The following interview is a conversation we had with Jean Le Bouthillier, CEO of Qohash, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Data Security.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Hey, nice to be with you, Brett.
Brett
Not a problem at all. So were just joking there in the pre interview. You have a very unique last name and a very difficult to pronounce last name, and I didn’t want to insult you here at the start of the interview, so I skipped that. But let’s let the audience have it. How do you say your last name?
Jean Le Bouthillier
Yeah, it’s Lebutzilier. It’s a long french name. And thank you for not destroying it.
Brett
Yeah, I wanted to start off on a good note here, so let’s continue there with that pace. So how we’d like to begin these conversations is really just with a little bit of background on who you are and your personal journey that led to you starting the company today.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Yes. So I have a bit of an unusual background. I’m an RMC grad. RMC is the Royal Military College of Canada, which is like West Point for those in the US. And I went there at 17 years old, studied computer science, and I was right away really good at it and interested by it. And of course, going through RMC, I was there to become a military officer. And so I actually have a background in defense. I worked as a tactical helicopter pilot in support of the army, and that was a dream of mine. Flying knight, bringing troops into combat, doing all kinds of different mission profiles. So I learned a lot through that about operations and getting things done, because if you’re sitting in the helicopter, it’s no longer theory. Your ass is on the line, so to speak.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Then I went on to work for special operations, and I worked on various projects of operational nature tied to my background as a pilot, but also in technology. And I was tied to projects that had to do with common operating picture involving lots of data, because decision maker in defense always wanted more data to make better and more timely decisions. But I’ve always been interested in aviation defense technology. And after I left the military about six years ago, I was very much interested in starting my own data security company. And there we are. I started Qohash, and today we’ve had a great deal of success in data security.
Brett
Did you always know at some point in your life you’d end up founding a company? Like, take me back to 2011. You were first becoming a helicopter pilot or a tactical helicopter pilot. In the back of your head, was there this idea, yeah, I’m going to start a company at some point.
Jean Le Bouthillier
The way it happened is when you fly a helicopter, at first it’s really difficult, and you’re like, oh, my God. Just going through the courses, you can barely scrape by. And it’s very challenging. But after a while, when you’ve done it for a while, it becomes easier. It’s like driving your car. And so I sort of reached that point and I was working with another pilot because pilots are always either engineers or scientists because they’re very technical discipline. I was working with another pilot who was a mechanical engineer. And just passing time and our part time, I started doing 3d printers in my basement and we sold some on Kickstarter and we had a great deal of success. We had like a million dollars of order at one point.
Jean Le Bouthillier
And so I started traveling to China, going to Shenzhen, Hong Kong to manufacture these printers in my part time. And I really met a lot of interesting people around manufacturing, business, technology. And I would say that’s when I started thinking about, okay, jeez, am I going to fly the helicopter for the next 20 years? And in the military, after a while, you don’t even fly. You’re going to become a senior officer, a general. And so I sort of reached a point where I was like, I think I’m going to get out and start a business because that was really fascinating for me and that’s kind of how it happened. And at some point, I talked to my superiors and made a plan to finish my time. And when I left, that’s the first thing I did. I started a company.
Jean Le Bouthillier
I actually did an mba also at the University of Ottawa. Just know, figure out what a balance sheet is and get all the nouns and verbs. But that’s kind of how it happened for me, and I really did it because I was passionate about, know, we.
Brett
Speak with a lot of founders who come from a military background and normally they’re from Israel because obviously it’s mandatory there. Everyone has to go into the military. And whenever I have them on, I like to ask them the know, what did you learn from your time in the like? What was that takeaway that you had? So I’d love to ask you that as well. What is that big takeaway? How do you think the military really shaped you?
Jean Le Bouthillier
I think the military is really effective at defining a clear mission, a clear outcome, and then organizing everyone around that goal. So what I got out of it is this mentality that you always need to understand, what are we trying to achieve here? What is the desired effect? What is the desired end state? And the second aspect for me is just having the discipline, the rigor, the planning capabilities to see it true and execute on the plan. And I think it was very formative for me. Again, coming from the world of tactical aviation, you always have to be on time, on target, meaning if you’re going to bring troops somewhere, they got to be there. At 1215. It’s not a minute before or a minute late. So that requires a lot of planning.
Jean Le Bouthillier
And I think today, with what I’m doing, it’s informing a lot of the ways I’m approaching business. I always think about things. I have a plan, and also I have different courses of actions. What happens if, and this is true with every military operation, the plan doesn’t work. What are going to be the alternative courses of actions?
