So the first thing that I'm gonna have you do is just to introduce yourself so say and spell your full name and then tell me your title please. And you can go ahead whenever you're ready.
I'm Tina Williams Koroma, ti na was my first name. William Tyson Coronas my last name w i l l i a m s hyphen, K O R O Ma. And I'm the founder and gotcha
and are you from the Baltimore area or did you grow up somewhere else?
Not from the area. I am a military black so I got my parents roots or hail from North Carolina but I've been in that area I went to the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Gotcha.
That's awesome. First question is really just for you to tell me a little bit about side deploy and and why you decided to create it and create it and kind of what you provide with it.
I've been in the cyber security field for over 21 years and one of the recurring issues that I saw and still see is that organizations really take long time in making security updates. The point patches, changing their configuration so their systems are more secure. And a lot of times the delay in making those updates changes patches is because learn about the functional impact on their own, you know, imagine a company who's got you know, a critical business application running in their environment that's running on like a Windows Server and pacing goes down for any reason to include a good reason like maybe a security update. They could be losing hundreds of 1000s of dollars an hour. So as you can imagine, they're real sensitive about changes being made even if those change reason, namely security. So, you know, it's like, Well, okay, but when making those updates, that means that they are leaving themselves open for hackers to exploit the changes they didn't make from a security perspective. So I was thinking like, how can we make it so that organizations can quickly get an answer to what the functional impact is, so that they can more quickly be calm. environment. So that's just to lay the landscape of like the you know, what I saw? And so what we have is the ability for an organization a digital twin of their system in a Sam the on demand and secure sandbox. And we use driven automated functional tests, so that they can make the change on the digital twin and run these automated functional tests before and after the change and we provide the remote support that says this is a functional impact. Yeah. They get to see it on this twin in the sandbox for they ever touched production. Gotcha.
And then just you know, just personally for you, you know, being in the cybersecurity space for over 21 years and being a black woman in that space. How do you feel that kind of the challenges that you had were different than maybe your counterparts and things like that, do you feel that you had more challenges than your counterparts?
I don't feel like the question is really around me. It kind of boils down to opportunity. And the biggest challenge is you don't know what opportunities you didn't get access to. Yeah, because you are who you are. Right. Like, I feel like I've had good managers. Throughout my career. I feel like, you know, it seemed to me that opportunity, doors of opportunity were provided and open. But it's also like the thing where you don't know what you weren't presented. Right. And so, you know, I think that the other piece of that is the level of confidence that I think you have to have is definitely one that's probably above like what others may have to have, like, it's kind of like an added pressure of like, how much how much room do I have to make a mistake? How many times can I be wrong, right? And so, it kind of is even an internal pressure on yourself to like, read the really good, like, good isn't good enough. Yeah. Like, you know, there's just kind of an internal pressure to be better than good. Yeah, just because, like it just, it feels like you're not gonna really have as much room to really drop the ball and be able to recover from it. And, you know, I it's kind of more feel it feels that way, you know, both and working for another company and also, you know, as an entrepreneur, yeah. You know, it's already black women are probably the lowest funded. You know, and people have a lot of different reasons and stuff for that, but, you know, it's already like a challenge. So it's just like you read these books about fail fast. You know, don't be afraid to make mistakes and experiment. And, you know, an MVP, you know, is not intended to be perfect. They can have a lot of, you know, things broken in it. It's an MVP, it's a minimal viable product, and it's just, you know, I talked amongst, you know, other black entrepreneurs, black women entrepreneurs, just like, you know, do we have that same Yeah, yeah. For a buggy product, right. Absolutely. And also, when did you establish side deploy? What year i on paper registered it officially like December 2020. Okay. And then in 2021 is when we started working on like the prototype. So like spring 2021 is when we really started like the development work for the prototype.
And then just in terms of the black Founders Fund, how did you you know, discover this fun this opportunity?
Oh, I discovered it through I participated first in the Google for startups accelerator for women founders. That was, that is not a fun, but it's just like an accelerator program. Yeah. And so I went through that program. And then as a part of the demo day that we did for the Google for startups for women accelerators, some of the individuals from the black funds. Were listening in on that demo. Day. And so that's when I got engaged to be able to have an application for the black for the black five. So that was my path and do getting in the application for the Google black five.
Did you find the application to be pretty easy to submit and things throughout the process?
Mechanically, yes. You know, and the good thing is, you know, because it wasn't necessarily my first foray and like application you know, a lot of them asked for a lot of the same stuff. So, you know, thankfully, I already had, you know, different things like a pitch deck already created, you know, had already kind of thought through like mission and vision, answered, you know, kind of questions around my entrepreneurial story in the light. So, you know, from that, from that perspective, it wasn't, you know, too onerous. I had the opportunity to kind of gather that information, you know, for previous similar applications. Gotcha.
And so, what was your reaction when you finally found out that you had been chosen as a recipient?
Yeah, I mean, just joy it was, you know, because they didn't say like, why they wanted to, like, set up the call to talk. It was just like, hey, you know, basically you know, this is like, a discussion about the black side and etc. And so, you know, I'm joining like, okay, they're gonna, like ask me some more interview kind of questions about you know, and that's the way they started it right. They kind of asked questions related to like, the business and things like that, and how would you use the funds and, you know, so I'm kind of approaching it like, this is like the interview part of the process. Yeah. And then they, and then I forget the last question they asked me, but they were like, well, you know, like the purpose of this call is to tell you that you've gotten the phone. I was like, Yes, super thrilled. Because, you know, like in this environment, like just economically and big like, you know, money was already tight for black women founders. even tighter. You know, just statistically So, yeah, like getting that those funds and non that they're non diluted funds. Give some breathing room to be able to not always be raising so it definitely contributed to like a like a breather than I had about six months for not having to be in like hard fundraise, though. Yeah. So it's been nice to just kind of be focused on like customers customer discussions, you know, customer acquisition in the light for, you know, good five, six months. Now I'm back to fundraise prep mode. It was a nice reader.
