Cybernomics Radio

#28 From Village Roots to Silicon Valley, Revolutionizing API Security, Buchi Reddy, CEO and Founder @Levo Ai

• Josh Bruyning • Season 1 • Episode 28

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Buchi Reddy, CEO and founder of Levo AI, shares his unique immigrant story and the journey that led him to start his own cybersecurity company. Levo AI focuses on API security and helps enterprises protect their digital footprint and applications using AI. Buchi discusses the challenges he faced as an immigrant and the importance of mentors and skill development. He emphasizes the need to work hard, work smart, and keep making progress. Buchi also highlights the achievements of Levo AI and the importance of giving back to the community.

Takeaways

- Work hard, work smart, and keep making progress. Anything is possible.

- The founder's story is intertwined with the solution they create.

- Challenges faced by immigrants include visa issues, funding, hiring, and selling to large enterprises.

- Having mentors and a supportive network can help overcome challenges.

- Success is a continuous journey, and there is always more to be achieved.

- Building a small team and selling to large enterprises in the cybersecurity industry is a significant accomplishment.

- Giving back to the community and sharing knowledge and experiences is important.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Achievements of Levo AI

03:01
API Security and Protecting Applications

06:22
Buchi's Journey from India to Silicon Valley

07:37
Starting Levo AI and Challenges Faced

09:02
Inspiration from Successful Immigrant Entrepreneurs

10:49
The Continuous Journey of Success

12:16
Building a Small Team and Achieving Big Results

13:43
Giving Back: Inspiring the Next Generation

Buchi's LinkedIn

Josh's LinkedIn

Speaker 1:

I'm very proud of Levo and my team completely. We have achieved some amazing feats, amazing things that not many people and not many companies and teams can easily achieve. Like you said, don't sit back and play video games or TV or whatever. Keep working, work hard, work smart and keep making progress. Anything is possible. Got that opportunity in that year, so that's definitely luck, but my skill set is what helped me to be part of that group in the first place.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to this episode of Founder Stories on Security Market Watch. I'm your host, Josh Bruning, and I'm here today with Bucci Reddy, CEO and founder at Levo. Ai Bucci, thank you for joining us today on this episode of Security Market Watch.

Speaker 1:

Thank you very much, Josh. I'm super happy to be here and thanks for the opportunity.

Speaker 2:

So you have a very unique story that we discussed a few weeks ago and I love these kinds of stories. Being an immigrant myself, I love when I can talk to other immigrants, because it's just a little bit more, there's a little bit of grit that goes along with being an immigrant, especially when you're coming from old world, coming to the new world. I had a conversation with Dov Yorin, who is the CTO and the co-founder over at Command Zero, and so if you can check that out, feel free to check that out. It's another immigrant story. So, bucci, I always say this you cannot separate the product or the solution from the founder. We don't want to spend too much time talking about the product because, again, what people care about is their world and we care about their world. So we don't want to harp on the product side. But to a certain extent, you cannot separate the founder from the solution. So can you tell us a little bit about Levo and what category are you guys in and what problems are you looking to solve?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, josh. So we are a cybersecurity company, our API security to be very specific. Broadly in the application security market, we are helping our customers, which are enterprises, to secure their digital footprint, their applications. As the business grows, the applications grow, but the security risk of those applications, the risk for the data of their end users and even money and reputation all of that the risk is growing as well. So we are in the business of helping our customers to protect their data, protect their reputation and safeguard their applications.

Speaker 2:

And do that all with AI. How does the AI work?

Speaker 1:

We can also help them protect their AI workloads, which are API-based, but we also leverage some AI. That all with AI how does the AI work? We can also help them protect their AI workloads, which are API based, but we also leverage some AI to actually, as part of the product itself I'm a big believer in you know, or any other technology, can be a means to get the product working. We don't emphasize too much on that. We emphasize more on the value that our customers get. So, api security, protect all your applications, protect your data, avoid data weakness.

Speaker 2:

Nobody really needs to know what's going on on the AI front. All you need to know is that your data is protected. You come from a small village in India. What's the name of that village and what was it like?

