Radio Entrepreneurs host, Jeffrey Davis interview with Wabbi’s Founder & CEO Brittany Greenfield on software security through the concept of Wabi-Sabi. 

This interview originally appeared on Radio Entrepreneurs June 30, 2023

About the session
This session was part of Radio Entrepreneurs, a series featuring stories of entrepreneurship and leadership. The host, Jeffrey Davis, interviewed Brittany Greenfield, the founder and CEO of Wabbi, a software platform that bridges the gap between security and development.

Key speakers
– Jeffrey Davis, Host of Radio Entrepreneurs
– Brittany Greenfield, Founder and CEO of Wabbi

Agenda
The discussion revolved around the concept and origin of Wabbi, Brittany’s journey as an entrepreneur, the challenges and lessons learned in the process, and the target audience for Wabbi. Brittany also shared insights on women in cybersecurity and her efforts to support and mentor other women in the field.

Takeaways
Takeaway 1: Wabbi aims to bridge the gap between security and development in a world where software is inherently imperfect.

Brittany Greenfield, founder and CEO of Wabbi, explained the philosophy behind her company’s name, which comes from the Japanese concept of Wabi-sabi, meaning to accept imperfections as a step towards enlightenment. “What Wabbi does,” she said, “is bring a little bit of that imperfection and focus on risk management and risk tolerance as a step towards being more secure.” This approach is particularly relevant in the software industry, where Greenfield pointed out that software is inherently imperfect and current security measures often strive for an unattainable perfection.

Greenfield emphasized that a more effective approach would be to continuously improve rather than strive for perfection. She said, “Stop striving for perfection. Just continuously improve.” This concept, she believes, could have wide-reaching applications beyond the world of software and into our everyday lives.

Takeaway 2: Despite the common perception, a founder does not need to write code to be successful.

Greenfield shared her unique journey to becoming a founder and highlighted the fact that she does not write code. “I’m a very technical person,” she said, “But you can be a technical person, you can be a founder without being the person that’s writing that code.” She emphasized that her strength lies in her ability to spot market opportunities and devise strategies to capture them, rather than in the actual coding process.

This point of view challenges the common perception that founders, particularly in the tech industry, must have coding abilities. Instead, Greenfield suggests, a founder’s strengths can lie in their strategic thinking and ability to spot opportunities in the market.

Takeaway 3: Women in cybersecurity are underrepresented, but there are organizations and networks in place to support them.

In the cybersecurity sector, Greenfield revealed, less than 25% of the workforce is female. However, there are organizations that highlight the contributions of women in the field and provide support for underrepresented groups. “There’s a lot of great talent out there,” Greenfield said, “And I think all the women in cybersecurity want to make sure that we see more and more women participating in it.”

Greenfield herself is actively involved in efforts to support and mentor women and underrepresented groups in the technology sector. These initiatives range from hosting middle school students for a day with the group Stem Match to mentoring other women who want to enter the cybersecurity field.

Insights surfaced
– Wabbi is a software platform that accepts the inherent imperfections in software and focuses on risk management and risk tolerance as a step towards being more secure.
– Brittany’s entrepreneurial journey was unconventional as she doesn’t write code, but she is very technical. She started her career in the ERP space and then moved into cybersecurity.
– Brittany believes that one can be a technical person and a founder without being the person that writes the code.
– Less than 25% of the workforce in cybersecurity is female. Brittany supports other women in cybersecurity through early mentoring and networking.
– Wabbi was founded in 2018 and they conducted market research with future customers before developing the product.
– Wabbi’s target market ranges from large companies to Fortune 500 as well as some DoD.

Key quotes
– “Wabbi says, look, let’s bring a little bit of that imperfection and focus on the risk management and risk tolerance as a step towards enlightenment.”
– “Stop striving for perfection. Just continuously improve.”
– “You can be a technical person, you can be a founder without being the person that’s writing that code.”
– “You don’t start a company to blend into the current landscape.”
– “Founding a company is the only place overachievers go to fail 99% of the time.”
– “Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.”

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