Building the Leading Company in a Competitive Space | Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta | Ep. 17

1. 0:00 – 0:25

   Intro

   1. CCChristina Cacioppo0:00

      No, you just have to, like, Stockholm syndrome yourself-

   2. JAJack Altman0:01

      Yeah

   3. CCChristina Cacioppo0:01

      -into being like, "Well, I used to be someone who liked to build products."

   4. JAJack Altman0:04

      Yeah, yeah.

   5. CCChristina Cacioppo0:04

      "But now I love building teams. And whether or not I identified as that person two years ago-"

   6. JAJack Altman0:08

      Yeah, now that's me.

   7. CCChristina Cacioppo0:08

      "-doesn't matter. Now that's me," and I believe it, you know? And then, like, when it changes, you're like, "Now I'm this person."

   8. JAJack Altman0:13

      Yeah. Yeah.

   9. CCChristina Cacioppo0:13

      "I love HR policy," [chuckles]

   10. JAJack Altman0:15

       [chuckles] Yeah.

   11. CCChristina Cacioppo0:16

       You know? 'Cause that's what the company needs right now. [upbeat music]

   12. JAJack Altman0:19

       All right, I'm here with Christina from Vanta, and very excited for this conversation. Thanks for doing this with me.

   13. CCChristina Cacioppo0:23

       Thanks so much for having me.

   14. JAJack Altman0:24

       Okay,

2. 0:25 – 3:29

   Staying under the radar

   1. JAJack Altman0:25

      so what I want to start with is we are in a moment with AI where I would say markets are probably as promising, but also as competitive as they've ever been. There's a lot of ideas that seem very greenfield, and the result of that is there's tons of startups going at them, and so I think a very, very common founder experience today is you build a thing that makes a lot of sense, and you look around you and there's thirteen other companies also building something that makes a lot of sense. You've operated in a really competitive market for a really long time, and so I thought something founders could learn from you about would be operating in a competitive market, so I want to start there. I guess the first place I wanted to go with it is the mentality, I think, that you've learned over the years that it takes to succeed. So can you talk a little bit about what's the mindset that you've gotten yourself to over the years?

   2. CCChristina Cacioppo1:10

      Yeah, for sure, and a bit of, like, very short version of the history, which is Vanta started in twenty eighteen. We were the first person who did what we did. We had about two years where our competitors were accountants and consultants, and when we were selling to founders and engineers, that was wonderful. "Would you like software or would you like an accountant?"

   3. JAJack Altman1:26

      Right.

   4. CCChristina Cacioppo1:26

      And then... and tried to kind of keep it quiet about how well we were doing. Word got out, and then in twenty twenty, when everyone was at home bored, lots of people started Vanta competitors.

   5. JAJack Altman1:34

      You did try to keep it quiet for a while, though, right?

   6. CCChristina Cacioppo1:36

      We did, yes.

   7. JAJack Altman1:36

      Yeah.

   8. CCChristina Cacioppo1:37

      And some of it actually was like, "We know that this is really good, and we know people will knock it off, so how far can we run?"

   9. JAJack Altman1:42

      And your mindset was basically just, like, "Let's get as much-

   10. CCChristina Cacioppo1:45

       Much

   11. JAJack Altman1:45

       ... traction as possible before people think that this is a good idea."

   12. CCChristina Cacioppo1:48

       Yes, 'cause people thought it was a terrible idea.

   13. JAJack Altman1:49

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CCChristina Cacioppo1:50

       No startup got SOC 2s. No one knew what it... No one could spell it. It was just like, "Why are you, like, seemingly nice people working on compliance? Like, what's... Like, do you need some help?" Like [chuckles]

   15. JAJack Altman1:58

       And how did you know it was good? How did you have the confidence to know it was good enough that you should keep it a secret?

   16. CCChristina Cacioppo2:02

       Because when you talk to peop- when you talk to founders who had this problem, they were like: "I will pay you any amount of money, and I will crawl through any amount of muck for this."

   17. JAJack Altman2:09

       Wow.

   18. CCChristina Cacioppo2:10

       It's like: "I really want this thing, and I can't get it, and if you can get me there, I am all here for whatever you put me through."

   19. JAJack Altman2:17

       Were you getting customers with, like, a janky product?

   20. CCChristina Cacioppo2:19

       A hundred percent.

   21. JAJack Altman2:20

       Yeah.

