Spies, Start-ups, and Security: The Incredible Entrepreneurial Journey of Matt Holland: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:28Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. seriously, caring about people as being your top priority and working efficiently. But hard work is absolutely a necessary component and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Matt and our sponsors. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession resilient businesses and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Get started today with Franocity's franchise funding guide packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings, visit Franocity.com.

1:04That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y dot com. Matt, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hello, everybody. I really, really appreciate this opportunity to speak today. So I think, you know, I think the concept of hard work is getting a bit of a bad rap. There's a lot of focus nowadays on working more efficiently, which is great, working four-day work weeks and whatnot. But I think if you want to be successful, and if you want to be a successful entrepreneur for that matter, hard work is an absolute necessary component. And you can be more efficient, and that's fantastic.

1:53But I think there's three main reasons why this is completely a must-have of, I guess, the success formula. The first thing is hard work is the ultimate equalizer. Everybody's different. Everybody comes from different walks of life, different training, but you are ultimately in control over what your outcome is. And you have to assume that somebody out there has figured out the same formula that you have, which I'm kind of getting into my second point there. But if somebody else has figured out that same formula. The difference between your amount of success and their amount of success will be how hard you work.

2:30And that is something that, you know, if you want to come out on top, there's just no replacing it. And I think the third part of it and why hard work is so absolutely important is as your company grows, you are ultimately setting the cultural baseline as to how your company operates. And you're that person that people will look to, that example as to how much effort they will put in. If they look at a leader who is putting that time in and willing to work as hard as everybody else is in the company and out there in the world, then I think that that makes you a better leader and ultimately makes the company better.

3:07Spies, startups, and security. We'll be talking today about how you can protect your business from cyber attacks. Matt, you were in the shadows of the intelligence community. You were cozy. You were safe. What made you burst onto the entrepreneurial stage to become that entrepreneur? I think there was a certain point in my time with CSE. That's the Canadian Security Establishment, which is the Canadian version of the NSA, essentially. I had a really good seven years there. But like anybody in any career, there's going to be a point, I think, when you hit your development peak. And I think that was a big component where I was looking at how I was working 12-hour days and was I really developing any further in my career and my skill set?

3:58And ultimately, the answer for me was no. So I started to look at the next steps and creating my first company, Lynchpin Labs. I was a co-founder and that company, you know, we saw a huge business opportunity out there because the downside of working for a government agency is there's a natural, I guess, creative limit that gets set. It's great if you want to work 40 years and have a career, but if you really want to continuously push yourself, that's, in my opinion, not the place to be. And there was definitely a business opportunity to create a business model that would appeal to the intelligence community that would just never be achieved within the confines of an intelligence agency.

4:47And lastly, I mean, the mission is remarkable. I think the Snowden leaks generally have tarnished the public's opinion of intelligence agencies and how important they are. But the mission that they do is incredibly important. And being able to support that from a private company or a commercial perspective, it was a huge opportunity. And I think for me, it was a culmination of getting to grow, doing something I love for a mission that I believe strongly in. So you've learned some of the hard earned lessons about building a business. And every entrepreneur can learn from each other can learn from our mistakes, our missteps, and of course, our successes as well.

5:36But share some of those hard earned lessons that you learned with us now. Yeah, so I think my background as an entrepreneur or my journey is definitely not that typical romantic journey that I think a lot of people think building a company is. I've definitely made a lot of mistakes along the way. I think the first bit of wisdom I could pass on is from day one, figure out what your ultimate goal is with the company you're creating. Do you want to create a lifestyle company that you operate for 30 years and then retire? What type of exit do you want to have? Do you want to sell your company or maybe do something as bold as IPO?

6:20Those things really factor in, or I guess that goal really factors into your day-to-day decision making and your strategic thinking as you're building your company. and ultimately becomes that, I guess, that lighthouse in the fog when things are tough. The second thing I think is be mentally prepared to fail a lot. As I said, my experiences with entrepreneurship is not that romantic outcome that I think a lot of people think that building a company is. And, you know, failing is part of it. and you need to be able to be resilient and power through the hardest of times. So if you're the type of person that isn't really comfortable with failing and learning from that, then it might not be the best step for you.

