Michelle Zatlyn – Protecting the Internet – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.11]

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Colossus

Investing, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2020

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is Michelle Zatlyn. Michelle is the co-founder and COO of Cloudflare, a now $25 billion dollar business which she helped take public last year. Cloudflare helps businesses make their websites faster and more secure, and over 25 million websites are running Cloudflare today. In our conversation, we discuss the catalyst for starting CloudFlare, explore the layers of the internet and the future of distributed storage and computing power, and discuss how and why Cloudflare operates its network across 200 cities globally. We close with the importance of finding and working with great co-founders and partners as you build a business. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

DocSend is a document sharing platform that enables companies to share business-critical documents with ease and get real-time actionable analytics. With DocSend’s security and control, startup founders, investors, business development executives, and financial professionals can drive business outcomes that have a lasting impact. Start for free at www.docsend.com.

This episode of Founder’s Field Guide is also brought to you by NetSuite.

Netsuite allows founders to centralize their payment systems, ditch old spreadsheets and Quickbook tools, and finally gain visibility and control over their financials, HR, inventory, eCommerce - all in one place, instantly.

Whether you are doing a million in revenue or hundreds of millions in revenue - see why over 22,000 companies are using NetSuite today. Schedule your free product tour at https://www.netsuite.com/invest.

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Show Notes

(2:52) – (First question) – Project Honeypot and how it started

(3:39) – What question was Honeypot solving

(4:59) – Working through the idea maze of Cloudflare

(7:30) – The first iteration of Cloudflare

(8:15) – An overview of the cybersecurity market and why more leaders need to pay attention

(10:33) – First big break for the company

(12:50) – Risks they help mitigate

(16:42) – Cyber weapons that Cloudflare protects against

(20:14) – Hardest part of the building process

(24:06) – Effective marketing lessons

(25:41) – The sharks vs mosquitoes concept

(27:53) – How do decide where to focus next

(31:34) – The Cloudflare workers program

(36:33) – Their scale vs other cloud providers

(42:21) – The finance side of Cloudflare and their relationship vs Wall Street

(42:40) – John Collison Podcast Episode

(44:47) – Relationship with their founding partners

(50:46) – What about the future is most excites them

(52:32) – Kindest thing anyone has done for her

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of Founders Field Guide is brought to you by Docsend.
0:03.3	Docsend is the standard for founders to share their pitch decks with VCs when they are raising capital.
0:08.4	With Docsend, you control who has access to your fundraising materials
0:11.6	and you always know what's happening with your pitch deck after you send it.
0:14.8	Did VCs actually open it? What slides did they spend the most time on?
0:18.0	Did they share it with others? Founders are using Docsend to fundraise, but also to share
0:22.7	investor updates with their board or to send their sales pitches to prospects for better security
0:27.3	and engagement. I personally know a number of successful startups that have been able to raise
0:31.8	using Docsend. Check out Docsend.com to start your free trial. If you're curious to hear more about
0:36.9	Docsend, stay tuned at the end of this episode where I talk to Docsend CEO, Ross Hedleston.
0:42.0	This episode of Founders Field Guide is also brought to you by NetSuite. If you're an entrepreneur,
0:46.4	you know how hard running a business is. Don't let QuickBooks and Spreadsheets slow you down
0:50.4	anymore. NetSuite makes running a business simpler and faster. Whether it's centralizing your
0:54.8	multiple payment systems, ditching old spreadsheets and outdated software, only NetSuite gives you the
0:59.6	visibility and control over your financials, HR, inventory, e-commerce, and more in one place
1:05.1	instantly. Whether you're doing a million of revenue or hundreds of millions of revenue,
1:08.9	join the 22,000 other companies using NetSuite right now to save time and money for your business.
1:14.2	Schedule your free product tour right now at NetSuite.com forward slash invest. That's NetSuite.com
1:20.0	forward slash invest. Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Founders
1:26.0	Field Guide. Founders Field Guide is a series of conversations with founders, CEOs,
1:30.3	and operators building great businesses. I believe we are all builders in our own way and this series
1:35.4	is dedicated to stories and lessons from builders of all types. You can find more episodes at
	...

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