   22. CCChristina Cacioppo2:20

       During YC, a YC company that bought Vanta called it the brutalist white website. [chuckles]

   23. JAJack Altman2:24

       [chuckles]

   24. CCChristina Cacioppo2:24

       Like, yeah. [chuckles]

   25. JAJack Altman2:25

       That's nice.

   26. CCChristina Cacioppo2:26

       Yeah, you know, that was, that was... The brutalist white website sucked in a million ways, except it got people to their outcome.

   27. JAJack Altman2:33

       I guess you also had a very good "why now," right?

   28. CCChristina Cacioppo2:35

       Yeah.

   29. JAJack Altman2:35

       Like, there, like, a thing really happened.

   30. CCChristina Cacioppo2:37

       Kind of, or, like, yes.
3. 3:29 – 5:20

   No referees in capitalism

   1. CCChristina Cacioppo3:29

      They just didn't.

   2. JAJack Altman3:29

      Okay, so you, you-

   3. CCChristina Cacioppo3:30

      Yeah

   4. JAJack Altman3:30

      ... stayed secretive as long as you could.

   5. CCChristina Cacioppo3:31

      Yeah.

   6. JAJack Altman3:31

      But then at some point, you didn't, you weren't secretive.

   7. CCChristina Cacioppo3:33

      Yeah. Well, and word kind of got out, and so, and then we got this, like, host of knockoffs, and, you know, I think we went through, like, "Oh, well, they're just knocking off," or, like, "Oh, they took screenshots of Vanta and sent them to a dev shop in Mexico and got the product back," and then said, "Vanta took two years to build this, and we built it in two months-

   8. JAJack Altman3:49

      Uh-huh

   9. CCChristina Cacioppo3:49

      ... and, like, they suck, and we're awesome."

   10. JAJack Altman3:51

       Is that how they said it to you?

   11. CCChristina Cacioppo3:52

       Yes, yeah, literally in that-

   12. JAJack Altman3:53

       That was their voice.

   13. CCChristina Cacioppo3:53

       Yes.

   14. JAJack Altman3:53

       Yeah.

   15. CCChristina Cacioppo3:54

       Very surfer bro.

   16. JAJack Altman3:54

       Uh-huh.

   17. CCChristina Cacioppo3:55

       You know, we, like, went through the phase of, like, "Well, that won't work," or, "That's not fair," like... And I think the thing, it, you know, you learn is, like, all's fair in love and capitalism.

   18. JAJack Altman4:05

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CCChristina Cacioppo4:06

       And it doesn't... You know, no one cares, and, like, customer, like, customers are trying to solve the problem.

   20. JAJack Altman4:12

       Yep.

   21. CCChristina Cacioppo4:12

       And, like, they don't care if you're first. They care if you're the best thing today.

   22. JAJack Altman4:15

       Yep.

   23. CCChristina Cacioppo4:16

       They don't care if, you know, you were secret shopped, and someone took screenshots and, like, ripped everything off. There's no referees in capitalism.

   24. JAJack Altman4:23

       Yeah.

   25. CCChristina Cacioppo4:24

       Um, and you kind of want there to be one, but, like, there's not.

   26. JAJack Altman4:26

       There's not.

   27. CCChristina Cacioppo4:27

       And I think you've got to stop searching for one, and-

   28. JAJack Altman4:30

       Did you have a thing switch for you?

   29. CCChristina Cacioppo4:31

       Yeah.

   30. JAJack Altman4:31

       Like, were you at one point looking for a referee, and then you decided to stop?
4. 5:20 – 6:43

   Shipping velocity

   1. JAJack Altman5:20

      What else from a mindset, you know, perspective did you end up building over time, besides, like, all's fair in love and capitalism-

   2. CCChristina Cacioppo5:26

      Yep

   3. JAJack Altman5:26

      ... which I think is, like, a very, uh, that is, like, hard, hard-earned wisdom, but what else came to you over time?

   4. CCChristina Cacioppo5:33

      Shipping velocity, uh, 'cause I think also, you know, then the Vanta, and even the Vanta of, like, a pre-competitive era, we, like, tried to get stuff right the first time, and so we'd write these long specs and do all this work and then, like, take a long time to ship something, and then it was wrong, and not, you know, through anyone's fault. It's just usually the first thing you put in front of a customer is, in fact, wrong, but we would, like, had spent six months on that-

   5. JAJack Altman5:55

      Right

   6. CCChristina Cacioppo5:56

      ... and then we get this kind of negative feedback, and then, so, and we're just, like, very demoralized.... and then customer's like, "What have you shipped for me lately?" Like, nothing.

   7. JAJack Altman6:03

      Yeah.

