feel so passionate about it to start a company. And maybe having that idea challenged or, you know, maybe having someone come and say, oh, well, that's great, but, you know, we've got these other huge priorities that we have to focus on first. I think that's a really interesting segue into how did you come to find your first customer. You know, did you do any kind of, like, beta customers, or how how did that journey look for you, and and what was the relationship with that very first paying customer?

Yeah. I think you I think you always start with what I call kind of design partners. Right? You said, okay.

Listen, guys. You know, we just started. We really want your feedback. Obviously, we don't charge anything yet.

Let's work together. You see if you get value. If you get value grade, then we can discuss, you know, more financial terms. And we had basically three different sets of customers.

I always also like to get early adopters, also I call them, from different industries, because then you get a set of requirements that might be different from each other. For example, with mine, if you think about it, we protect sensitive data. Now for healthcare organization, their most sensitive data is PHI, right? For manufacturing, something else is their CADs and all the design.

And then you have finance with the PCI. So you want to make sure you take each one of different industries. And two out of the three came from our own network where we knew the security leaders, so we started working with them. And the last one honestly came from a dinner we hosted in Denver.

And we didn't know any of the team there. We just partnered with someone locally in Denver. And the CISO of this company really defined the problem she has that was actually what we envisioned as our solution to solve that. And, you know, she was more than happy to take a chance on us.

And this became, by the way, a six digit deal for us, which was huge, you know.

It's it really helped us to believe that, as I mentioned about my childhood, like, there is someone who want to buy what, what I just created.

Yeah. I love that. And I love the talk of topping your network as well. Right?

I mean, I think, you know, with RSAC and everything that we work to build, it really is just to bring these these groups of people together to bring together the entrepreneurs and the CSOs and the researchers and the thinkers. And so it's really great to hear how much, you know, that's been able to to affect your journey of of building mind. In terms of a broader network, you also do some angel investing. How did you find your way into that side of things, and and how do you kind of, you know, maybe maybe give guidance or or advice to those those companies that you've done some angel investing with as well?

Yeah. So, you know, after my first company, Hexadec, that was acquired by Microsoft, I was thinking, okay. How can I give back?

And and, you know, I honestly think that I because I like this entrepreneurial life, so I was thinking, okay. How can I give back? And I said, you know what? I'm gonna set x amount of money on the side just to invest.

And, you know, when you invest when you do engine investing, you need to think that this money might won't come back. I got lucky that, you know, my investment turned out very well, but, obviously, some of them, you you it's always, you know, it's not you can win them all, as I say. So this is how I started. I started small from, you know, kind of own network, and then obviously VCs that invested in my previous company wanted to connect me.

And and, you know, these teams basically asked me if I'm interested to invest. And and this is how I started. But, you know, when I started mine here, I I stopped because, you know, I do believe if you do engine investment, it's a job. Right?

And and invest in that, you need to make sure you really bring value and help these things. Because otherwise, this is I I think it's not fair. So, you know, this is what I I today, I really focus on mine. And also, I mean, this is more as an advice.

I mean, if you stop doing agent investment and you are in the same space, then it can create conflict for you because you wanna someone or your team wants to hire someone you invest in, so how do you do that? So this is why I was very, I would say, disciplined to make sure, you know, we focus here on mine, and I think this is the right way to do.

That makes total sense. And I I could definitely see why they're well, I could get into into some tricky waters.

But, you know, yet yet another, another cool network effect. And I love to hear when, you know, entrepreneurs who who have had success are really able to, to your point, you know, share that share that success and and find ways for more entrepreneurs to join the space and and to grow their companies. If you had, you know, a piece of advice as you're as you are kind of a, you know, a second time entrepreneur now, you're growing your company. If someone's listening to this and they're like, oh, you know, I really wanna get started, what what would be some of the advice you would give them as they were as they were starting?

I think first, find the right partners to work with, really how to do this journey yourself. You know, I know some folks that are sole founders. And by the way, when I was about to start my mind, I was thinking, yeah, maybe I should be a sole founder. Obviously, it streamlined many things.

But at the end of the day, you are you are there yourself, and it's not an easy journey. Right? There are a lot of ups and downs. And, you know, my advice is to find the right people, which is not an easy task by itself.

