20VC: Why Being First To Market Does Not Matter, Why You Do Not Have Defensibility on Day 1, How to Analyse Market Size and Present it to Investors, Vitamins vs Painkillers; Do Vitamins Survive Recessions and Good vs Great Messaging with Guy Podjarny @

**Guy Podjarny** (0:00)
I think, first, the market is poorly defined. What does matter is being a leader in a market and having some gap. I love to ask our product managers and angel investments that I make, this capability you're building in five years' time, would it be more or less necessary in the world? And why? Why do you think that is?

**Harry Stebbings** (0:16)
I mean, my word, what a show we have in store for you, stay your listening to 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And today, I'm joined by a friend, an incredible founder in the form of Guy Podjarny, founder of Snyk, the leading developer security platform, helping developers secure as they build. Snyk has raised over $1 billion since launching, with their last round reportedly priced at $7.4 billion. As for Guy, Guy was previously CTO at Akamai, co-founded blaze.io, which was acquired by Akamai, and was the product manager of AppScan. Guy is also a public speaker, O'Reilly author, and an incredibly active angel investor with over 100 angel investments. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Ed Sim and Tom Hume, some amazing question suggestions today. They really did make such a difference. But before we dive into the show's date, you've heard me talk about how Coda is the doc that brings it all together, and how it can help your team run smoother and be more efficient. I know this because Coda helps me. We have many researchers in the team who bring all the content together for the show, and they need a single place to work, collaborate and collect notes, data and information in any format, and that's where Coda comes in. They can help your team run smoother and be more efficient. Coda allows your team to operate on the same information and collaborate in one place by putting data in one centralized location, regardless of format, eliminating roadblocks that can already stop your team in their tracks, and that's what slows down productivity and collaboration. It's time to get projects across the finish line faster. So help your team run smoothly, more efficiently with Coda, get started, stay for free by heading over to coda.io/20vc, that's coda.io/20vc, and speaking of tools we cannot live without like Coda, we have to talk about Brex. The all-in-one financial stack trusted by founders. Founders have to think globally in order to open new markets, unlock cost savings, and gain access to new talent. That's why having the right financial stack is more important than ever. And that's why Brex comes in. With Brex, you get a high limit corporate card, a high yield business account with up to $6 million in FDIC protection and bill pay, all billed with a global first mindset. Brex enables you to operate in more countries and currencies than any other provider. So you can pay vendors, run payroll and make international payments faster. We all know that's a must have for startups at any stage of growth. So are you ready to learn more about Brex's global first solution? Visit brex.com forward slash 20VC, that's brex.com/20vc. And finally, AngelList is fast becoming the center of the venture ecosystem. The startup world is just buzzing about how fast they've been shipping products that meaningfully improve the lives of both startups and fund managers and their investors. For startups, AngelList reduces the friction of cap table management, banking and fundraising all in one place. Teams can focus on scaling and let AngelList handle the rest. Thousands of startups have moved their cap tables to AngelList in the past year. AngelList also supports large venture funds and their teams with an automated software first approach and the best customer service in the industry. Fund managers can focus on making great deals while AngelList handles reporting, taxes, compliance and more. So if you're ready to scale your startup or fund with the platform at the center of it all, visit angellist.com forward slash 20VC to get started.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:28)
Three, two, one, zero.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:33)
You have now arrived at your destination.
Guy, I am so excited for this. I remember we first did a SaaS to show many years ago. We get to do this in person now. I've known you for many years. So thank you so much for joining me.

**Guy Podjarny** (3:45)
Well, thanks for having me on. Always a pleasure.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:47)
I want to start today with a little bit of context. How did you make your way into the world of startups? And most importantly, how did you come to found Snyk?

**Guy Podjarny** (3:53)
So I've been working in startups throughout my professional career. I was in the sort of the cyber parts of the Israeli army, and then went into a startup in the AppSec space that got acquired by another startup that got acquired by IBM. I'm Israeli, moved to Canada in the process, left IBM to found a web performance startup, a company that's more in the DevOps space, making websites faster.