7:14Continually question what you're doing. I start every day by thinking about what the company that I'm currently running, Field Effect, is doing and the direction we're going. And I basically resell the business model to me every single day. If you can't sell it to yourself every day, then that might give you an idea or an indication that you might need to change directions. So that's something that just out of habit I do all the time. I think caring about your people, treating your people in your company as the top priority next to customers. I think that is something that has to be a continuous mindset.

7:53that I've learned so much from people over the years that I've gotten to work with to the point where, you know, I enjoy being the dumbest person in the room often because there's so many brilliant people that I get to spend my time with. And I think that healthy culture of, you know, appreciating people and supporting people is hugely important. And I think lastly, this is something I've screwed up with in the past is not prioritizing how much I delegate. My first company, I think I took the approach of, you know, trying to do too much and doing the work that other people wouldn't want to do.

8:36But at the end of the day, you have to delegate, you have to build that healthy structure that can survive you potentially getting hit by a bus. So I think that That would be my final point on that. Make delegation a much higher priority than may be comfortable for you. Now, I really want to shift to the core of this conversation, which is cybersecurity. You believe that small businesses need to start prioritizing cybersecurity. Why? Why is it important they're doing this now? There's a common misunderstanding that small businesses are too small to be targets. And I think in reality, it's actually the opposite of that.

9:14If you look at what a small business typically looks like in regards to their IT assets, a company, when they start out or when they're still in the small stage, will have a series of computers, Mac, laptops, Windows, whatever, an email system, and perhaps some services running in the cloud. The reality is when companies start, they are in such a rush to build out their infrastructure, get to revenue, bring their offering to market, that often that creates the concept of technical debt. And what that means is those assets and that structure that has been built hasn't really been tested or verified to be secure.

10:04So in reality, small to medium businesses are actually bigger targets or easier targets from an attacker's perspective. Often small businesses don't have IT teams and they may outsource it, which is a fine approach. But it is not the same as an enterprise that has a large IT team or a security team. So in reality, again, that makes them a bigger target. I'll give an example here. There was a company called Levitas Capital, and in December 2020, this company was based in Sydney, Australia, they had an email compromise where a co-founder received a Zoom link that ultimately installed malware onto the computer systems.

10:53That malware then infiltrated their email system and implemented a financial redirection attack. And what that means is they were able to – I guess the perpetrators were able to issue invoices to different parties and redirect money. And ultimately, the outcome was that company went out of business. that company went out of business. And I think this is a really good example of how a small company that spun up, got up and running, got attacked by an attacker and ultimately the worst case outcome occurred. So Fire Nation, I think that you need to realize that if you're a small company, if you're even just a solopreneur right now, I mean, these are things you have to be thinking about because this is the world that we live in.

11:44This is the reality of the world and it's not going to change. And we have some real specifics for you coming up when we get back from thinking our sponsors. When I first launched Entrepreneurs on Fire in September of 2012, I had a feeling it was going to be big, but I didn't know how big. Fast forward to May 2014, not even two years later, and Kate and I were traveling Europe on our first ever completely unplugged vacation. No emails, no interviews. Everything for the business was handled ahead of time. From the beginning, location independence has been a high priority of ours. We love to travel and we love the freedom of being able to pack a bag and hit the road on our own terms.

12:22While we were away, we thought it'd be great to make some extra money to host our place on Airbnb. We figured since we were going to be staying in homes throughout Europe, why not also host ours in the States? If you're like us and value location independence, think about it. While you're away, your home could be working for you rather than sitting empty. It's a great way to make some extra cash to put towards your next home project, bucket list goal, or future vacation. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Starting your own business can feel intimidating.

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13:29Don't know anything about franchising? That's the beauty of it. Franocity provides personalized one-on-one coaching at no cost to you, and they have access to over 600 franchise brands. And Franocity just doesn't help you pick a franchise. They help you understand the business model, investment risk, scalability, and operational reality. Get started today with Franocity's Franchise Funding Guide, packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings. Visit Franocity.com, that's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to download your free franchise funding guide today. So Matt, as we've kind of been talking about during the last part of this interview.