Speaker 1:

Village name is Yaraganla Palli. It's obviously a village in India, south India Telangana State, close to Hyderabad. For those people who are familiar with India, obviously the name is very native to our language, but it's Yeragandha Pally. Many people can't pronounce it easily, but I grew up there, I was born and brought up there. I studied until 10th standard grade in my village and after that I moved to Hyderabad. It's a long and winding path. How I got here, I cannot describe it in one sentence for sure. Where did you go to school? I started in a public school in my village itself.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and after high school, where did you go to college?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I went to college in a university called Usmani University. It's a state-level university, kind of like the state universities here in the US. It's one of the best, in fact the best in my state.

Speaker 2:

And then after that, how did you? I guess what I'm getting at is what is the bridge to America? How did you? Why did you leave India for America?

Speaker 1:

My father was a farmer and obviously my entire you know previous generations like all my family knew was farming. We were not into business or anything. I was pretty decent at studies and I was obviously the technology was coming up. I was watching what's going on, at least in TV, and some of this news I was thinking I should definitely get into the you know technology side. When I went to school I studied maths and science and eventually I got into computer science in my college. So I studied computer science, engineering and slowly, as I get more exposure, I was reading you know about all the tech happenings that are in my college. So I studied computer science, engineering and slowly, as I get more exposure, I was reading uh, you know about all the tech happenings that are happening in the silicon valley? Tech crunch was just coming up.

Speaker 1:

Back then, actually, straight out of college, I worked for a hedge fund called deisha. It's based out of new york, you know, might be very close to where you are sitting now. Amazing company learned so much. But that was my big exposure to the you know global world. Prior to that I didn't even get out of my state. Technology has been so much more fascinating and I was thinking like, okay, we got to do something much bigger in this space. And then the yc was just coming up, tech crunch was coming up, and I was eagerly catching up with a lot of these news and I started noticing that, like, this sounds like the place I want to be in. So at that time, obviously I wasn't sure whether I was going to start or not, but I felt like this is the place where I want to be because that's where all the action seems to be. So that's the. That's how I found a way to Silicon Valley and ended up here.

Speaker 2:

What do you think, gave you the tools to do make that jump, because it couldn't be easy to cross that threshold into a new world. Right, you sort of need some some help along the way. What was it that? Was it a skill set that you already had? Did you have a mentor? How did that happen?

Speaker 1:

I mean I definitely had mentors. I had friends, friends and some seniors who were giving some information on how to get here. But I would say what helped the most is actually my first job. In the skill sets that I developed there, I was building high frequency trading systems. Not many people build that and that definitely caught attention of some companies from Palo Alto and they were actually this is a very special program. They came to India to recruit people from there directly and offering them visa for immigration. I happened to be one of those lucky 11 people, so I was one of the 11 who got that opportunity in that year. So that definitely luck. But my skill set is what helped me to be part of that group in the first place so you made your own luck you can say so yes, I think you did.

Speaker 2:

I don't. I don't think it's ever purely luck. I think people who put themselves in the way of luck or create their own luck, I mean, you can really give yourself credit for that. I don't think that it came out of nothing, because if you were home playing video games, I don't think that you would have been one of those 11 that were selected. So okay, so if we were to fast forward a little bit, why did you start your own company? Is Levo the first company that you started?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's the first company I started myself, but I was a early member literally the first employee and founding member in a couple of other startups prior to this. Basically, once I came to here in the Valley, it was like the first job I took up. I was slowly getting bored, it was not challenging me enough and I got an opportunity to be heard of it. But a lot of audience might know it because it was acquired by Cisco in 2017 for a cool $3.7 billion. It's a pretty good success story. The founder is another immigrant from India, again, jyothi Bansal, very well known. I got into that company and I was, you know, actually, jyothi is a big inspiration, jyothi Bansal. He went on to start another two more companies and a venture capital after that. Right, so big inspiration, not just for me, for many more people like me. I was watching. You know the way. You know the things that were happening at AppDynamics and the vision and how big he's thinking and literally sitting in the front row getting all hands and you know heard him many times inspiring in a group of, like you know, 500 or 1000 people company. I've witnessed all those things, but as part of that, I quickly realized that I enjoy being on the customer side, solving problems for customers, and I enjoy the challenges of building something from scratch. So I left app dynamics. Even though I was, there was a lot of positive things going on. I left app dynamics to start as a first employee in another company um, and that also again started by some immigrants. So, as you can see, there were definitely some success stories and people who were kind of showing that this is doable, and so that is positive reinforcement. But so I joined as a first employee like being there with the founders in the trenches wearing several hats.

