Basics of Cybersecurity

• • New era of problems with profound risks and costs; requires new solutions from innovators and entrepreneurs

  • Innovators should consider problems and solutions likely relate to fundamental principles of security: 

    • Principle of Least Privilege: Give user minimum level of access or permissions to perform job

    • Principle of Entropy: (software rot) slow deterioration in effectiveness in systems

    • Principle of Uniformity: one commonality of all breaches is that something/one is where it should not be; reduce noise so you can spot an anomaly; detect when something is out of the norm is much easier with uniformity

    • Principle of Compartmentalization: one big vault with many small lock boxes; micro-segmentation

Customer Discovery

• • Ask questions to real customers

    • In-person, not surveys

    • Historical questions (facts; how did you do X....) NOT future questions (conjecture: would you do X if you had Y?)

    • Put your idea of a solution aside, focus on really understanding the problem

Minimal Viable Product

A prototype or the most minimal thing you can do to validate or verify that your solution improves the status quo; allows you to collect feedback and metrics on something real but very rough; tests your ideas and hypotheses before you build out business; speaker provides multiple examples

• 1. • (Note: If you are not able to create one in the time you have that is OK, describe what your MVP would be)

Pitch Deck Template

• You are not required to use this template, just a resource. Definitely show off any MVP you created, it showcases what you learned from customer discovery

  1. • Basic Pitch Deck Template

Two Ways to Go After Competition

1. Point out how their flaws and describe why your product/service is better because of X,Y, & Z feature

2. (More Likely) Find a group that is not being served or not being served well by them and go after that specific market

Basic Pitch Deck Template - this is only a template to help you know what to cover, not a required format. 

Slides to Include

1. Team Intro: Just needs your Business Name, Logo for a 10 second intro

2. The Problem: Sell judges there is a problem worth solving - and why current products or companies haven’t solved it

3. Your Service/Product: Explain what your product/service is or does

4. Solution/Benefits: If people use your product/service, will it solve the problem? Other perks?

5. Market Opportunity: The whole world might need your product - but who really really needs it now. You need to thread the needle and show this could be a big idea but you are laser focused on a beachhead to launch the idea.

6. Go-To-Market: On Slide 5 - you tell me a specific sub-segment who will love your business. Now you need to tell how you are going to market to them and launch the business through them.

7. Revenue Model: How you make money ($35 one-time or $35/ a month per user) and any relevant costs (especially if you are a product based-business).

8. Progress-To Date: Sell the judges this isn’t just an idea. You have progress and traction.

9. Next Steps: What are your next steps to grow the business. How could CEC funds help?

10. Team: Brief overview on why judges should believe you are the team that can execute on your next steps and actually grow the business.

11. Questions: Simple slide to help you thank judges and open up for questions.