Adam Vincent of ThreatConnect

June 15, 2020 thetechtribune

An exclusive Tech Tribune Q&A with Adam Vincent, the co-founder and CEO of ThreatConnect, which was honored in our:

Tell us the origin story of ThreatConnect – what problem were you trying to solve and why?

Every business is moving to technology as a way to grow and interact with customers. Technology is changing quickly to support this – cloud, SaaS, Web Services, Agile Development, etc. Security was desperately lagging behind. There were lots of great products and people in security, but they were not integrated together in a purposeful way, and much of what was being done was happening manually.

What was the biggest hurdle you encountered in your journey?

Improving security processes requires you to connect the underlying people and technologies. People didn’t necessarily want to be connected back when we started, and technologies then lacked the programmatic capabilities to connect via APIs. A lot has changed over the years: the CISO and security leadership team has begun promoting simplification across security programs, which has created an opportunity to streamline their processes and to integrate people and technologies in a way that can be augmented with automation. These can made measurable and that measurement can be used to inform process improvement. People identified the need for data and analytics to support their decision making, for automation and workflows to be used across their manual processes, and the benefit of measurement to say what good looks like and what value they are providing to the business.

What does the future hold for ThreatConnect?

We want to fundamentally change the way that the security business operates inside a company the way that other firms have transformed sales, marketing, finance, etc. We are going to continue to invest in our employees as the foundation of our long term strategy. Our platform and family of applications provides us with significant opportunity to expand with our existing customers as well as continue to add new customers. We strive to do things differently and will continue to make innovation a priority, along with execution.

What are your thoughts on the local tech startup scene in Arlington?

I love Arlington as the location of our global headquarters and would like to stay here for a long time. The area has a ton to offer the fast growing startup and it’s employees.

What’s your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Three things:

Failure is unavoidable. Be prepared to fail because you will. What’s most important is how you learn from it.
People and culture is everything. People are the raw materials of a successful business. Although you may be the “idea” person, you won’t make it very far without support.
Always be learning. Be vulnerable and ask for help. Find people that have done what you are doing before and ask them lots of questions. Bring them a coffee once a month and share what you are going through and seek their counsel.