Secure Business Communication with Traceless (EP 1032)

[0:14] Hello, friends. Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast coming at you from Pax. My buddy Rob Ray, best friend in the channel.

[0:23] Sorry, that is going to be a horrible thing to edit out here. Obviously, we're at Pax 8 Beyond here in Salt Lake City. And day two is upon us and it is loud. It is crowded. So it is going to be fun today. So we are now, let's see, into a few interviews here. And you know what, Gene? I didn't ask how to pronounce your last name. Rich. Rich. Yeah. Because that's not how it looks. No, not at all. I tried to shake it when I was younger and it just didn't work out. So I kept it. Okay. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. So Gene Rich here from a company called Traceless. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm glad you're new because it would have been horrible to say, never heard of you. You've been around for 10 years. Yeah. I mean, we're trying. Like we're just talking. It's such a big space. Yeah. It's really hard to think about how do I let everybody find what I'm doing, and it's hard. It's not like a one-way. Yeah, it is. But you actually have a little bit of an advantage. Well, I shouldn't say a little bit. Most of the vendors started in the MSP space. You, yourself, doing an MSP for 20 years? Yeah, still a part of it from an advisory standpoint. All right. So it's been 21 years, technically. That's when you started? Yeah. Okay. As somebody told me last night.

[1:43] My experience in the channel is old enough to have a drink. Nothing wrong with that, because that is a big thing, but you got to have a wristband here. Yeah, exactly. Especially in Utah. Okay. Where were you based out of? I live in Newburgh, New York. Okay. And my MSP started in New York City and, you know, we cover national because we have a very specific focus on Apple devices. Yeah. So that's what a lot of people are like, what? You know, how's that work? We made it. And the team at Traceless is also geographically dispersed. There's a few of us in New York, one in Florida, one in California. All right. I just had a bunch of questions pop up. Let me first go to New York. Do you know, what's that guy's name? Justin? Yeah, Justin and I go way back. Okay. Yeah, we've both been a part of the Apple Certified Consulting Network. I mean, both of us kind of started our companies. I know he's been around for over 10 years, I think. We'll have to catch up with him about that. But yeah, I've known him before. I just met him last year. Yeah. And he's doing a podcast thing with my buddy, Eric Anthony. He invited me to go to ACES this year. So I flew up to Minnesota for the very first time. Okay. And yeah, it's all right.

[2:56] Minnesota. The conference was great. But Minnesota was all right. Okay. So I was going to ask about that in the Apple space and stuff. And where in Florida? Florida, our guy's in Miami. Actually, on Southeast Asia. Really? Yeah. Really? We're remotely dispersed. So that's just where he chose to move. Must be doing nice because I m in fort Lauderdale yeah so that's i that's down the road i don't travel down to Miami much yeah it's interesting he's like he's been a, citizen of south beach for a very very long time yeah so i think there's like a legacy of people who've just been there who like living on the beach playing volleyball oh yeah well yeah i mean especially if you know Collins avenue and coconut grove i mean, there could be worse places to put a foot, And exist in STEM, I think. Let's move on.

[3:48] So before we run out of time, tell us about Traceless, because when I looked it up, AI security, blah, blah, blah. And I just was like, OK, let me just ask, what do you do and how does that work for MSPs? Yeah, it's interesting as we've evolved, like I mentioned before we were talking, Traceless was born out of a problem that I felt I had in my own MSP, which was pretty simple. How do I know who's calling my help desk and how do I give people passwords? And as we've evolved, and the threat landscape has also evolved, we look at ourselves like a company that protects business communication. So if you think like business communication, cybersecurity, what does that mean, really? It's like, well, it's not email security, right? But it's protecting how we communicate and how to make sure that when we do that, we do it in a way that's safe, right? So Traceless has three main pillars. One is Traceless Verify. Which is an on demand.

