7/3/2023 0 Comments Arctic wolf competitorsAnd talented people are typically friends with other talented individuals. The tech community is always evolving and growing here, but you make friends and you’re never very far from them. I think one thing people forget, is how small K-W truly is, and I don’t mean that as a negative. How important is it to you, or what benefits does it bring, to work with people you’ve worked with for years? And Arctic Wolf is almost a bit of a reunion of sorts, too-a number of our former colleagues from the Sandvine days are part of the team. Instead, it’s just always been this way so it’s just how it is-in a good way. I think the unique property of Arctic Wolf is that we had these locations pretty early in the company’s life so it’s not as bad as a foreign office introduced by acquisition or some power-play dynamics. Sometimes we go into meetings where we have three of our four offices, and some remote employees…and nothing skips a beat. Honestly, the technology component is one of the biggest enablers here. What does it take to get everyone coordinated and on the same page? Arctic Wolf is a very distributed organization, with multiple offices and staff spread over a large geography. Just like at RootSecure, we still do shows, make collateral, update websites, do demand-gen activities, but what’s great is we now have the resources and a team to drive those activities full-time where before it was something we couldn’t focus on. We are still trying to tackle the same issues of people’s complacency around security-the big competitor is “doing nothing.” What’s stayed the same are the problem statements. I can’t speak to revenue but when we were acquired, I was/am employee 175, and now we’re over 400, crazy! Arctic Wolf is growing very rapidly-what does that mean for the company, and specifically for the marketing department? How have things changed now that you’re part of Arctic Wolf? What things have stayed the same? RootSecure, now the Managed Risk service, focused on shoring up our customers’ security posture to make sure they have maximized their defenses and understand all the possible attack vectors. That is mostly reactive in nature: detect bad things as they happen and block/remediate. If you look at the CyberKill Chain or NIST Cybersecurity Framework, there’s a need for proactive and reactive security.Īrctic Wolf previously was focused on the MDR (Managed Detection and Response) aspects of their business. It’s a peanut butter and chocolate story really. How does the RootSecure managed risk portfolio fit into the larger Arctic Wolf portfolio? I guess the only real difference from my past lives is this is a managed service so understanding how to operationalize and deliver the service with our teams is now part of the job description, too. Essentially, it’s back to basics for me, being pragmatic and working with my Product Marketing and R&D counterparts to identify market problems and deliver solutions to those problems. My new role is effectively being the business owner for the RootSecure offering-now known as Arctic Wolf’s Managed Risk solution. What’s your role now, as part of “the pack,” and what does it mean in practical terms? A few months after our project, RootSecure was acquired by Arctic Wolf. You were our first customer-and hey, thanks for getting the Cromulent ball rolling!-back when you were VP Product and Marketing at RootSecure. RootSecure was acquired in late 2018 by Arctic Wolf, and we thought it would be instructive to hear about Ian’s experiences and to get his thoughts on cybersecurity, acquisitions, local competition, working with your friends, and the importance of being able to punch above your weight. We recently caught up with Ian Hassard, who-while running Product Management and Marketing at RootSecure- became our first customer. Ian Hassard-Director of Product Management at Arctic Wolf If you want to be acquired, then create something worth acquiring. Focusing on market problems and being pragmatic about how you get there is important. Honestly I think it’s unhealthy thinking to have a ‘get acquired, be rich’ goal for your company.
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