Gregory Bell of Corelight On Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup

An Interview With Doug Noll

Customer empathy that boarders on obsession. It really helps if the problem you’re trying to solve is something you’ve suffered through or wrestled with at a previous job. Everything will be easier if you share an important experience with your early customers. You’ll understand them better, you’ll support them better, and you’ll build much better solutions for them.

Startups have such a glamorous reputation. Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Uber, and Airbnb once started as scrappy startups with huge dreams and huge obstacles. Yet we of course know that most startups don’t end up as success stories. What does a founder or a founding team need to know to create a highly successful startup? In this series, called “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup” we are talking to experienced and successful founders and business leaders who can share stories from their experiences about what it takes to create a highly successful startup. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Gregory Bell, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Corelight, a leading network security company.

Before joining Corelight, Greg served in a series of leadership roles at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: director of the Scientific Networking Division, director of the US Department of Energy’s high performance mission network ESnet, and chief technology architect in the Office of the CIO. As ESnet director, Greg oversaw deployment of the world’s first 100G network at continental scale, the world’s first 400G production link, and many other networking and systems innovations in support of data-intensive science. Greg has a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and an A.B. from Harvard.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I never expected to be involved in creating a startup! I spent most of my career supporting computing infrastructure for the US Department of Energy (DOE) and working at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), where I really enjoyed helping to accelerate the process of scientific discovery. It was such a good working environment, and we’ve tried to capture some of its cultural magic here at Corelight.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

My co-founders had created a powerful open-source security application, Zeek, and it was growing in popularity. Our basic ‘aha’ was the idea that a company focused on this software needed to exist, and we had all of the ingredients to create it.

Afterwards, there were many ‘aha’ moments that turned out to be wrong, and that’s normal. Startups are just a series of conjectures and pivots. Each ‘aha’ gives access to a partial truth that helps you push the company forward. That’s the way science works, too.

Was there somebody in your life who inspired or helped you to start your journey with your business? Can you share a story with us?

I was definitely influenced by Steve Chu, the Nobel-prize winning physicist who became US Secretary of Energy under President Obama. I watched him arrive as a new leader at Berkeley Lab and fearlessly reorient the organization around a mission of climate change. He showed me how a single, highly motivated person can create a sense of urgency within thousands of people.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

A number of things make Corelight stand out. First of all, we’re an open-source startup dedicated to the idea of collective defense, and democratizing tools used by the most sophisticated organizations in the world. All of that is a bit unusual in the security space. We also have a reputation for amazing customer care — in part because our Success team is top notch, and in part because it’s a deep cultural norm. Finally, we’re the fastest growing startup in our category. We like to stand out that way, too!

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Although we’re generous in terms of donating dollars, time, and products to worthy causes, I think it’s more important that the business itself become an engine for positive impact. The company has to bring positive impact as an automatic byproduct of its success. Imagine a startup that succeeds wildly, but deeply harms the climate. Who cares if the founders or employees are philanthropic, in that case?

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

I’ve always been a curious person, and I think that’s helped me navigate, especially as a first-time founder. For instance I knew nothing about marketing at the beginning — we used a whiteboard as CRM in the early years — but I wasn’t afraid to ask questions. Transparency is another value I try to embody, for example by giving as much information as I can when negotiating job offers. I’ll say “here’s the process we used to arrive at your salary and equity numbers” — which takes drama out of the situation, and refocuses the conversation around available data. The combination of transparency and data works to facilitate so many potentially adversarial exchanges. Another trait I have in abundance is optimism. It’s just the way I’m wired, and at times it can be a liability. But on balance, an excess of optimism does help, especially in the early days when so much is unclear, and the odds seem stacked against success.

Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. Can you share a story about advice you’ve received that you now wish you never followed?