Brett
Was it hard transitioning out of that in your day to day life now? Is everything mission driven? So if you’re driving to a Starbucks, are you mission driven, laser focused on that? Is your brain still thinking that way, or is it calmed down as you’ve transitioned into civilian life?
Jean Le Bouthillier
I think I’ve calmed down, but I’m always thinking when I do anything, what’s coming next? What’s going to happen? I’m trying to project my brain forward, and I think that’s very much a behavior that’s part and parcel of tactical aviation. You’re always thinking ahead of the machine, ahead of the mission, and that’s very useful in all aspects of life.
Brett
100% agree, and I can totally see that. Now, another question we like to ask, or a couple of questions we’d like to ask. And the goal here is really to just get a better understanding of what makes you tick. First one is, what Founder or leader do you admire the most and what do you admire about?
Jean Le Bouthillier
So, you know, I’m sure people say Elon Musk and things like that. For me, early on when I started the business, I got a lot of support from. He’s the Founder and CTO of Coveo, and that’s a fantastic enterprise search business. And he started it from scratch, and now it’s publicly, you know, been a unicorn many times over. And he sort of took me under his wing and shared some of the hard learned stories and knowledge about how to start a company and some of the things he went through. At Coville. I also had another mentor, Elifat C. From Mindbridge. And so these leaders, they really shared with me some of their big lessons. And I think when you start a business, a lot of people will think you’re crazy.
Jean Le Bouthillier
And they’re going to point out the 20 reasons why it’s not going to work. What I admired most about Laura and Ellie and some of my early mentors who were also founders is they had this immediate interest and curiosity, and they weren’t focused on the 20 reasons why it’s not going to work. Rather, they were giving me advice and sharing tips on how to make it work. So I admire them for that. And I try to be like this when I talk with founders that are starting out.
Brett
What do you think they saw in you as a young aspiring entrepreneur? What did they see in you that made them want to give you the time and invest time in you?
Jean Le Bouthillier
I think they believed I was serious about it. And I remember one time I was with Lahan in his office, and that was one of the first time I was meeting with him. And he was know, this is going to be very difficult. It’s going to take many years, and if I’m going to help you, I want to know that you’re up for it. Right. Because LA doesn’t go to fill grocery bags as this charity act. He likes to help other founders. So I think he saw that I was serious and other advisors were as well. So they saw it fit to spend their precious time with me because I guess they felt they wouldn’t be wasted.
Brett
What about books and the way we like to frame this? And we got this from an author that I really like named Ryan Holiday. He calls them quake books. So he defines a quake book as a book that rocks you to your core. It really influences how you think about the world and how you approach life. Do any quake books come to mind for you?
Jean Le Bouthillier
Okay, so I have a funny story. Like, when I started the company, I had a technology background, so I was sitting in a room with my Co-Founder, Givayer, and were sort of talking about the business and what were going to do, and we came to the dumb conclusion, you know, the most difficult thing is going to be to build a great product. Then we’ll just hire a couple of salespeople, and it’s going to be easy and fantastic, and they’re just going to sell the product like magic. And of course, I was completely wrong about that, in particular, cybersecurity sales. So one of the books that I picked up is called the qualified sales leader by John McMahon.
Jean Le Bouthillier
And it’s not like a world shattering book or anything philosophical, but it’s really a great summary of all the things that go wrong in revenue teams and what you should do about it and how you should organize yourself. And so basically, when I was reading that book, trying to figure, you know, how we’re going to sell that product, every chapter and every situation that John was describing, I was like, yeah, that’s us. Yeah, that’s an issue for us. And I just found the book super actionable and organizing in terms of how to actually go about building a core aspect of the business, which is selling the product.
Brett
It’s so fun when you read a book and it just feels like the book has product market fit with you. You go through page by page, chapter by chapter. It’s like, wow, this author must have literally written this for me, I was the Persona they had in mind.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Yeah. And for me, when I read a book like this, and I’m like, God damn it, everything that’s happening to me is already a known fact, something that has a solution. And I think that’s the best feeling when you read a book and you’re like, wow, I should have read it earlier. Yeah.
Brett
It kind of puts into perspective, too, of like, yeah, you’re not alone and you’re not special. There’s lots of other people who’ve gone through these problems, enough people that someone has written a book to help those people. So I feel like that’s a helpful perspective to have as well.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Exactly.
Brett
Let’s switch gears now and let’s dive deeper into the company. Let’s begin with the problem statement. So what is the problem that you’re solving for customers?