   8. CCChristina Cacioppo6:04

      Right? And so trying to get to, like, the frame, and I feel this way in my career, too, it's like I very rarely, if ever, ship the right thing the first time, but I can usually ship the right thing by, like, the fourth time.

   9. JAJack Altman6:14

      Yep.

   10. CCChristina Cacioppo6:15

       And so in a team, it's like, how do you minimize the time between, you know-

   11. JAJack Altman6:19

       Like-

   12. CCChristina Cacioppo6:19

       ... the zero and then the fourth time? [chuckles]

   13. JAJack Altman6:20

       How quickly can we get to V4?

   14. CCChristina Cacioppo6:22

       Exactly.

   15. JAJack Altman6:23

       Yeah.

   16. CCChristina Cacioppo6:23

       And like, V4 should be right, and I'll hold you to that, but V1, like, V1 does not have to be right, and like, trying to switch to that mindset-

   17. JAJack Altman6:30

       Yeah

   18. CCChristina Cacioppo6:30

       ... 'cause I think we had a lot of people who are, you know, like, good students, and done well in school, and wanna get it right on the test, and get it right the first time, and feel bad. And you're like, "No, no, no." Like, that's the mental model of school, but actually not to real life.

   19. JAJack Altman6:40

       Totally.

   20. CCChristina Cacioppo6:41

       And trying to, like, flip that, too.

5. 6:43 – 8:09

   Mindset on competition

   1. JAJack Altman6:43

      Competition is one of the, like, more, um, psychologically vexing parts of a startup.

   2. CCChristina Cacioppo6:47

      Yeah.

   3. JAJack Altman6:48

      Do you try to minimize how much you think about it or how much your team thinks about it? Like, what's the... What have you tried to cultivate for yourself, your exec team, your broader team, about competition?

   4. CCChristina Cacioppo7:01

      I think there is, and this works kind of sometimes well and sometimes not, but I think for me, what I- when I'm at my best, what I try to do is, like, if a competitor is do- if the competitor is just copying, like, fine. But also there's a little bit of, like, how can we use that to our advantage? And we have in some ways, where we're like, "We're gonna call this new field this, and like, everyone's gonna call it!" And like, have we created a category now, right? [chuckles] Like, there's, there's parts you can kind of weaponize for yourself.

   5. JAJack Altman7:24

      Yeah. Yeah.

   6. CCChristina Cacioppo7:24

      The other part is if do something different-

   7. JAJack Altman7:26

      Yep

   8. CCChristina Cacioppo7:26

      ... why? And I think it's trying to start from the, like, assume they're smart-

   9. JAJack Altman7:29

      Mm-hmm

   10. CCChristina Cacioppo7:30

       ... not, like, assume they're idiots.

   11. JAJack Altman7:31

       Yep.

   12. CCChristina Cacioppo7:32

       And be like, "What do they know that I don't?" And try to figure that out. And again, maybe you conclude they know nothing you don't and they're idiots, but like, I think it is a u- always a useful thought exercise, even if you've dismissed them the last ten times or something like this-

   13. JAJack Altman7:45

       Yeah. Have you had it go the other way, where you've ended up cloning something from a competitor? 'Cause, like, yeah, they figured something out good.

   14. CCChristina Cacioppo7:49

       Yeah, actually, um, there was a bunch of... One of our com- early competitors was really good at talking to our customers and finding out the parts of the product they didn't like and fix them.

   15. JAJack Altman7:57

       Mm.

   16. CCChristina Cacioppo7:57

       It was particularly brutal, honestly, 'cause it was like, "Oh, yeah, they just listened to our customers better than we did."

   17. JAJack Altman8:02

       Uh-huh.

   18. CCChristina Cacioppo8:03

       And so that, we were like, "Okay, like, that needs, that needs to stop-

   19. JAJack Altman8:06

       Yeah

   20. CCChristina Cacioppo8:06

       ... right now." [chuckles]

   21. JAJack Altman8:07

       Yeah, totally.

   22. CCChristina Cacioppo8:08

       Yeah.

   23. JAJack Altman8:08

       Yeah.

6. 8:09 – 10:25

   Structuring a GTM approach

   1. JAJack Altman8:09

      Have you learned anything about how to do, like, the go-to-market side in a competitive market, whether it's, like, the way you, you know, position at the top of the funnel... I mean, like, you had... I think you've been running the, like, compliance that doesn't-

   2. CCChristina Cacioppo8:22

      Yeah

   3. JAJack Altman8:22

      ... talk too much billboards for a long time. That's still, like, the best billboard I've ever seen.

