Thank You GoDaddy / Sucuri. A New Chapter Begins | CleanBrowsing
April 5th, 2020 marked the end of my three year journey with GoDaddy, and 9+ years with Sucuri. The time has come to say goodbye and venture off on a new walk-about.
Everyone Has a First Day, and a Last Day.
I’m stealing this saying form Heather Brunner, CEO of WPEngine.
Internally this won’t be new news, it’s a transition that has been facilitated over the past three months and there is little I can say to the team that hasn’t already been said.
Thank you.
For those that didn’t work with me, but leveraged the tools we built, I thank you for an amazing ride. Sucuri has been an integral part of my identity over the past 9 years, and part of that has been servicing both those that worked with me and those that trusted our products to protect their digital livelihoods.
I am leaving because leadership deserved a leader that is aligned with its strategic direction, vision, and approach. I did not believe I was who they needed.
Self-reflection is an important part of our personal growth. Who an organization needs today, might not be what we have, or want, to offer.
It has been an amazing experience. I have made a lot of mistakes. But I am proud of what we were able to accomplish. Now, it’s time to embark on a new path.
Introducing ColdPath and CleanBrowsing
As for what’s next? I could say I’m taking a sabbatical, but that would be a lie. If you know me, you’ll know that I like to stay busy. I’m excited to introduce CleanBrowsing and ColdPath.
CleanBrowsing
CleanBrowsing is a SAAS business, that offers a DNS-based content filtering service. It was built as a way to help parents take control of what is happening on their network, help them provide safe browsing experiences.
It started as a fun project to help secure our own home networks. We wanted something more effective than the available solutions to ensure that our kids (who where all <11 when we started) were being protected against malicious and obscene content. Like many parents, our kids would be on their devices 24/7 and the amount of information they were exposed to via their video games, ads, and other means was overwhelming.
So, like good technologists, we built a solution to solve our own problem and have made it available to the world to consume. We offer both a Free and Paid service. I invite you to play with it and ask questions. Your feedback will only help us get better.
ColdPath
ColdPath is a fundamentally different business. It’s a security consultancy that helps midsized organizations secure their web applications and infrastructures.
Over the past years we built technology that has dramatically impacted 100’s of thousands of small businesses around the world. I’ve personally helped consult with some of the largest organizations in the web industry.
In the process we have helped organizations of all sizes recover from large scale comprises. Through this process we have gained insights into some of the most effective mitigating controls that help reduce an organizations security risk. We have also learned where organizations typically fail, from lack of technical knowledge, lack of resources, and improper security tools and configurations. ColdPath looks to help these organizations via a consultancy model.
If your business is highly dependent on it’s web infrastructure, and has a disproportionate relationship between the revenue it yields and the number of security professionals committed to protecting it, then ColdPath can help you.
Personal Growth and Exploration
While we find ourselves in unprecedented times, I can’t be more excited about the future.
In addition to the companies mentioned above, I have a number of personal projects under way.
Everything from my off-road racing interests, DDOS Racing team, to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), which I have not been able to actively engage in the past few months, to my new journey with horsemanship.
Site note: I am extremely intrigued with horsemanship. It is so different from the world of tech. It is helping to reinforce my strongest asset – discipline, while also building on my weakest – patience. It’s an amazing exercise that forces you to disconnect and be present or suffer very real consequences.
Additionally, I am hoping to restart my writing. There is a lot to share, from why we sold Sucuri, to what that whole process was like, to what it was like working at the highest echelons of a public company, to the dynamics of growing and managing a wholly remote team before it was a thing.
For all those whom I have met along this journey, I thank you and invite you to tag along as we embark on the next chapter.