Guy Podjarny (founder of Snyk and TESL) details the early venture capital funding raised for his AI coding infrastructure startup TESL.
Insight
To win developers in security, founders must build a devtool company
“If you want to get developers to use a security product, you have to build a developer tooling company not a security company.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
AI will shift software development from being code-centric to spec-centric
“So TESL, we believe that software in the AI world, software will move from being code-centric to being spec-centric.”
Insight
A VC-backed founder's worst case is getting stuck at $2M-$3M ARR
“The kind of worst case scenario is not to get to crash and burn with your company, but to get stuck, to get to a company that it's at two million RR, three million RR, growing 30% year on year. It's kind of enough that you don't really want to just cut loose a…”
Disclosure
a16z and others passed on Snyk's seed because it lacked revenue
“I got to, like, you know, ask me for the partner meeting, stay over the weekend in Andreessen Horowitz to sort of present to, and nobody converted. And everybody basically peeked behind the curtains, saw there's no revenue, says, oh, classic DevTool.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Snyk burned $4M to hit $100K ARR, reaching $19M 2.5 years later
“That was like two years and two months in, we were at a 100,000 ARR not awesome. And we burned four million dollars by that time. You know, four months later, we're at six 50. A year later, we're at four and a half million. A year later, we're at nineteen mill…”
Assertion Supported
75% of attacks target apps, but get under 25% of security budgets
“75% of the attacks and hacks happen at the application layer, but 25% of the budget or the investment happens over there, and that's probably generous.”