It's almost getting married. And once you found that is making sure that you really validate the solution you bring to the market and try to tap to as many networks as you can to make sure, you know, this end user are really willing to pay and and buy this product that you wanna offer. And this will really help you scale.

And last but not least, I mean, for me here at Mind is the branding that you mentioned before. And we really invested a lot in our branding. I think, you know, it depends on the industry, but in the cybersecurity that we we are talking today, I mean, it's very noisy, and you need to stand out. Brand can really help you stand out.

And I think this is important. At the beginning, maybe you look at that and you say, okay. This might be waste. But, you know, if you know how to execute on that, it it it paid off big time.

I love that. I love that. And you were so right. I love that you said it's it's almost like a marriage.

You won't you know, you really you're you're binding your fates together. You're having to you're having to challenge each other, but but also, you know, have a way to communicate and to come together on your strategies and and what you're thinking of. As you look at the next, you know, six months, year, or going into twenty twenty seven, what are some of the things you're really excited about either for Mind or for the industry at large? You know, what are the things that that are getting you excited to keep going on this project every day?

Yeah. So, you know, I mean, again, it's a good timing for our conversation because we we just closed our series b round. And, you know, with with this round, obviously, comes a lot of responsibility, and we need to make sure we beat quarter over quarter like we have done so far.

But more than that, the next twelve months, personally for me, is how we focus to build mine to scale. And when I say scale, it means to serve hundreds of customers in the next twelve months, right, from different industry. So how you put the right support team, how you put the right engineering resources, how you basically build the go to market team right, right, with sales and marketing, which which ICP you go after. So this is kind of the focus for me and for Mind the next twelve months.

Awesome. I love it.

Well, I think we've covered a lot of ground with what you're up to with MIND. I love to hear your journey from, you know, from childhood to continuing to find ways to to get people the things that they're really interested in and need.

And I and I really especially love your focus both on the people being, you know, a core part of of what you're building. And, again, my my marketing side is is proud to hear that you that you really thought about the brand. I really do think it's something, you know, that's that's important, and I and I love that that that piece of value piece is valuable to you.

We're gonna wrap up with just one final question. This will be a question that we're that we're asking everyone, that we engage on this podcast with. Biopics of tech entrepreneurs have been very popular across the streaming services in recent years. If Netflix or Hulu wanted to make a movie about the founding of mind, what actor would you want to play you? And would the movie be a thriller, a comedy, a drama, or a science fiction movie?

Yeah. No. So it's a very good question. And, you know, you see, I'm I'm bold, but not because that I like Jason Statham as an actor very much. And I, yeah, I would love Jason to play me. I think in terms of, like, the theme, obviously, more thriller action kind of movie.

Because, you know, when you when you think about startup journey, it's it's obviously not a comedy. And if it's a comedy, I guess it's it's a bad comedy. But but it's a lot of ups and downs, and it's a lot of action. And, you know, if you think about action, like, from day to day when you try to close deal or close the quarter, right, and you need to make the numbers and you want to show growth and there are people you want to hire and sometimes you need to separate. So all this, it's a lot of action and obviously not talking about raising more money, right? So a startup is is is you raise money and then you flip and, you know, the sand will start going down and you are in a race against it. And so I think I would would like to create.

I love it. We'll start we'll start writing up the pitch to send over to them on getting Jason Statham on board for that one. I think it's gonna be great. We're gonna we're gonna have a whole by the end of of this podcast series, we'll have a whole new slate of movies for Netflix. I'm very excited to pitch it to them.

This is can be my next career.

There you go. I love it. Awesome. Well, Arant, thank you so much for this conversation. It's really exciting to hear, you know, about all the places that Mind is going, how you're really selling you're really solving problems that are that are true to the needs of your customers, and we're excited to continue following your journey.

And thank you to everyone listening, into our new series, the entrepreneur's journey, part of the cyber at the top podcast series. If you are an entrepreneur and are interested in our innovation sandbox contest, the twenty twenty seven submissions will be opening December 1. Follow along on our website, and you can see when we have some upcoming submission workshops and other opportunities to make sure that you refine your pitch for your opportunity to be on stage. Thank you again to everyone, and have a great evening.