[4:48] Identity verification mechanism. When you're dealing with an end user, either they call in or you send them something to verify they are who they say they are. Correct. And it's, you know, it's interesting, like Peter, my co-founder, who's over there, he came back with a CrowdStrike hat and the CrowdStrike hat was like, stop scattered spider. And I'm like, oh, it sounds like CrowdStrike is selling traceless, right? And so I think it's been interesting to think about that, particularly in the help desk. But now, you know, we're at Pax8 and the products on the marketplace And all of our MSPs, have an opportunity to improve the hygiene of their customers' communications because there are other high-risk transactions besides help desk calls that require identity verification. Think about like wire fraud, HR workflows, other finance and legal workflows. Okay. Right? So the help desk is one. Correct. Wire transfers. Is that two or three? I mean, what's interesting is I still think we're pretty early in the MSP space, as crazy as it sounds. But.

[5:53] The idea that an MSP's customer would have a tool like Traces is even a little bit earlier. But I think most people, if you talk to any MSP here, okay, do you have a customer that has been concerned about voice AI phishing or...

[6:10] Was there ever a story of a customer sending a wire to somebody else well i think all of us can say yes to that one correct right but what are you doing about that to help your customer not do that again for us that's traces okay yeah all right, so that's verifying first one verifies first okay right then there's traces data right so traces data is an ephemeral way to get people, sensitive information whether it's, text or files up to tinder days okay and you could do all these things in ticketing right because you think about ticketing right that's how we changed how we communicated right, so but you're talking something different than just basic file transfer right because if you're doing a file transfer you can obviously secure that with some of the generic platforms that are out there, but the password part of that, how are you doing that? Yeah, so I mean, I think if you're talking about encrypted email, I think I disagree with that because... No, no, I'm talking about... But there are tools. I'm talking about if I've got a law firm that needs to send over, they need to zip a case file, you know, it's 100 gigs, they need to send it to somebody, but they need to add security to that. Right. Right now, they're just using some, I'm not going to name a platform. Right, just a... But they're going to use a platform or make an added password, and that's it. Right, and so for us, we're also able to put multi-factor on a data request. Okay. Right?

[7:39] What's nice about the platform is typically who you're doing high-risk transactions with, you might want to verify them on a phone call, or you might want to make sure that only that person has access to this document. Right. And so that's also a place where we combine Traceless Verify with Traceless Data. Okay. All right. Do you follow me? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, she did. Okay, great. So yeah, all those other platforms, because I'm using one with the law firm, and it doesn't have the multi-factor. It's got the password.

[8:08] Yeah. But if we can do the verify feature in there, that would be great. So verify data. Right. And then we have our AI platform, which is a contextual DLP mechanism. And what's interesting, Peter, my co-founder, is a machine learning engineer by trade. So he's been doing this kind of stuff for 10 years. Okay. And when we started talking about our mission of protecting communication, one of the, I mean, let's just break it down, right? All attacks start with some kind of phishing, email, phone, basically an attacker's got to find an open door and walk through. Yeah. Now, once they walk through it, they find data.

[8:54] And that data is what either leads them to more data access or is what is exfiltrament. Right. And so the idea that sensitive information shouldn't be left in rest, use trace as data.

[9:10] The follow on is, well, humans are going to human. Right. Right. It's not going to fix humans. So, at least I don't think so, not yet. But it's a way for sensitive information to, not be left at rest in communication platforms like chat and ticketing okay and also we're talking we're talking something different than encryption though correct okay so like in a simple demo is like you and i are on teams right we work remotely I m like hey Marv here's a wire info right, because I m a human i type a wire info traceless is like whoa hold on, you can't put that here I ve deleted it and put it in a traceless data link okay right now i can see that data securely okay, we also have a mechanism where you can do that before, you put the data if you know you want to use traceless if you if you are a user and you're like i am i am bought in on this paradigm right you could call traceless through teams and put sensitive info through teams without even hitting the Microsoft infrastructure at all Okay. Now, is it just sensitive data or can you do that for like all data in SharePoint or a Dropbox location or something like that? I think we have ideas of future integrations. Okay.

