CEO INSIGHT things to deliver value to businesses and governments. We soon stumbled into some pretty dramatic applications of OSINT. We built tooling that looked where no one else was at a massive scale and in an automated manner. This naturally led to the discovery of countless data breaches. The second one we found generated international headlines and put us on the map (https://www.bbc.com/news/ technology-51768577). Shortly after our founding, we soon realised that being two founders in their 20s did not lend us a lot of credibility. Luckily, it was around this time that we were joined by Dr Alex Tarter, the former CTO of Thales. Alex was the glue that held our enterprise together, providing credibility, and exceptional industry wisdom and keeping us all sane and on track through thick and thin. What was Turgensec’s greatest superpower? TurgenSec had a uniquely strong technical capability, driven by my co-founder, who was the raw intellectual strength behind almost all of the innovations we pioneered. His otherworldly ability to derive simple solutions to incredibly complex solutions using first-principle thinking was what really set us apart. Other than that, we consistently got headlines with countless responsible disclosures on governments, massive enterprises and pretty much anyone of note. My favourite two are the Philippines Government (I’m now terrified of going to the Philippines as there is an ongoing investigation into us in the Senate) [https://www. cnnphilippines.com/news/2021/5/3/- Data-breach--reportedly-exposes345K-sensitive-SolGen-documents-. html], and Edraak (Jordan’s Queen Rania’s Charity) [https://techcrunch. com/2021/04/08/edraak-securityexposed-student-data/]. The actual technology we developed was a strong differentiator, but only to our clients. Most people have no idea of the world that exists out there in OSINT & infosec. What are the key takeaways you have learned from scaling and selling a business? Scaling: While I wouldn’t necessarily claim expertise in scaling a business, I have been successful in transforming a nascent enterprise into a more established one. My core competencies lie in nurturing the growth of a business from its initial stages to a more mature and stable phase. The process of expanding a business from a handful of clients to a large-scale operation is indeed a challenging endeavour that demands dedication, strategic thinking, and adaptability. Selling: Undergoing the acquisition of a business is a complex and emotionally taxing experience, rife with unique challenges and obstacles. The process entails relinquishing control over an entity that you have poured your heart and soul into, which can be difficult even if you continue to work there post-acquisition. The bureaucratic aspect of selling a business is equally demanding, as it often involves extensive legal work, numerous meetings, and an extended timeline. In our specific case, the acquisition process required a year of engaging with attorneys and participating in hundreds of meetings, highlighting the arduous nature of such a transition. When scaling a business, what is the priority? Efficiency or profitability? We never really raised funding at TurgenSec; we only got some modest seed funding from the NCSC (GCHQ) and whatever cash my student lifestyle would allow me to scrape together. For that reason, we focused on profitability from day 1. We were a profitable company for most of our timeline, and this definitely came with tradeoffs. Without free-flowing VC capital, you’re not able to take risks as easily, you have to have strict financial management and you’re required to find PMF quickly and accept whatever comes your way. At which point did you decide to sell the business? We never sat down and had a meeting which resulted in us saying, “we want to sell this business”, it happened much more organically than that. As a relatively secretive enterprise, we had a tight-knit group of connections within the community we operated in. We worked with these partners often, showing them the new technology we www.ceotodaymagazine.com 40
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