   4. CCChristina Cacioppo8:25

      It's after twenty twenty-one-

   5. JAJack Altman8:27

      Yeah

   6. CCChristina Cacioppo8:27

      ... was its debut.

   7. JAJack Altman8:28

      It's crazy.

   8. CCChristina Cacioppo8:28

      Yeah.

   9. JAJack Altman8:28

      You keep it going.

   10. CCChristina Cacioppo8:29

       Yeah.

   11. JAJack Altman8:30

       Yeah.

   12. CCChristina Cacioppo8:30

       That billboard's locked up for-

   13. JAJack Altman8:31

       Ten more years.

   14. CCChristina Cacioppo8:32

       Like, kind of, actually. [chuckles]

   15. JAJack Altman8:33

       I love that.

   16. CCChristina Cacioppo8:33

       Yes. [chuckles]

   17. JAJack Altman8:34

       But, like, what have you learned in sort of, like, the way that you structure your go-to-market when you're... I mean, most markets are really competitive, but, like, what have you learned?

   18. CCChristina Cacioppo8:40

       Yeah. I think one bit is, like, man, AE confidence is so real, and not as rational as, like, a EPD person, like a engineer or a PM would imagine.

   19. JAJack Altman8:50

       Yeah.

   20. CCChristina Cacioppo8:51

       And that works on the way up, and it works on the way down.

   21. JAJack Altman8:53

       Uh-huh.

   22. CCChristina Cacioppo8:53

       When the team is starting to lose confidence, like, you've gotta go fast, and you can't just go in with logic, and I think we messed that up for a while.

   23. JAJack Altman9:00

       Mm.

   24. CCChristina Cacioppo9:01

       Um, and it works on the way up, too, and but then it kind of becomes this, like, how do you build confidence amongst your salespeople?

   25. JAJack Altman9:07

       How do you build it?

   26. CCChristina Cacioppo9:08

       What we did, and this is all credit to our CRO, Stevie, was one of the- one of our issues with early competitors was they were actually so good at, like, secret shopping Vanta and, like, maybe exfiltrating... You know, like, they just, like, knew everything, and we knew very little.

   27. JAJack Altman9:23

       Mm.

   28. CCChristina Cacioppo9:23

       And I think we were also, like, very Midwestern, like, nice, like, "Oh, but we're nice, and isn't it?" You know, and, like, not, not good at competitive intel. [chuckles]

   29. JAJack Altman9:29

       Yeah.

   30. CCChristina Cacioppo9:29

       And so the way we solved that was we put one or two people on every competitive deal, and they just, like, listened to all the call, or, like, they were in all the calls. They talked to all the customers. They talked to, like, rip customers in both directions, and they just got smart-
7. 10:25 – 16:36

   Fundraising strategies

   1. JAJack Altman10:25

      Um, I wanna go over to fundraising. I guess you started fundraising at your seed in, when was it? Two thousand eighteen?

   2. CCChristina Cacioppo10:32

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JAJack Altman10:32

      Is that right?

   4. CCChristina Cacioppo10:32

      April '18.

   5. JAJack Altman10:33

      April '18. You then, I think, if I recall, had, like, a lot of investors who wanted to talk to you over a period of time between then and your A.

   6. CCChristina Cacioppo10:40

      Yes.

   7. JAJack Altman10:41

      Can you just talk about, like, some of the stuff you did? I know we've talked about this before-

   8. CCChristina Cacioppo10:44

      Yeah, yeah

   9. JAJack Altman10:44

      ... but, like, what, can you talk about in that period, how you made most use of that time?

   10. CCChristina Cacioppo10:48

       Yeah, so I think, so for the seed, what we did was only took money from seed funds. The thinking was, or, like, don't take money from anyone who will write an A check, because we did the, like, post-YC, you know, raise your seed round in six days-

   11. JAJack Altman11:00

       Yep

   12. CCChristina Cacioppo11:01

       ... crazy thing, and didn't wanna choose a board member. And so, like, that just felt silly. Board members are, like, harder to get rid of than-

   13. JAJack Altman11:07

       Yep

   14. CCChristina Cacioppo11:07

       ... you know, execs, co-founders, right? Like, choose, be, be thoughtful about that decision. And then I did a... I can't remember who told me to do this. Raised the seed round, then went around to all the A firms, and we're like, "Hi, just interesting vendor. We just raised. No opportunity for you here. Just wanna say hi," and, like, put the first, like, put the first dot on the map.

