Scale Like a CEO

Scaling Your Startup: Insights with Garrett Grajeck, The Identity Guy

• Performance Accelerated Learning • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Welcome to 'Scale Like a CEO'! In this episode, industry veteran Garrett Grajeck, known as 'The Identity Guy,' shares his extensive experience in cybersecurity, identity governance, and startup innovation. Garrett discusses the importance of hiring from failed startups, the biggest challenges in GRC, and how his company, YouAttest, is making rapid implementation possible. Learn about Garrett's unique hiring strategies, his approach to delegating tasks, and his vision for the future of YouAttest as he prepares to tap into the MSP market. Don't miss out on this conversation full of invaluable insights for any aspiring entrepreneur. Connect with Garrett on LinkedIn or via email at CEO@youattest.com.

Garrett Grajeck:

One of the things I've always liked and I look for in people, especially in engineers, is if they work for a failed startup, and that sounds odd, but I mean it.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Scale Like a CEO, the show where we dive deep with the leaders shaping the future of business. In this episode, we're joined by Garrett Greyjack, an industry veteran known as the Identity Guy. Garrett brings decades of experience in cybersecurity, identity governance and building innovative companies from the ground up.

Justin Reinert:

Garrett, thank you so much for joining us on Scale Like a CEO. Just to get us started, if you wouldn't mind giving us a short intro to your business and yourself, Good day, garrett Grajak, cyber Identity Guy.

Garrett Grajeck:

When, when people say, garrett, I need an identity guy, who should I talk to? I've literally obtained jobs in that way where companies were looking for an identity guy, someone with a background in identity. When we say identity in the cyber industry, it's like someone understands how identities are stored, how they're utilized, how they're two-factor, how they're SSO, how they get access into applications. That's been my background for the last 25 years plus. Worked for companies like IBM and Cisco, was a programmer, was an SE at companies like RSA and Integrity, and then I started my own companies like Securoff, which was a two-factor company, and today I run a company called Uattest. Uattest is an identity governance. It's on the governance side of the equation of cybersecurity saying who has access to what and here's my attestments, here's my documents to say who has access to what, which is required for healthcare, finance, insurance and others.

Justin Reinert:

Great Thank you, and I'm curious what's one of the biggest challenges you see in your industry and how you're solving that one of the biggest challenges you?

Garrett Grajeck:

see in your industry and how you're solving that. That's a great question. The biggest challenge in this industry in the GRC governance, risk and compliance industry is not the technology, it's the deployment of the technology. The length of time it takes to get these governance solutions up and going is astronomical. We are in a world where you're on a call with someone. They expect to have that thing installed by the end of the day. In the GRC world, it's perfectly acceptable for the vendor to look and say, oh yeah, this will be six months to a year.

Justin Reinert:

And that's what I'm addressing in UATest.

Garrett Grajeck:

So quicker implementation is what I'm hearing. Quicker implementation, quicker time to value. I signed a check with you, UATest. When do I start?

Justin Reinert:

getting value out of your product or service. Great, and I'm curious what makes you unique in the way that you're helping others? It sounds like one of those uniquenesses is in speed to implementation, but how else are you unique in the way that you help others?

Garrett Grajeck:

Speed to implementation. That is foremost Okay. So if someone gets on a call, I really, if they're ready to go, I can start them doing audit reports that afternoon, okay. Second is price. I have kept my cost on this very low, doing a lot of offshore, a lot of designing myself, wearing a lot of different hats. Third, this is no code. If someone wants to do this, whatever, I have ways that they can start importing their product identity stores into my product in a rapid way and they do not need to code. They never need to code, okay. And then fourth is something that, if they want to go advanced, I have put patented ai into it that identifies anomalous accounts and in a way that I see the future of identity going you've been doing this for a long time, so it sounds like you've got a lot yes.

Justin Reinert:

So you know, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about how you've been growing your business at U-Test as you started to grow and decide to start to build your team. What challenges did you face as you started to grow?

Garrett Grajeck:

I do see, and I've been having much more conversations with people on that number one problem in growing is the right people and the right fit. On this call I can look at you and say, justin, the way it's done is this I do not know another way in engineering people, I can pretty much not just weed them out, but feel them out and get someone of value in a short amount of time. Okay, I just sense it. And it doesn't mean that they meet all the speeds and feeds, no, just it's more about how they approach problems. I can talk to them and cetera In the world of sales and marketing. Don't know another way except for trying them out. Of course you do reference calls, of course you try to understand if they know your industry and all that kind of stuff, but just don't know another way to get, especially in the sales world, someone who is going to be the right combination of self-motivated and aggressive and professional.

Justin Reinert:

Yeah, it's definitely challenging, but that's the thing that I hear the most is getting the right person in that seat. So at what point did you decide that it was time to start hiring and building your team?

Garrett Grajeck:

Pretty well, pretty much immediately, because I'm not a coder anymore. So I literally came up with the idea, talked to a few investors to see if they would be interested, got the interest and then worked with a friend that has a bunch of resources, provides contract labor and got the prototype started, and with three guys and headed out in two months.

Justin Reinert:

As you're building that team. I know you said with engineers you can kind of tell intuitively whether someone's going to work or not. Some of the other roles are challenging. I'm curious what are some of the key qualities that you're looking for currently as you're hiring people?