Jean Le Bouthillier
Yes. So if you’re a regulated entity, like a bank or an insurance company, and you deal with sensitive customer data, it’s just very painful to keep track of all this data, especially unstructured data, like files that are moving about employee workstations. They’re going to be part of various systems. People can download this data. So that’s a huge pain. And it used to be that the market was a safe harbor. Businesses could kind of do whatever they wanted with customer data, but today it’s highly regulated. You have GDPR style regulations all over the place. And so it’s very painful to track the data, identify the risks, and be compliant. So we solve that with a SaaS solution that essentially brings 24/7 visibility on what we call the universe of the employee workstations. Microsoft 365, like OneDrive team, SharePoint and other data sources.
Jean Le Bouthillier
And basically we provide our customers with a continuous mapping of sensitive data so they can identify risks, they can comply with notification requirements, and a long tail of other use cases that relate to sensitive data.
Brett
And what’s your market category? Is it a data security platform? Is it data security posture management? How do you think about the market category that you’re in?
Jean Le Bouthillier
We started as a data security platform. It included data discovery and insider threats. And today, with the launch of data security posture management, that’s really where we fit, because we help customers essentially move their security posture to the left to be more proactive by understanding where the sensitive data is, who has access to it, what are they doing with it, and what’s their posture? What’s the level of risk that we’re dealing with?
Brett
Is that a Gartner defined term? Because I think they have. What? Cloud security posture management. They recently did application security posture management. It sounds like it has to be a gardener term, is that correct?
Jean Le Bouthillier
It is, actually. And they used to have these weird categories like file analysis and things like that, and it didn’t make much sense with today’s market. But there’s analyst, Brian Lowens, who actually launched the DSTM data security posture management category. I believe it was last year, like in February or March. And it makes a lot more sense with what we’re doing and other companies as well in that market.
Brett
How important is analyst relations for you in your go to market?
Jean Le Bouthillier
I think it’s very important. You have to ensure that people know what you’re doing. It’s also very crowded, so I would qualify it as important but challenging. And we do speak to analysts, we do try to get the word out. But I think what works even better is when our customers talk to analysts.
Brett
What about the kind of peer review platforms like G two and Captera? Are those as critical for you, or are you mainly focused on Gardner and Forrester and the more traditional firms like that?
Jean Le Bouthillier
That’s very interesting you mentioned that because we just closed our fiscal year in July, and part of our initiatives we’re focusing on this year are the g two peer inside Trust radius platform. We want to get more of our great customers to go there and enshrine a review, because I think nowadays there’s so much noise in cybersecurity. Buyers want to go do their own research before, and so we’re going to have a lot more visibility for Qohash on these platforms to assist our Whitby buyers in their journey.
Brett
Something that I’ve heard from a lot of the cybersecurity companies that I’ve worked with is, they say, customer success stories and testimonials, things like that, can be really difficult to secure because these companies don’t necessarily want to broadcast the tools they have in their tool stack. Has that been a challenge for you to get customers to be willing to talk about the fact that they’re using your platform?
Jean Le Bouthillier
Absolutely. We are lucky that we have some customers that have given us the authorization to publish case studies, in some cases videos. But it has happened to us a few times where we’ve done the case study, we’ve done the video, and at the last minute, the risk department won’t allow it to be published because they’re fearful about two things. Number one, adversaries knowing what they’re using. They don’t want it to be too publicized. And number two, if something ever happened, they don’t want to have statements out there or different comments, especially about their data security posture.
Brett
Yeah, it makes sense. You end up with some type of data breach, and then all of a sudden that testimonial is being used in the media articles. I can see how that wouldn’t be very ideal for them.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Yeah, it’s very tricky because, frankly, it’s the most valuable thing for a data security company to have testimonials, but it’s also risky for the customer. So it’s kind of a double edged sword that we’re still honestly trying to figure out ourselves.
Brett
Yeah, makes sense. I feel like where I’ve seen it work is where the company that’s using the software product is being positioned as an innovator and as a forward thinker, and they’re using the latest and greatest technology. That’s where I’ve really seen that work, but otherwise, it’s pretty tough to get them to do that for you.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Yeah, no, it’s a challenge, but highly valuable if you can crack that nut.
Brett
Yes, 100%. This show is brought to you by Front Lines Media, a podcast production studio that helps B2B founders launch, manage, and grow their own podcast. Now, if you’re a Founder, you may be thinking, I don’t have time to host a podcast. I’ve got a company to build. Well, that’s exactly what we built our service to do. You show up and host, and we handle literally everything else. To set up a call to discuss launching your own podcast, visit frontlines.io podcast. Now back today’s episode. Now, can you give us an idea of where you stand today in terms of growth and adoption and market penetration?