I’ve made many career shifts since college — working in film, then human rights, then completing a humanities PhD at Berkeley, then using my childhood coding skills to orchestrate a leap into network engineering at Berkeley Lab, then branching into cybersecurity and startup life. With each career turn, there have been people predicting disaster and recommending that I stay put. But I’ve never regretted my twists and turns. They were motivated by curiosity, and each one gave me experiences and skills that paved the way for the next, sometimes in non-obvious ways. The journey has been fantastic.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

There were many tough moments. In a startup, the classic story is working very hard towards a specific goal (hiring a key executive, closing a deal, or delivering some outcome), then falling flat on your face. If you’re setting goals that are hard to achieve, and you should be, then failure will be a common occurrence. That pattern never really stops, which is why it’s so important to develop comfort with the idea of failing — but learning from it.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard? What strategies or techniques did you use to help overcome those challenges?

In hard times, it’s important for team members to be motivated by something deeper than money. Commercial success is necessary, but not sufficient. If the mission is important, then it’s worth doing even on a bad day. Purpose-driven companies are more resilient for this reason.

The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy and is filled with challenges, failures, setbacks, as well as joys, thrills and celebrations. Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

This is an important trick! But it gets easier with practice. The first time a critical deal slips from your grasp, you think the world is about to end. The 10th time it happens, you analyze the failure in terms of existing patterns and what might be learned. The same is true for moments of celebration. A sense of perspective is key in each situation: enjoy the highs and learn from the failures, but don’t get too attached to either condition.

Let’s imagine that a young founder comes to you and asks for your advice about whether venture capital or bootstrapping is best for them? What would you advise them? Can you kindly share a few things a founder should look at to determine if fundraising or bootstrapping is the right choice?

Bootstrap if you can. It will create a culture of frugality that you’ll appreciate later on, even if money from investors pours in. It’s amazing how quickly you learn to prioritize when there’s nothing in the bank. That instinct is important at every stage of growth.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Many startups are not successful, and some are very successful. From your experience or perspective, what are the main factors that distinguish successful startups from unsuccessful ones? What are your “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup”?

1 . Superb hiring. One byproduct of closing our Series A with Eric Wolford at Accel was the ability to attract an early talent pool far richer than I could have done myself, as a first-time CEO. Those hires — and at every level, not just execs — made all the difference, and we’re still punching above our weight thanks to their impact.

2 . Deep understanding of an important domain. My co-founders are world-class experts in network security, and they understand the open-source software we’re commercializing better than anyone, because they created it. There’s no substitute for authoritative knowledge.

3 . Customer empathy that boarders on obsession. It really helps if the problem you’re trying to solve is something you’ve suffered through or wrestled with at a previous job. Everything will be easier if you share an important experience with your early customers. You’ll understand them better, you’ll support them better, and you’ll build much better solutions for them.

4 . Global ambition. Why spend 8–10 years of your life working to create a new company, unless you’re aiming to make a significant global impact? I absorbed this idea at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab, where everyone was encouraged to ask bigger questions and seek bigger impacts.

5 . Integrity. Do the right thing, even when nobody is watching. Treat everyone, at every level of an organization, with respect and dignity. These are the right approaches generally, and they also create an ethical culture that’s highly attractive to employees and customers alike.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

Too often, tech startups turn out to be ‘solutions looking for a problem.’ It’s also common for founders who are engineers to believe that elegant technology will inevitably win in the market. But elegant tech is only a means to an end — so don’t get confused about that!

Startup founders often work extremely long hours and it’s easy to burn the candle at both ends. What would you recommend to founders about how to best take care of their physical and mental wellness when starting a company?

Remember to make time for family and friends. Don’t compromise on fitness goals (I enjoy open-water swimming), and pursue something creative — for me, that’s music.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Humans have no shortage of problems to grapple with, and a few of those are genuinely existential. It’s a tough call, but if I had a utilitarian lens and could start a global movement, I would focus on decarbonization.

We are blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

This is a tough question for me, because I read widely and have many interests outside of technology. I might answer the question differently, on any given day of the week! But at this moment, I’d enjoy a conversation with the brilliant novelist George Saunders, or maybe sitting in the studio and quietly observing how Radiohead manages to make familiar song forms and chord progressions sound irresistibly new. That’s an art I’d like to learn myself!

How can our readers further follow your work online?

The best resources are the Corelight website, LinkedIn, and recently I’ve started writing for Forbes Council.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!

About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.