Right, if this is your first time here, pretty high on my “Naughty List” is being at events. Luckily I had this thing I had to go to that I didn’t want to go to but I never want to go to anything. Honestly, instead of founder log I should rename this whole thing: “Rhea Lynn’s Adventures Outside” or “All the Times I Went Outside and Didn’t Die” or just “I Hate Everything Right Now T_T”

Different verticals feel different. This is actually my favorite vertical because the puzzles are so complex and there are so many pieces. It’s not just the actual technical problem you have to solve, but there’s a huge psychological component as well. And don’t get me started on the psychology of buyers and sellers in this space, which is completely different than any other vertical. Every vertical has nuance, but in cybersecurity the trust threshold is the highest. That’s why in cybersecurity they say “trust is the product,” because it is, but that requires a certain kind of framework which is why traditional go-to-market doesn’t work here. That’s actually the crux of my research but I’ll spare you because I could literally talk about this for 12 hours.

Luckily as soon as I got in they didn’t find my badge. Maybe that’s a sign for me to go home and never go outside again. Unfortunately people are super helpful all the time so after not finding me they just made me reregister and I got to take a fuzzy black and white pic and everything. The person who saw me to the elevator and was checking everyone in at registration said he would see me upstairs and I wanted to ask him how since I was planning on melting into the floor when I got there.

Someone walked by with a cool shirt. He said it was new and I was telling him it was reminiscent of 8-bit. I’m quirky so all the questions that fall out of my mouth are quirky. He told me he wanted to be an astronaut when he was a kid. I told him it was my first time here and that I don’t know anyone and he said it was his too. Then he said he was the speaker. I apologized and said I’m not used to being outside. What was that? Ascension? I wish.

The guy sitting next to me also wanted to be an astronaut. What the heck, two in a row? What is it, childhood astronaut day? Sorry, it’s just so random. I don’t think I know anyone in real life who wanted to be an astronaut when we were kids. I wonder what that means… Anyway this guy wrote a story about a robot dog and he seemed really into it. I told him sounds like he should be writing instead and he said he would but… and I was like “yeah, you have to eat everyday.”

I had a few dollars left in my purse from the weekend. I never have any cash but because I needed it over the weekend I actually had some. I folded the speaker a cute tiny shirt out of a dollar and he said it was really cool. Hopefully it buried my awkwardness from earlier, but if we’re being honest I love doing shit like that, so I would have made him one anyway. I made a bunch for Uri Levine for his family from the workshop too. “I flew all the way to California and all I got was this ‘super cool dollar t-shirt!’”

My research assistant / operator, who I love, told me yesterday she was scared about next week. Girl me too, but I can’t tell her that my anxiety is basically choking me the entire time I’m in any large group setting so I just told her it’s gonna be fine. I didn’t mention that it was fine like that meme with the dog drinking coffee inside literal flames. One thing about me is, even though I hate a lot of shit and I complain all the time, I’ll still go and do all these things. I’ve probably made an ass out of myself a billion times but I can always make it a billion and one so sometimes I’ll just jump into shit really fast before I think too long bc sometimes thinking is the real blocker.

Turns out my anxiety was (probably) unwarranted because they did a fireside chill fireside chat. I don’t know what I was expecting. I still wanted to melt into my chair the entire time, but at least I sat in the back all alone where it was safe. When it was over someone asked me what I did and I told them about my research with trust building in high-trust verticals. Turns out he’s a founder and had been seeing similar things.

When everyone wandered downstairs there was a group of SJSU students and one of them started asking me questions and I inadvertently ended up giving them a mini lecture on buyer psychology in high-trust markets. Somehow we ended up on life advice and I told them to hurry up and finish their units so that they can take an extra semester and study abroad. Seriously, you will never get a chance to kick it in another country like that. I get it though, not everyone is able to do that. I was a financial aid kid so it was extra worth it for me. My advisor was like “You don’t have to do this though, you’re already done,” and I told him I needed to visit the Fritz Lang museum in Berlin and he approved it. A bunch of those kids added me on LinkedIn and I told them when I peep their LinkedIns later they all better be abroad.

There wasn’t a sponsor at this event so someone was nice enough to take everyone out to dinner. Since I got stuck in that mini lecture I was late, but went with a CISO and that founder from before so we all rolled in together. One of the patterns that keeps popping up is how important these dinners are so I was lucky to end up in one. Since we were late we ended up at the end and I ended up clustered next to a security engineer and then the President of that particular ISSA chapter came by and introduced himself and told a lot of fun stories.

I learned a lot. I get it. I think it’s going to be hard to beat a meal setting where everyone’s relaxed and your guard is lower. That’s already going to increase trust, if even a tiny bit, but sometimes that tiny bit is all you need. The first CISO I ever spoke to in real life was helping me with a dinner strategy while back when I told him I couldn’t afford it and he did some quick math and it’s a lot more viable than I thought.

Everyone was so nice. I think it’s really sweet that everyone is trying to help each other. At some point it got around to what I do and we were talking about the 90% startup failure rate and I was telling them about all the people that I talked to that end up in hospitals. The CISO and that founder were both just like yeah… it’s a big problem. They said what I do would be really helpful for VCs. I told them that I had a bunch of VCs already asked me if I do consulting. The CISO said after a while they’d probably take you on, which eh. I told him, a lot of those guys are hard ROI driven and it’s not that I don’t like money, I do, but my primary goal is to keep founders out of hospitals.

Turns out that founder is from NY and was staying in the city. He was gonna take an uber back and skip dinner and I was like don’t do that, I’m rolling back anyway. Also it was going to cost him $130, wtf fuck that. On the way back I was telling him how I inadvertently made a Founder House for RSA since there’s already 2 startups under this roof and then my friend is coming down from Seattle. I said if I met him a couple days ago I might have offered it to him and he was like, “You would offer me a place at the Founder House?!” lol. Sure why not? Maybe next year.

Times I died: All of them
Times I’m glad I went anyway: 1