Garrett Grajeck:

There's a German word for it and I forgot it, but I love it. Basically, the Germans have a concept, their military always had a concept of take that hill, and they don't say how to take the hill right, they just say that's your orders take the hill. Whether you bribe someone, whether you drive up the hill, whether you have to fight for it, that's up to you. You figure it out. Okay, and that's where I say the most challenging part in the sales and marketing, because both of those are not ones and zeros, non-binary tasks, and they have to have that ability to look at something and say, all right, have that ability to look at something and say, all right.

Garrett Grajeck:

Garrett asked me to do this. Now, he was doing it this way, but I've looked at it, I've analyzed it and the right way we're going to get success is to basically go around the back, do a different way of doing it, and that's what I. It's for me always kind of hard to identify and and and I'll put it this way, I always say that if you have the task completely quantified, not only in the objective but in how you want it done, the pace you want it done, and ever okay, you might even just wind up with a contractor, because you can quantify it in an SOW. But if it's more of a qualitative objective, that's an employee.

Justin Reinert:

And then you need that right person who understands that. That's what it takes. Yeah, I think especially for those sales hires it can be challenging because over my career I've worked with sales folks a lot over my career in various sizes of organizations and I think what I've found is that sometimes people make a mistake of let's go find somebody who was successful in sales at some really big enterprise company and then think that's going to navigate in a startup or a scaling company. That's so different when you have a large organization of support around you. So finding those people that thrive in that really kind of ambiguous environment is challenging.

Garrett Grajeck:

Yeah, you know those discussions because I had discussions with people. This guy he killed it over at big company X and big company Y and like right. So he's used to a eight figure marketing budget. He's used to leads dropping in his lap. He's used to having a $300,000 SE with them. So how the F is that relevant to my day job? You know what I mean. That's what I often look at. The guy who it's kind of funny.

Garrett Grajeck:

One of the things I've always liked and I look for in people, especially in engineers, is if they work for a failed startup and that sounds odd but I mean it Okay. Startup and that sounds odd but I mean it Okay Then they have a sense that the work they do matters and the work that doesn't get done matters too right that they actually that this, whatever we are, this current state of the company, it doesn't have to be Now. That could be good and that could be bad, but that my efforts will make a difference. And that's something that I've seen in people, whereas very often someone in a large company, they're riding the wave of the ship, but the seas are carrying them right. But in what I need, what I always look for is someone who says we were heading in this direction and that was cool and all that.

Garrett Grajeck:

But I felt that if I took it this way or tried this or I took this initiative, then things happen. Literally. Tell my people in sales and the ones I get along with and one of those that go dude, I expect you to break things. I don't want you asking me permission for what to do. For God's sakes, break things, go out and cause some trouble.

Justin Reinert:

Yeah, it definitely requires individuals with initiative and a bit of fearlessness, right, yeah, so I'm curious. One of the challenges in when I'm talking to founders as they scale organizations, one of the challenges in when I'm talking to founders as they scale organizations one of the challenges that they face is knowing when to delegate, knowing when to hand off decision making. I'm curious what that looks like for you. How do you decide when there's something that you need to make the decision on, or how often you delegate down to your team make the decision?

Garrett Grajeck:

on or how often you delegate down to your team. I immediately delegate and then come back and see if it's working. They need to develop, they need to own. I simply don't want them around right Now. I'm always there and assist on calls, assist on information, assist on papers, always there for advice, but I immediately delegate. That's their job. Their job is to own that role and taking it. And then, whatever ankle biting I'm on them. They're not going to grow and that's just and that's straight up to the answer of sales and marketing guys. If I have to manage them, if I have to do whatever, I don't want them around. What am I doing?

Justin Reinert:

I'll just take the contractor role and tell them what to do so as you look forward to the vision of growth for your organization, that evolution, what's the future look like and what is critical in achieving that vision yeah, quantify it, because I'm basically an engineer, so I quantify one of the.

Garrett Grajeck:

I'm taking this product and I'm pushing it into a new market. The market is the msps, known as managed service providers, and the integrators and the consultants. Okay, so they can use the product not just once, but at tens or even hundreds. And I'm talking to some large MSPs. They have 10,000 customers. So I need help in that arena. How do you message to that market, right? How do you sell to that market? And that's your sales guys. And then how do you message to that market, right? How do you sell to that market? And that's your sales guys. And then how do you support that market? Right? How do you? Because, with the goal of the technical side of that is to train them to execute it Not just once, but to train them in the way that they can do it for multi-scenarios, multiple workflows, multiple customers, and have them feel confident presenting and demoing. So those are the type of people I'm looking for and those are the types of skills I need.

Justin Reinert:

What's the leadership structure look like as you grow that?

Garrett Grajeck:

Yeah, it's interesting. It looks like in the near future I'm taking on a CRO that's going to have the technical resources and the sales below him, okay, and that's once again, he's going to just hit the ground running. This is yours. Whatever style you want, make it happen.

Justin Reinert:

Thank you again for joining me. I know we like to keep these episodes a little bit shorter, so, in closing, what's one of the best ways for people to get in contact with you if they want to reach out?

Garrett Grajeck:

Oh good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Garrett Grajeck:

Garrett Greyjack, g-r-a-j-e-k. Just look me up on LinkedIn. I'm on, for better for worse, all day communicating back and forth with people. Let's go, let's talk. Let's get it going. Introduce it. Hey, I heard you on Justin's podcast. Let's go. That's a good way to start. Or you can hit me at CEO at youattest Y-O-U-A-T-T-E-S-T dot com. All the best.

Justin Reinert:

Great, and I'll make sure we add some links in the show notes so that people can reach out. Thank you so much, garrett.