061: Why I Left My Big Job To Join A Startup!

A virus named after Mountain Dew became the unlikely catalyst for a cybersecurity career that would eventually spawn a successful managed service provider during one of the worst economic downturns in modern history.

The founder of Triada takes us through their fascinating journey from corporate IT professional to entrepreneur, describing how a 2003 "Code Red" virus attack sparked deep curiosity about cybersecurity. When malicious code rapidly spread through their investment firm's network, questions emerged that would shape their future: Why did someone create this? How did they do it? How could we stop it? This intrigue ultimately led them down a path toward deeper cybersecurity expertise.

By 2008, after building infrastructure from scratch at a small investment firm and developing crucial Silicon Valley connections, an opportunity emerged amid financial chaos. As professionals fled large firms to launch their own funds, they needed expert help with infrastructure, compliance, and security. With four young children at home and as the family's sole breadwinner, the founder made the bold decision—fully supported by their spouse—to launch Triada instead of returning to corporate safety. Their vision extended beyond themselves to creating a business that could support future generations.

The challenges of competing in New York City's dense marketplace, where potential clients and competitors exist in equal measure, required strategic differentiation. By offering unique experiences that professionals couldn't find at financial giants, Triada carved its niche. From its humble beginnings as a "fractional IT manager" splitting time between clients to becoming an established managed service provider, Triada's story demonstrates how entrepreneurial courage, family support, and long-term vision can transform crisis into enduring opportunity. Ready to secure and elevate your business? Reach out today and let's build something that lasts.

Chapters

• 0:00 Building Infrastructure from Scratch
• 0:48 The Code Red Virus Aha Moment
• 5:12 Birth of Triada During Financial Crisis
• 9:20 Family Support for Entrepreneurship
• 13:30 Competing for Talent in NYC
• 15:05 Episode Closing and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So, right prior to 2008, I left that large company to help a small investment company startup. I was a manager from that firm. He had started a company after his non-compete was up and he asked me to come join him. So I got to build now a company's infrastructure from the ground up, instead of dealing with legacy stuff like I started from zero, which I thought was really fascinating and cool that I could. I could basically create this in my own image, so to speak.

Speaker 2: 0:30

So walk me. You had this in the green room we were talking. You talked about, uh, you had this aha moment in 2003. Um, take me from that to 2008. So what was this aha moment and where did Triada come from?

Speaker 1: 0:48

Yeah, so even I'll take a little bit step back before then. So when we were in, I was at the investment firm before I started, triada, the company I worked for, my first IT job, starting in 95. We were acquired twice so we became now part of a larger organization. It was about 5,000 employees at that point, whereas the original company was 200 employees just in New York, so 5,000 employees worldwide IT headquarters out of Texas. At that point I was running infrastructure for the group Almost I think I may have been the help desk manager. So we started. We were starting to connect into the internet and so I started building out these beginnings of a security practice and program within the office First firewall, first connection to email, to pull down email, all these things we were kind of building along the way. So I was really intricately involved in that and I did a lot of that work. And then when we got acquired by this other larger firm, I was involved in the new information security teams before it was called cybersecurity. So that was kind of like we were still learning what is cybersecurity? What does information security mean for an investment firm? It was very compliance focused, but we were also looking at you know what do we do to protect ourselves from, from a potential malicious attack. We started like before uh, now we have something called the common vulnerability database that we can look up cvs these are numbers where standardization, um, one of my colleagues in the company actually built a version of that for ourselves because that thing didn't exist yet. So we were collecting vulnerability information and keeping track of it. So we were like we were in the middle of building a, a program.

Speaker 1: 2:51

So, fast forward, 2003, we get a call early morning, um, that, uh, people, there's a, a person got a pop-up on their, on their computer. Uh, so one of my uh help desk technicians runs over to the desk to go see what's going on. Get another call, another pop-up, another pop-up, another pop-up. So, uh, what was happening was, um, there was a, there was a worm which is basically a virus that can jump from machine to machine, um, moving away through the network, and the virus would attack web servers. Now, why, if it was attacking web servers, why was it popping up on these computers? Well, there was a point of time that Microsoft was, by default, enabling web servers on desktops. Why, lord knows, but that was what it was. Desktops. Why, lord knows, but that was what it was, and because we didn't really know any better. It's not like we were going through a hardening process, removing services that we didn't need and that kind of thing. All these computers were susceptible and so this worm was just wrapping through. The good news was that it wasn't really doing any damage, but it was massively. It was very quickly moving through the entire network. So by kind of by within a couple of hours, we we had we basically had to disconnect these computers from the network as they got infected so that we can clean them up, so we can contain what was happening.