And how much money did you receive? I think it's I saw was up to 150,000. But I wanted to know specifically how much you receive.
Yeah, yes, we got 150,000. Okay,
that's awesome. So now, I mean, and obviously, it's not just the money that you will receive as part of being a recipient for this fund. What are some of the things that you're most looking forward to you know, in gaining from from the fun, you know, some of the or some of the things that might help you overcome some of the pain points that you're experiencing right now in your business?
What I really like is that there's not a lot of like required programming a lot of optional programming that you based upon, like where you are and what would be helpful and so the, the programming and resources that I'm really leaning into, is the sales Academy, in that specifically and solely focused on sales tactics. And processes and closing deals, etc. And that's exactly where we are, you know, as we prep for our seed raise, we're looking to close as many deals leading up to that time as possible. The other thing is, like I said, we're prepping for a seed race, so they have an investor in residence, and we can set up office hours with that investor in residence. So I just had a meeting, for instance, with that investor in residence today talking about the rate like How should I be thinking about the valuation How should I be thinking about the timing of the raise, etc. So really having an opportunity to, you know, start planning out the logistics of the race, with resources available through the fun and then the last one is they also provide, like business coaching or therapy so I have also signed up for a session for for that. So those those are the three resources that I'm really leaning into and planning to take full advantage of, as a as a part of the program. Also, there's one on one mentors so that you can meet with monthly so they're in the process of identifying like a one on one mentor for me, based upon again like customer acquisition, sales kind of focus. Gotcha.
And as you just mentioned, you know, you're preparing for a seed raise, how much money are you are you looking to raise and when when will that open or has it already open?
Yeah, so the amount we're still trying to hold down because it's really a lot of it is really tied to the customers right? Like we want a certain amount of recurring revenue, that we can have a certain valuation and raise a certain amount, you know, at that valuation, so that's still a bit up in the air, but the timing that we're, we're aiming for is around September of this year Gotcha.
And just kind of with you know, funds like these with with Google startups, what does that kind of signal to you about Google as a company and its commitment to you know, African Americans, especially entrepreneurs,
I mean, yeah, yeah, I think it signals great things. I think that it's good when companies don't just, you know, kind of splash in and say, oh, you know, we're committed to this. And then like, once the noise and the fanfare dies down, so does their commitment right. Yeah. So that that goal was, you know, maintained and continues to move forward. And it's funding for, you know, black founders is, is commendable. And I, you know, I also think that it's, you know, mutually beneficial as well because they're getting access to some of the greatest minds and greatest ideas associated with their brands. So, I think, you know, certainly I think goodwill is is a category on balance sheets. So, you know, I definitely think that this is something that is an investment on their part that that has and will continue to, you know, have great returns for them as well.
Definitely. And then just in general, what are some of your, you know, kind of short term, or even if you want to discuss long term, but goals, goals for sight deploy.
Short term, really expanding our customer base, and continuing to learn from customers so that we can refine the product and really determine the best priorities for different features on our roadmap. So So that's, that's short term. Long term. I, you know,
I shoot I shoot for the stars, right? So I,
I'd like cytopoint to be a unicorn, you know, a unicorn by a unicorn and see myself as a black woman and in a high tech field, with a b2b, you know, SAS tech company. And, you know, so already I think, as a person, I'm a unicorn in the field, and I'd love to create a unicorn and have a really good exit a really good story. A big part of that is you know, I've always felt you know, in action on throughout my career, I can get people as far as I've gone. You know, I'm really committed to mentoring and you know, helping others get into the field of cyber I created a whole free course on like, how to become, you know, a cybersecurity professional, and, you know, talk to other, you know, individuals within the black community about how to start a business and so, you know, everything that I learned, I'm teaching I want to continue that trend. So you know, I want to push it as far as I can. You know, take it if I can get to unicorn status, and that means I'm positioned to get other unicorns there, too. Absolutely.
Well, Tina, that was really all the questions that I have prepared for you today. But is there anything else that you wanted to add before we close out and John, if you're on the line too, if there's something that you think should be discussed, you can mention that as well.
I would add regarding cytopoint. Is that while my focus, original focus, and intent is on security changes, as relevant for any change, so like the co founder, I brought in he comes from more of like the infrastructure engineering sysadmin side, and where we found some success and you know, what certain customers so far are those that it's not even necessarily security that they're looking to make, but they're just looking to say, like, Oh, we're thinking about upgrading from you. Know, this ls to this other OS or operating system, from one operating system to not four, we are thinking about changing from using this application to accomplish this function to another one, like, what might the functional impact be of making those changes? So really, cytopoint can be used to test drive, even non security changes, right. So while my focus has kind of been on security changes, they can be used and we're we're seeing some initial success is for testing even in non for non security related changes. Gotcha.
Well, thank you so much, Tina, for your time today. I really appreciate it and thank you, John, for helping to set this up and get us connected.
Yeah, no, I I work with your agency and Google is one of our clients. But I specifically have requested to work with this lifestyle. Also. Just because I really does work from within. I've always worked in tech space. So it's it's really it's very fulfilling to see professional life and my personal interests kind of calls.