Speaker 1:

It was not easy very tough, uh, to leave a cushy job and high pay and all this and go there. And engineers especially. It's not very common for you to go and shake hands with unknown strangers and pitch your product right. Engineers sit behind the desk and code throughout the day. When I joined that company, I had to get over these fears and go to a conference and I was literally trying to shake hands with strangers. For a moment I used to think, like what's wrong with me? Like what am I doing here? But then I realized these are all the fears and demons that you have to fight and overcome. So it was a journey and I enjoyed it at times, even if it was a little uncomfortable or inconvenient, and I kept on doing like this. So before starting my company, I definitely did several things that were needed to actually start a company.

Speaker 2:

So you got your inspiration. It was part inspiration, part luck, and I mean it really is powerful when you see someone coming from your background who has gone through this seemingly impossible journey and comes out on the other end. It truly is inspiring because you can see yourself in that person and I think a lot of people who are listening to this and watching this are seeing themselves in you. I think a lot of people who are listening to this and watching this are seeing themselves in you. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to think of some of the things that maybe I've put off and I'm like well, if I never do them, I'm never going to be a big success like these guys. So I'm being inspired in real time. What is the? What was the biggest challenge? Did you hit a spot where you're just like I don't know if I can do this, I don't know if I can continue. You know, was there a moment like that for you?

Speaker 1:

I think it may be like 20, 30 years or even longer. Sometimes it even gets like 80 years before somebody gets a permanent residency or green card right, because there's just a lot of people from India. But that was actually a big blocker. And apart from that, that, I think funding is a big blocker of a, you know, sitting in the valley with family, no income. You know, doing a company without any cash is not going to be easy and, you know, unless you have some big exit in the past and you have loads of cash. So visa funding and then hiring and selling to large enterprises there's one after another and that's part of the entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial journey, right, I don't think I'm unique in that sense, but many people helped on the way and there were several people who were there to take my call, give me guidance and all these things. So I had to overcome one by one.

Speaker 2:

Would you say that, that you have achieved success, or is that sort of a work in progress?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I mean depends on how you define it. I think there's a lot more to be done. I don't like to say I achieved success, because the actually, if you say that, it kind of gives a sense that, okay, everything is done and you have nothing more to do, which is absolutely not true. There's a lot more to be achieved. So, but have I progressed personally? Have I learned how I become a better person? Absolutely, I think there is definitely a bunch of things that I personally achieved and my team and Levo has achieved. We have already. I'm very proud of Levo and my team completely. We have achieved some amazing feats, amazing things that not many people and not many companies and teams can easily achieve. We are a very small team, but we have sold to very large enterprises and we support them. We have several happy customers. For a small team, building a cybersecurity product and supporting large companies is not an easy feat.

Speaker 1:

If you go back to your village today and you see a kid who's 14, 15, what would you tell them that would help them along a similar journey? Yeah, I think you mentioned it already. Right, I tell them my journey and I tell them that anything is possible. Like you said, don't sit back and play video games or tv or whatever. Keep keep working, work hard, work smart and keep making progress. Anything is possible. And I even talk to people, my friends from back those days, as well as some youngsters. Some of them can keep consulting me for career advice and any guidance or suggestions they need.

Speaker 2:

Back to the community. You are now the master of both worlds the world of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley and the world of the old country, the small village in India. So glad that you took the time today. I know this wasn't a super long interview and not the longest podcast, but hope that those who are listening to this and watching this and who have watched this, you are as inspired as I am.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for your time today yeah, thank you, josh, thanks for the opportunity to be on this stage, really appreciated and yeah, I feel the same like. Hopefully this is useful and inspires at least one person out there want more information about level or to contact you.

Speaker 2:

What's the best way to do that?

Speaker 1:

yeah, they can hit me up on LinkedIn pretty active. I'm pretty much a need for entrepreneur side Put yourself and your product out there. So I'm always on LinkedIn Ping me, not just for product. If you are going through a similar journey, need any advice, feedback, I'm there. I'm more than happy to pay for it.

Speaker 2:

Thanks Bucci, thanks Bucci, thanks everyone. I'll join you in the next episode of Security Market Watch. Bye.