Speaker 1: 4:22

This was a code red virus. If you look up the code red virus, this is what was going on. The reason was code red. It was the mountain dew had a new flavor called red at the time and I guess the virus writer really liked that flavor, and so he had that embedded in the uh in the codes. Oh, my goodness, so the uh, the code, right that this, this fascinated me. It's like a why did somebody write this thing? And B how did he figure this out? Like, why did he go through this and how could we stop it? Like these are the things that were kind of running through my head and that was the aha moment. It's like this is really interesting, this is really cool. I like this kind of now we call it threat hunting, but it's that aspect of kind of understanding why these things happen and how we can prevent it, and that kind of got me deeper into the cybersecurity track.

Speaker 1: 5:10

So fast forward to 2008. So right prior to 2008, I left that large company to help a small investment company startup. I was a manager from that firm. He had started a company after his non-compete was up and he asked me to come join him. So I got to build now a company's infrastructure from the ground up, instead of dealing with legacy stuff like I started from zero, which I thought was really fascinating and cool that I could basically create this in my own image, so to speak. And so modern tools, modern solutions, and because I had at that point with the larger firm, I had made a lot of connections in Silicon Valley with these emerging cybersecurity companies because they were looking for investments. The investment groups would ask us for our feedback, our market viability. So I got involved with a lot of these companies.

Speaker 1: 6:05

So there was one of those early ones was one, that's a couple that are pretty well-known. Now They've gotten giant firms, but at that time they were scrappy. They just wanted to get businesses, they just wanted to get logos, and so I was able to get all this gear and software for cheap or nothing, because they just wanted to get it installed and and be able to use it. So we uh, uh, so fire eye was like one of those companies, and that was early on that we were able to get like one of their early appliances, before they actually were just doing software. These really early appliances and so, um, allowed me to play around with a lot of these things. So the negative of this is that I now that triggered my shiny object right Now. That continued going forward, but then I had to pay for it, and at this point I didn't have to pay for it and I only had to do it for one small company, whereas now, doing it at a scale, it becomes a little bit different.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Anyway, so when I left in 2008, I saw an opportunity with a couple other with the crashing of the financial system and a lot of folks were leaving the large investment companies and starting their own funds. They still needed help setting up. They still needed help with infrastructure. They still needed help with infrastructure, they still need help with compliance and, as a result of that, they needed help with cybersecurity. So we started basically at that point. That's when we spun out and started Triada, my wife and I, to kind of service these small funds that were starting out.

Speaker 1: 7:52

I see, and that was the impotence and that was kind of the genesis of what we were doing. But we didn't know what a managed service provider was or what we were supposed to be doing. We basically figured out, you know, we were their outsourced IT department and we were just building these little IT organizations within the firm, all run by me, like I was splitting my time you can call me like a fractional IT manager and I would fractionally work around. And so we started. That's how we built that. But I learned about the kind of the our world and the tools that were available to us. You know, fairly quickly through groups, you know industry groups like asking what have you? And that's that's kind of how we uh, we, we, we built and started our company.

Speaker 1: 8:41

So Triada was a um. So uh, uh. Triada means Trinity in Greek, um, and the reason why I picked uh Greek word was that the Armenian word for triada is yerortuchun, which would be really hard for most people to pronounce. Triada was a lot more easier for folks to grasp and solve, and so it was available. We launched on it and that's kind of what we latched onto, and so that's been us since then. That's how it what we latched onto, and so that's been us since then. That's how it's where it came from.

Speaker 2: 9:22

Wonderful. And your wife obviously you said your wife and I started Triada, so your wife was obviously standing with you and behind you on going out on your own or creating your own company.