Jean Le Bouthillier
So in terms of growth, this year we just wrapped up at about 75% growth. The year previous we had more than 300%. I think we’ve slowed down a little bit in terms of spending, and everyone has. At least we’re not one of the companies that raised 100 million right out of the gate. So we had to be more careful with our spending. And we’re much focused on reduction of our customer acquisition cost, reduction of the sales cycle, CAC payback right now than were, say, two years ago. In terms of penetration, we have good penetration in the financial services market in Canada and in the US, more so in the mid market. All of our larger accounts are in Canada with banks and insurance companies, but we’re signing up larger and larger accounts in the US now.
Jean Le Bouthillier
That’s one of our goal this year, is to replicate the success we’ve had in Canada, where we have some customers with 50,000 25,000 employees. In the US, it’s more like 50, 00, 10,000 all the way down to a few hundred.
Brett
Obviously, there’s a lot of cybersecurity companies in Silicon Valley. There’s a lot in Tel Aviv and Israel. But for you, coming from Canada, do you feel at a disadvantage when you’re competing against these companies? And if so, what do you do to try to level that playing field?
Jean Le Bouthillier
I think Canada has very strong technology. There’s great cities with pedigree between Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, all the way to Vancouver. So I think we can compete on the technology angle. And some of the world leading experts for AI actually came from Montreal. So we have very good talent. Where I think companies in the valley have a head start is with the establishment of a virtuous cycle where they’ve had many successful cybersecurity companies that have created wealth and networks, and they’re able to move much faster with financing and they have a very strong network. Canada doesn’t have as many successes when it comes to creating world class cybersecurity platforms and products, but we’re aiming to change that. And I like to let the product speak for itself.
Jean Le Bouthillier
We’ve been in very large accounts and we’ve defeated well established competitors and other firms that had more funding. I think it’s the product that does the talking, and it’s our customers, when they speak to their colleagues, that has the strongest know.
Brett
A few years ago, I was working with the canadian company and they were telling me that in Canada, the venture ecosystem is very small or almost non existent at that point. That was like five years ago, so I’m sure it’s changed a little bit. But they were telling me that’s why you see so many companies go public very early on in their journey. I think it was the TSXV that was set up for junior mining companies to go public. And then all of a sudden these tech startups were using that channel to also go public. Is that still happening today in Canada? Are a lot of startups going public?
Jean Le Bouthillier
Certainly not right now, given the state of the markets. And the ipos are probably at their lowest since 2008. But I think in Canada, the venture capital market has much evolved. There’s many different vcs, and the interest of us based vcs has also increased dramatically because Canada is highly competitive when it comes to capital efficiency. The talent isn’t as expensive and maybe as capricious as what you would found in Silicon Valley. We also have some great r and D programs, so you can deploy a dollar and get up to 50 75% back when you’re developing a new product. So I mentioned earlier, we raised $20 million, but were able to do a lot more with that money in Canada than we could in the valley.
Jean Le Bouthillier
So there’s pros and cons, and certainly investors that work with us like that prefer that, and they feel it’s less crowded as well. They can find a good deal in Canada that’s not going to have as much attention as it would somewhere else.
Brett
Makes perfect sense, and I can see the pros and cons there. As I mentioned there in the intro, you’ve raised $20 million to date. What have you learned about fundraising so far?
Jean Le Bouthillier
I think the most important aspect is to really have a plan. I used to be very frustrated with fundraising when I started, but then I got some great advice and I worked on having a clear plan today. The way I do it, I look at a C group, a b group, an a group, and just following through with my plan. And if you have a plan and you do it well, it’s kind of a numbers game, because you have to speak to many investors in order to find the ones that really understand your value proposition, your vision. And if you can generate a healthy competition around term sheet, I think that’s the key. Of course, none of this is possible without planning.
Jean Le Bouthillier
So for me, that’s the number one lesson, if you are starting to fundraise, go talk to people that have done it before, make a clear plan and follow it.
Brett
I feel like your military background is shining through here.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Yeah, but you know what, when I was a pilot, I remember clearly I had one of my first flights at the NATO flight training center, and I showed up unprepared for one of my missions and the instructor kicked me out and said, you’re not going to be flying. And I was like, wow, this is so tough. And he told me, I’m going to teach you a lesson. Prior preparation prevents piss poor performance. And that always stayed with me. If you think about things and you have a plan, you have a much better chance of success.