   15. JAJack Altman11:25

       Like, right after the round?

   16. CCChristina Cacioppo11:26

       Right after the round.

   17. JAJack Altman11:27

       Like, within weeks kind of thing?

   18. CCChristina Cacioppo11:28

       The one week.

   19. JAJack Altman11:29

       Wow.

   20. CCChristina Cacioppo11:29

       It was like, schedule all of them, but to schedule them after it's done.

   21. JAJack Altman11:32

       Wow.

   22. CCChristina Cacioppo11:32

       Yeah, um, and so just like, "Just saying hi."

   23. JAJack Altman11:34

       Someone gave you advice to do that?

   24. CCChristina Cacioppo11:35

       Yeah, and it's like putting, putting myself on the map, you know, nothing for you now, but, like, here you go.

   25. JAJack Altman11:40

       I love that. It also creates a very low-stakes conversation, where nobody is thinking, like, that they can ask you about certain... Like, you just can control that conversation so easily-

   26. CCChristina Cacioppo11:48

       Yes

   27. JAJack Altman11:48

       ... I bet.

   28. CCChristina Cacioppo11:48

       Yes.

   29. JAJack Altman11:49

       Yeah.

   30. CCChristina Cacioppo11:49

       So did that, and then it was like, I obviously, there was this moment of, like, "Shit, we just, like, raised three million dollars to do all this stuff, and we have, you know, two people sitting on a couch." Like, [chuckles] "We gotta, gotta, we gotta get, we gotta get hopping."
8. 16:36 – 21:57

   VCs being “helpful”

   1. JAJack Altman16:36

      this podcast, I've talked to a bunch of VCs about in what ways they think VCs might be helpful.

   2. CCChristina Cacioppo16:41

      Uh.

   3. JAJack Altman16:41

      But I'd like to hear from you, in what ways you think VCs might be helpful, uh, to the extent that you think that they are.

   4. CCChristina Cacioppo16:47

      Sometimes, some of them. I think VCs, I mean, at their best, like all of us, like, smart, motivated people who are good at their jobs. Their jobs are investing, their jobs are not operating. Like, the, like, that is a... Like, it sounds dumb and trite, but I think there's something deeply there. Like, they're probably not good at running companies, or if they are, and are now doing, like, they've now cho-

   5. JAJack Altman17:07

      They're not good at running your-

   6. CCChristina Cacioppo17:08

      No, they've now chosen to do something else and, like, don't want to run your company. [chuckles]

   7. JAJack Altman17:11

      Right. Yeah.

   8. CCChristina Cacioppo17:11

      You can explain this better than I can.

   9. JAJack Altman17:13

      It... Yeah, and they probably couldn't run your specific company anyway.

   10. CCChristina Cacioppo17:16

       Right.

   11. JAJack Altman17:16

       Yeah.

   12. CCChristina Cacioppo17:16

       And so when you're looking to them for like... Or, like, things they're probably not good at is, you know, how do you, like, hire your first salesperson? How do you compensate them when, like-

   13. JAJack Altman17:25

       Yeah

   14. CCChristina Cacioppo17:25

       ... Chili Piper starts writing leads under a couch cushion, what do you do? Like, that is not VC stuff-

   15. JAJack Altman17:30

       Yeah

   16. CCChristina Cacioppo17:31

       ... almost universally. Or if it is, I guess and you're not, like, super, super early stage or some special thing, like, something's probably off.

   17. JAJack Altman17:39

       Right. Well, they're probably capable of giving you an answer to that. It's actually, I would think, it's more like you probably shouldn't need to ba- there, you probably should have other vehicles to get that stuff.

   18. CCChristina Cacioppo17:47

       Right.

   19. JAJack Altman17:47

       Yeah.

   20. CCChristina Cacioppo17:47

       I think, um, recruiting support, especially in the early days.

   21. JAJack Altman17:52

       Yeah. When you say recruiting support, do you mean sending you candidates, or do you mean closing candidates?

   22. CCChristina Cacioppo17:57

       I more mean closing candidates. There's some sending of candidates, but I do think that is, uh, like-

   23. JAJack Altman18:01

       Do you find the sending of candidates helpful, or do you think the closing of them is all about?

   24. CCChristina Cacioppo18:05

       Tomato, tomato. Yeah.

   25. JAJack Altman18:06

       Yeah.

   26. CCChristina Cacioppo18:06

       Yeah.

   27. JAJack Altman18:06

       Yeah.