Speaker 1: 9:36

There was no way that I was going to be able to make this decision and move off without the complete support of my wife. I mean, if you look at where we were in our life so 2008, we were, you know, we had, we had four kids at that point my youngest was four years old. So four, eight, 10, and 12. So four little kids, yeah, yeah, you know, about to enter probably the most expensive part of their lives. And I was like you know, and I was the sole breadwinner at that point. I mean, my wife obviously had her hands full with the, the four of them. So we didn't have a, uh, it was so because of that, you know, it had to be very, we had to be very, um, you know, uh, specific about what we were doing.

Speaker 1: 10:33

But we knew that I could have, at that point, gone back to a larger corporation and, I'm sure, found employment, because there was no way a small company that only had 10, 15 employees would be able to afford somebody like us long term.

Speaker 1: 10:55

So I could have done that, or we could have said, all right, right, this is the time that we can actually build something, because we have this opportunity, we have this company, we have this company that is asking for help and there's another one around the corner, so these are these three. Could we supplement, can we create our, basically our income with these three companies? And we figured that we could and said, all right, so this, so this is now the start. This is the start of something, and she was very keen on a business that we could have, that could provide a future for not only us but potentially, the next generation, our family. So this was a conscious decision by both of us to move forward, and without her, there was no way that this was going to. Decision by both of us to to move forward, and without her, there was no way that this was going to happen. Because she needed to. She had to be, uh, an integral part of, uh, of what we did, um, so that's, you know.

Speaker 2: 11:48

No, it's wonderful that you had that kind of uh, that relationship and that kind of support, um, supporting each other and and doing that, because I'm sure I'm just trying to remember myself, like what was that conversation? Like going, hey, um, I think I'm going to do this thing, you know, like you're crazy or no, that's like a great idea. Let's do this Right, and even though it's scary as hell, um, you know, and my parents thought we were crazy.

Speaker 1: 12:11

I mean my, my, my mom and dad, who are my, you know, if you want to call it business mentors. At that point they're like, yeah, why do you want to do this? Like this is, this is, this is. Have you seen what we've gone through running companies? Like this is not. Are you sure you want to do this? And uh, but you know we were.

Speaker 1: 12:32

We were pretty, I guess at that point we were pretty convinced that we were not making, we were not making ourselves any better off by working for somebody else. I guess at that point and I think for some, and I think we we probably just needed to wait a little bit longer. It would have been fine, but it was a, it was a, you know it was. It was definitely a more long-term kind of long-term decision. And maybe this is kind of an old world thinking a little bit. We're thinking about the people right behind us, not just ourselves. In that sense it's a little bit bigger than yourself. If we were thinking about just ourselves, sure I could have stayed in corporate.

Speaker 1: 13:15

I saw my friends that stayed in that company and then went to other companies that are doing really well for themselves. Not that I'm jealous a little bit maybe Um, but they're, they're uh, you know those. That was the decision that they made, you know. And then so we uh, this was definitely something that we uh and this is not an easy city to to to start and run a company with, I could imagine, and I used to think there was something weird about it. I mean, I think every area has its challenges and I think, whether you're in an area that is maybe less populated, you have that issue where people look at New York and say you can throw a rock and you hit a company that could be a potential customer, and that's true.

Speaker 2: 14:12

A competitor beside it.

Speaker 1: 14:18

Exactly. You're also hitting a competitor while you're throwing that rock, so there's, you can also. You're also hitting a competitor along while you're throwing that rock, so there's, that's, that's, you know they're all, all of those things. And and then you know, when it comes to talent, you know something that we haven't really talked about. It's it's not easy to find competitive talent. When you have these large companies with very deep pockets hiring them too, you're offering a very unique experience that they wouldn't get if they went to go work for Chase or Goldman Sachs or something like that, and that's kind of what we're trying to go for here.

Speaker 2: 15:00

Hi, I'm Mark Thomas, founder and CEO of Current Tech Solutions and CyberGuardians. We know business owners like you want to focus on growing your company, not worrying about IT problems or security threats. That's where we come in. Our team uses AI to protect your business from cyber risks and keep everything running smoothly. If you're ready for peace of mind and a stronger future, reach out to us today. Let's secure and elevate your business together. Oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.