14:08The cyber industry has really ignored the needs of startups and small business owners. And that's actually, honestly, mostly our listeners here today. That is Fire Nation. So I know we have got into this a little bit, but I'd love to dive more into what you specifically are doing to fix this, because that is our listener base today. So FieldEffect is a holistic cybersecurity company. Most cybersecurity companies will sell software and hope that you can figure out how to use it. What FieldEffect does with Covalence is provide software and a security team of ninjas that operates that system for you.

14:47We basically demystify cybersecurity and turn it into something that you don't need to worry about. And we deliver this at a price point that is completely digestible to a small to medium business. So what I want to do is get tactical. I want to get strategic. I want you to break down the best ways for our listeners to stay protected from cyber attacks, because we all know they're going to happen to some people at some point in time. Now, how do we sleep well at night? How do we rest knowing that our business is at least as protected as it can be? It's a multi-step approach. Unfortunately, with cybersecurity, there generally isn't a silver bullet that you can just put on your network or install.

15:32It's a very complex topic and attackers are very creative. So the answer to that question is definitely multi-part, I guess. The first thing a small to medium business needs to do is take cybersecurity seriously. As I mentioned earlier, that is definitely something that if you don't take seriously, it can absolutely kill your business. So right up from the start, prioritize it. That is absolutely key to recognize it as a problem and then go from there. I think a big misunderstanding is that cybersecurity or I guess high quality cybersecurity is expensive. And it doesn't need to be expensive by any stretch of the imagination.

16:13It is something that is much more accessible. So once you prioritize it, I'm confident that you can find a solution that works for you. The next thing you can do is educate yourself on basic cybersecurity practices. There's very basic things such as using multi-factor authentication with your email or web services. use a password manager, and a series of other things that we have in our websites, fieldeffect.com slash fire for this podcast. And going through that list would be a very simple thing to do to understand what you can, or I guess the proactive steps that you can take. You need to build cybersecurity into your culture as a company, as a leader in your company.

17:01if you don't make cybersecurity a priority, then there's no reason why other people in your company will make it a priority. So that means simple things like policies around what assets can connect to your Wi-Fi network, your password policies, very, very, very simple things. But it's important to get your entire company on board with the concept of cybersecurity being very, very important. And don't be afraid to ask for help. That is something that, you know, I sometimes think that people regard cybersecurity like going to the doctor. Often people will be scared to go to the doctor because they don't want to get bad news.

17:41And I think often cybersecurity is treated the same way where, you know, you don't want somebody to analyze your business or your company and say, you know, you don't know what you're doing or you've done things wrong. And that's something that I think, you know, everybody who's running a business needs to get over and accept that they need outside help. That's a really big part of that. So, Matt, take the microphone. Let's end with a bang. What do you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from this interview that we did here today? What call to action do you have for us? And then we'll say goodbye.

18:17I think the biggest thing that people can take away is take cybersecurity seriously. Embrace it. It's not as scary as people think. If you need help, please reach out to us. We have a promotion right now, fieldeffect.com slash fire. We are offering free cybersecurity assessments for Fire Nation listeners. And we would absolutely love to help you secure your business and help you sleep at night. That's what we want you to do, Fire Nation. Sleep at night. I use the Oura Ring to track my sleep personally. And Matt, I want to say thank you for being a trooper here, for talking about cybersecurity because our listeners know they're the average of the five people they spend the most time with.

18:57And Fire Nation, you've been hanging out with MH and JLD today, so keep up that heat. Head over to eofire.com, type Matt in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with everything that we've talked about here today. And Matt, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you for having me, John. I really appreciate it. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value-bound content was brought to you by Matt. And Fire Nation, if you've ever thought about creating a podcast of your own, the Podcast Journal is for you.

19:29It is gorgeous. It is full leather and it will guide you step-by-step in the creation and launch of your podcast in 50 days. Visit thepodcastjournal.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Get started today with Franocity's Franchise Funding Guide, packed with real-world strategies to launch your business without draining your savings. Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y dot com.