   28. CCChristina Cacioppo18:07

       I mean, like, there's some stuff there, and but I think in the early stages, and it's like Sequoia's model is like, "Okay, we'll send you candidates up until this point, and then we will basically cut you off."

   29. JAJack Altman18:14

       Did you get candidates from that?... [sighs] I mean, did you get hires from that?

   30. CCChristina Cacioppo18:19

       Very rarely.
9. 21:57 – 28:33

   Recruiting as you scale

   1. JAJack Altman21:57

      That makes sense. I guess on the recruiting topic in general, maybe now unrelated to investors, but with your own recruiting, what have you found over time that that's changed for you or that has been important for you? But like, if you go back, you know, and you think about, like, how you recruited when you were a seed or Series A company-

   2. CCChristina Cacioppo22:15

      [chuckles] So bad.

   3. JAJack Altman22:16

      I guess something changed, yeah, based on that.

   4. CCChristina Cacioppo22:18

      I think in the early days, we were trying to be very frameworks-driven and rigorous, and everything was bespoke.

   5. JAJack Altman22:24

      Like your VC spreadsheet.

   6. CCChristina Cacioppo22:25

      Exactly, yes.

   7. JAJack Altman22:26

      Yeah.

   8. CCChristina Cacioppo22:27

      And it's like, you know, it's also when you've, like, you hire, like, the first person in every role, so every role is distinct.

   9. JAJack Altman22:32

      Yeah.

   10. CCChristina Cacioppo22:32

       But we would have these, like, crazy, like, multi-day interview loops that were like we would send someone through a, I don't know, Tough Mudder, you know, and, like, wonder why candidates dropped out.

   11. JAJack Altman22:42

       Yeah.

   12. CCChristina Cacioppo22:42

       And you're like, "Well, that's 'cause we asked them to, like, I don't know, do an obstacle course."

   13. JAJack Altman22:46

       Uh-huh, uh-huh.

   14. CCChristina Cacioppo22:47

       I will say, the people who got through, like, man, were they down.

   15. JAJack Altman22:49

       They really wanted to join.

   16. CCChristina Cacioppo22:50

       We're so down. [chuckles]

   17. JAJack Altman22:50

       Yeah.

   18. CCChristina Cacioppo22:50

       They were really down. Um, but, like, in retrospect, you're like, "Wow, we made that really hard for candidates and us to, like, unclear ends."

   19. JAJack Altman22:58

       Yep.

   20. CCChristina Cacioppo22:59

       Engineering recruiting, you just, you mess it up every two years, no matter what.

   21. JAJack Altman23:02

       Hmm.

   22. CCChristina Cacioppo23:03

       It is hard. It is both hard and doable, and you just have to do it. So it's my... Talking to someone last night about this. And then you, like, figure out engineering recruiting for a bit, and then something changes.

   23. JAJack Altman23:11

       What changes? Inside the company or in the market, or what?

   24. CCChristina Cacioppo23:14

       Both.

   25. JAJack Altman23:15

       Mm-hmm.

   26. CCChristina Cacioppo23:15

       Well, like inside the co- Vanta example, we for years just hired generalists.

   27. JAJack Altman23:20

       Hmm.

   28. CCChristina Cacioppo23:21

       And then, like, a year and a half ago or so, we're like, "Okay, cool, there we have a gen- we should have a generalist pipeline, but, like, man, we've, you know, we have Mongo. We should get people who really know Mongo. We use GraphQL, that technical section, whatever. We need people who know GraphQL," you know, and, like, we should have these, like, separate pipelines.

   29. JAJack Altman23:34

       In a way that this doesn't happen in design or sales or marketing? 'Cause, like, the tech stack changes in marketing, I guess.

   30. CCChristina Cacioppo23:39

       You know what? I think what it is, is, like, engineering recruiting, I mean, to- is just harder than all the other roles.
10. 28:33 – 32:09

    Adapting to the AI era

    1. JAJack Altman28:33

       I think one of the, one of the sort of interesting sort of secular things that's happened to Vanta and you is you started a company at sort of the tail end of cloud SaaS bull run, great, and then the world's all AI, everything, everywhere, all the time now. And so I'm curious how you've taken the moment and how you basically are running things, given that you have this obvious thing that comes in, and you obviously have to adapt. Like, what are, like, what are, like, the main things that have happened for you running the company now?

    2. CCChristina Cacioppo29:05

       There is a lot of hopefully, like, AI encouragement and excitement across the company, and that is both in, like, how we work, like, our, you know, engineers using insert tool here. What are we building for customers? And I think, you know, really broadly, you know, like, we've got half of folks who are, like, totally down, and half of folks who are a little, like, "I have a job, and it's really busy, and, like, you want me to do what now? Like, can I just do my thing here?"

