Lewke: Nebulock hired a Head of Engineering at nine employees
Damien Lewke · Solo founder does 90 interviews in 90 days—raises $25M Series A | Nebulock · PMF Show · Jul 20, 2026 · at 17:26
Damien Lewke, founder of cybersecurity startup Nebulock, explains when and why he made his first executive hire as a solo founder.
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“Our head of edge was first, we were nine people at the I was an engineering manager. I was our salesperson. I was doing, we were still in stealth. It's not much marketing, but you know, I was doing all the things. And we just got to a point. We were all engineers at the time where I was like, it's time to bring in an effective engineering leader”
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“Every single one of our design partners converted to a paying customer.”
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“You're like, you don't know the stats, but I can give you, I think it was north of 70%.”
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“But like, if you've written more than 50 words in that email, it's too long, right? Keep it tight. Keep it punchy. What's the give get?”
Lewke: Design partners unwilling to meet weekly ignore the core problem
“If someone is not willing to give you 30 minutes a week, how much do they really value the problem you're solving?”
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“The other piece that I think really helped us and because we're an AI native company is really important is like nail your DPA, right? Have a really strong DPA and know what it means to do data processing and parallelize the legal paperwork. Like, do not do th…”