Brett
Love that advice. Now, let’s imagine you were starting the company again today from scratch. What would be the number one piece of advice that you’d give to yourself?
Jean Le Bouthillier
I think one of the things I underestimated with cybersecurity sales, because I came from cybersecurity operations and project management in the defense sector, is the difficulties of enterprise cybersecurity sales. All the different politics steps, the third party vendor management. So I underestimated it and I sort of learned now how to do it, and we’re quite good at it. At coash, my advice to me in the past would be to take it seriously and get the right people in place early, because at coash we had a different strategy. We started with enterprise accounts first, and so it’s really daunting if you’re launching a new product to find a launch customer, and you’re going to go deploy across 50,000 users from day one. Very difficult and a lot of risk for the customer. So the sales process has to be pretty good.
Jean Le Bouthillier
And today we’re working mostly through channel partners, and that’s working really well. I learned a lot about that piece too, which is also complex.
Brett
Tell us about it.
Jean Le Bouthillier
So I think in cybersecurity, especially now post Covid, cybersecurity, buyers are basically overwhelmed. They don’t want to be talking with the next 100 startups that have a shiny object. They want to be talking to trusted advisors that have been with them for a while, where they know they’re going to get an unbiased opinion. And so startups know that they want to work with channel partners like the Big four, or the specialized bars like UPD. But of course, why would a channel partner bring your new unproven product to market? So you have to sell it directly first. You have to demonstrate you can sell it. You have to have a sales process for the channel partners to decide to take it on. So we had to go through a direct sales phase, learn everything ourselves, have a repeatable process in order to interest channel partners.
Jean Le Bouthillier
And of course, channel partners have access to a much vaster pipeline of qualified opportunities where they have trust, credibility and attention. And these are the three things a startup can’t buy, no matter how much capital it raises. So we learned a lot in this transition, and I think if I were to launch a new cybersecurity company, I would try to go to the channel as quickly as possible, and there’s an art to doing that.
Brett
Final question for you before we wrap. Let’s zoom out three to five years into the future. What’s that big picture vision that you’re building at Cohesh?
Jean Le Bouthillier
We want to create an AI security analyst, and that would be a part of our software that automates the many tasks that today are done by a risk analyst sitting in front of this computer in a bank in a suck, and think about a much better Chat GPT that would have instructions on its mission, hey, you’re analyst in a bank. You need to identify risky situation, blah, blah. And then that agent would automatically consume the wealth of data we have in our databases, analyze it, make recommendations, and take actions on behalf of our customers. That sort of a system is already happening, and it’s moving very fast in that direction. So we’re going to take a stand there, I think, a bit longer term.
Jean Le Bouthillier
I also have a vision to integrate cybersecurity insurance into our product because we have at cohesion, unparalleled view of the real risk as it relates to sensitive data, because it moves around, it has seasonality attached to it. And I think we can do a much better job at modeling the risk than the current 400 year old questionnaire based underwriting approach. And so if an investor listens to this, I think that would be a very smart area to invest with us in, because I think the cyber insurance piece is probably bigger than the data security solution itself.
Brett
And do you think you’re going to outgrow this category then, pretty quick, of data security posture management? Are you going to outgrow that in the next year or two? It sounds like.
Jean Le Bouthillier
I think our view on it is that the data security posture is so foundational, it’s giving you an ability to know where the data is, what is it, who has access to it, what’s the risk, and that’s a platform for building other business lines. So I think we’re going to have a very strong core, but you’re going to see us launch new business lines on that platform that are going to help customers to do a lot of use cases that are proximate to having a 24/7 visibility on the data.
Brett
Amazing. I love the vision and I love the approach that you’re taking here to building it. We are up on time, so we’ll have to wrap here. If there’s any founders that are listening in or any investors that are listening in that want to get in touch, where should they go?
Jean Le Bouthillier
You can send me an email at jean@coash.com and I’d love to talk to anyone, customers or investors. We’re building something really exciting here, so please reach out.
Brett
Amazing. Sean, thank you so much for taking the time to chat, talk about what you’re building, and share some of the lessons that you’ve learned along the way. I really enjoyed the conversation and I know the audience is going to as well.
Jean Le Bouthillier
Thank you, Brett, for having me.
Brett
No problem. Keep in touch. This episode of Category Visionaries is brought to you by Front Lines Media, Silicon Valley’s leading podcast production studio. If you’re a B2B Founder looking for help launching and growing your own podcast, visit frontlines.io podcast. And for the latest episode, search for Category Visionaries on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you on the next episode.
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