    3. JAJack Altman29:28

       Yeah.

    4. CCChristina Cacioppo29:28

       And so it's like, okay, how do you, how do you bring those together? Um, and, like, what are the carrots? And so... But I think at the my level, leadership level, there is just, like, a ton of, uh, conviction that, like, this is real.

    5. JAJack Altman29:41

       Does it matter for your product, or does it matter for just what you're- the way you're building, the way you're doing go to mar- Like-

    6. CCChristina Cacioppo29:46

       I think it matters a ton for our product-

    7. JAJack Altman29:48

       Yeah

    8. CCChristina Cacioppo29:48

       ... because so much of compliance is taking information in one format and putting it in another.

    9. JAJack Altman29:52

       Yeah.

    10. CCChristina Cacioppo29:53

        Right? Like, actually, and so there's just... And, like, I think the pieces of compliance will not change, but, like, will you have to... You probably, you or Eric, had to, like, write your own policy documents.

    11. JAJack Altman30:02

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CCChristina Cacioppo30:02

        Isn't that, like, kind of, you know, you're like, "Yeah, and you also need to carry your patient."

    13. JAJack Altman30:05

        Yeah, or at least copy/paste them and hope they're right or something like that.

    14. CCChristina Cacioppo30:07

        Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

    15. JAJack Altman30:08

        Yeah.

    16. CCChristina Cacioppo30:08

        And then you're like, if you had to, if you want to know what was in them, you had to read them. [chuckles]

    17. JAJack Altman30:10

        Yeah, that's crazy.

    18. CCChristina Cacioppo30:11

        Right? [chuckles]

    19. JAJack Altman30:11

        Yeah, now you can just skip the summary.

    20. CCChristina Cacioppo30:13

        Exactly.

    21. JAJack Altman30:13

        Yeah.

    22. CCChristina Cacioppo30:13

        You know, but, like, literally, like, we have all that stuff in the product now. That's a very small example, but I think it's a concrete one.

    23. JAJack Altman30:18

        Yep.

    24. CCChristina Cacioppo30:18

        And so it's like, yeah, there's still be policy documents, but, like, how will they be created? How will they be disseminated? How do you know what's in them? How do you keep them in sync with everything else?

    25. JAJack Altman30:26

        Yeah.

    26. CCChristina Cacioppo30:26

        Like, that is all AI.

    27. JAJack Altman30:27

        How much AI are you consuming, just, like, other AI products, just to run your company differently across everything?

    28. CCChristina Cacioppo30:32

        [chuckles] We're, we're in an AI procurement boom. I hope I don't say this in a billion emails.

    29. JAJack Altman30:37

        Are you buying it? Yeah.

    30. CCChristina Cacioppo30:37

        Yeah, but a little bit. We used to be much stingier, and I think- [chuckles]
11. 32:09 – 38:18

    What should be AI-ified

    1. CCChristina Cacioppo32:09

       about them?

    2. JAJack Altman32:09

       What are some of the... I was about to ask this question in an obnoxious way of like, "If you had to start a startup right now, what would you start?"

    3. CCChristina Cacioppo32:14

       Yeah.

    4. JAJack Altman32:15

       Which I'm gonna ask a different way. What pieces of software do you think that you could be or should be consuming that you're not yet? Like, what are some of the areas of the business at Vanta that you think should be AI-ified?

    5. CCChristina Cacioppo32:25

       I think go-to-market systems is a Rube Goldberg machine constructed by, like, seven different tools.

    6. JAJack Altman32:33

       Yeah, that's what we had, and we had, like, nine biz ops people-

    7. CCChristina Cacioppo32:36

       Yes

    8. JAJack Altman32:36

       ... holding it all together.

    9. CCChristina Cacioppo32:37

       Exactly, yes.

    10. JAJack Altman32:37

        Yeah.

    11. CCChristina Cacioppo32:38

        Yeah.

    12. JAJack Altman32:38

        And it was like, "Once it gets to that system, they're gonna grab this ball and put it over here." [chuckles]

    13. CCChristina Cacioppo32:42

        Exactly. [chuckles] Exactly. And it's just kind of nuts 'cause you're like, "Okay, if this were engineering," like, or, "This does not exist in engineering"-

    14. JAJack Altman32:48

        It would be unacceptable.

    15. CCChristina Cacioppo32:49

        It would be entirely unacceptable.

    16. JAJack Altman32:50

        Yeah.

    17. CCChristina Cacioppo32:50

        It would be unacceptable a decade ago.

    18. JAJack Altman32:51

        Yeah.

    19. CCChristina Cacioppo32:52

        And so, like, someone should fix that. [chuckles]

    20. JAJack Altman32:53

        Yeah, yeah.

    21. CCChristina Cacioppo32:54

        完 全 に .

    22. JAJack Altman32:54

        Can you say a little bit more about the... Like, can you... D- you don't have to name the vendors, but like-

    23. CCChristina Cacioppo32:58

        Yeah

    24. JAJack Altman32:58

        ... name the parts of, like, maybe the parts of the funnel you're talking about?

    25. CCChristina Cacioppo33:01

        Yeah, like, I don't even mean the marketing b-

    26. JAJack Altman33:02

        Yeah.

    27. CCChristina Cacioppo33:02

        It's like someone goes to vanta.com and is like, "Okay, I want a demo," or-

    28. JAJack Altman33:06

        Yeah

    29. CCChristina Cacioppo33:06

        ... "I want Vanta."

    30. JAJack Altman33:07

        Yeah.
12. 38:18 – 42:39

    Mental game of being a founder

    1. JAJack Altman38:18

       The last topic I wanna go to is, so you're what, seven years in, eight years-

    2. CCChristina Cacioppo38:22

       Something like that

    3. JAJack Altman38:22

       ... something like that?

    4. CCChristina Cacioppo38:23

       Yep.

    5. JAJack Altman38:23

       What's the founder sort of mindset that you've, you know, settled into? Not that you're settled into one, and I'm sure there's still-

    6. CCChristina Cacioppo38:30

       Yeah

    7. JAJack Altman38:30

       ... turmoil and evolution, but, like, what is the inner game journey that you've been through?

    8. CCChristina Cacioppo38:34

       Yeah. Uh, two things. The, like, trope of, like, a dozen could do three, you just go faster, is deeply true, and I think the lived experience is, like, you know, kinda every day you... I don't know, like, I feel like I, like, only halfway know what I'm doing-

    9. JAJack Altman38:46

       Yeah

    10. CCChristina Cacioppo38:46

        ... or, like, that's a new skill. And so you're- you never feel like you're, like, on it. I feel like I'm totally on it, but then every once in a while, I'll, like, go back and, you know, someone's out, so I'll, like, do the one-on-ones with their manager and be like, "Oh, I can do this now," right? And the first time I was managing or managing a manager, I didn't feel-

    11. JAJack Altman39:02

        Yeah

    12. CCChristina Cacioppo39:02

        ... comfortable, but, like, I got- I did learn something.

    13. JAJack Altman39:06

        Yeah.

    14. CCChristina Cacioppo39:06

        And you have these kind of moments, which is one of, like, talking to an early-stage founder, and you're like, "Oh, no, I, I have a point of view here, and I adamantly believe it. Maybe I'm right, maybe wrong, but, like, I've learned something."

    15. JAJack Altman39:17

        Yep.

    16. CCChristina Cacioppo39:17

        So there's some of that. Uh, even if in the day-to-day, you're, like, still and like, "Well, I've done this before, but here we go."

    17. JAJack Altman39:22

        Yep.

    18. CCChristina Cacioppo39:23

        And then I think there is a... all the, like, there's, like, different types of CEOs or, like, the job changes, and your job is to, like, make the-- build the product and then build the company and then build the team-

    19. JAJack Altman39:32

        Yeah

    20. CCChristina Cacioppo39:32

        ... or team, company, whatever it is.

    21. JAJack Altman39:33

        Yeah. [chuckles]

    22. CCChristina Cacioppo39:34

        You know?

    23. JAJack Altman39:34

        Some order.

    24. CCChristina Cacioppo39:35

        Some order. Not that-

    25. JAJack Altman39:35

        You did it

    26. CCChristina Cacioppo39:36

        ... not that order. [chuckles]

    27. JAJack Altman39:36

        You just don't remember it. Yeah. [chuckles]

    28. CCChristina Cacioppo39:38

        Probably product, team, company. Now that I said it out loud.

    29. JAJack Altman39:41

        Yeah.

    30. CCChristina Cacioppo39:41

        And, like, those are very different, and there's, like, all different types of people. You enjoy different things, and, like, I think in some way that's true, but I also think, I don't, like, you know, joke that's kinda not a joke, is like, "No, you just have to, like, Stockholm syndrome yourself-

Episode duration: 42:39