[10:32] You know, the other thing that I'll mention is it's contextual. So I think one of the problems with social engineering is that people start, by warming up and then they like start asking for things that maybe they shouldn't. Right. Or can I do a can you do me a favor? Exactly. Or, you know, my payroll. I just changed my bank. Hey, CFO is the new routing number. Can you just update it from your right? Okay, well, I mean, should I blindly trust that request or should Trace's say, hey, look, I'm going to verify this person is typing this stuff right now. So the idea that we can protect communications in real time, with identity verification and sensitive information, we think will help businesses

[11:20] be healthier when it comes to their hygiene around data and identity. Okay. So all of this came out of the idea that you needed to fix this for your MSP. Was Peter with you at the MSP? You know, so what's, I have such gratitude for this industry. I think we're talking about like just being in it for so long.

[11:40] There's been so many MSPs that have just helped me, right? Introducing me to paradigms and programs or, and that was like really early day going to conferences, was going to see a talk of an MSP saying, here's how I automated time entry reconciliations or whatever. So God, this is a nightmare for me, right? And now I know someone just gave me the cheat code to make my MSP better right you know and so in in the same breath of gratitude peter had brought my MSP in to scale a startup that he was a cto for okay maybe like.

[12:17] Six or seven years before we started Tracelists. And then that startup had grew and then popped, and then he moved to LA and we kind of lost touch. And I had a project for him. And I thought of him. I'm like, oh, who do I know who could do this? And I'm like, hey, Peter, I got this idea, or I got this client need. So great, I'll help you. So we were in touch already. And then I was in this CISO think tank that Arnie put together. And that's where I kind I was like, oh, my God, I have this problem. And I got petrified about it. Right. You don't think sometimes about the risk until it presents itself to you. Right. Well, or until it, you know, happens. Is that what happens? You had a client that. No, I mean, what it was is that we would talk about how MSPs were getting owned. Okay. And, you know, like you've been in it for a while, right? There was a phase of MSP life where you're like, okay, I've got like, I've got AV running, patches are cooking i got all my backups I m good, yeah right and that was a comfort right there was a time there was a time and that was like people that wasn't a standard and people didn't have it and customers didn't have it and you can go to a customer and be like do you patch your stuff because look at this and oh my god now how do you even do that right.

[13:34] Well there was a time after that where as an MSP nothing you could do was enough to make sure that you are protected because it's throughout landscapes. Yeah, you got to the point where they were moving at light speed and we were still catching up. Yeah. And even the tools we had, they might be able to detect it but not prevent it or remedy it. Yeah, and then you had supply chain attacks. And I mean, it got really bad. And I talked to people who lost their business. I mean...

[14:04] That's pretty serious when you're like, I think a lot of the 80-20, 80% of MSPs are individual people who have put their life work into a company to help other businesses. Right. Right. And to see all that potentially go away and overnight is frightening. Oh, yeah. When you talk to people and you actually know that it happens. Yeah. Right. Very interesting.

[14:27] Okay. So you and Peter connected, got this up and going. But yeah, I called him and I said, hey, I got this problem. him what do you think and he's like oh.

[14:37] We can he said two things that were very interesting he's like i don't think that this problem is your MSP problem, i don't think that this is an MSP problem i think this is an everybody problem well i was going to say that because we've talked about it just before you know that this isn't just an MSP product you're actually you know scaling this out to other, you know, industries, other companies and stuff. I mean, this is huge. I mean, we're very excited about it. I feel like we've been slow and steady at our work. We've been mostly bootstrapped. We're a product led company and we're also here because of the MSP industry, right? Well, I was going to say some MSPs might look at that and say, well, if you're catering to everybody, what does that mean for us as MSPs? Is there skin in the game for us? Is there opportunity or you're going to come in and take one of my customers that sort of thing i mean i think, you know like this reminds me of the SaaS apocalypse right which is like oh everyone's going to make apps and salesforce is going out of business, and i I m like good luck right because it's hard to find customers it's hard to reach those people, and i think at scale, how i prefer to be treated as an MSP vendor is that if i have a customer and they use traceless i could just move it over, right? No big deal. And we do that, right? We have a change of channel.

[16:03] Like, standard operating procedure with PAX 8. So if an MSP finds a customer and they want to move them to PAX 8, good, make that money, right? So I think that, like, if we find an MSP's customer and they didn't know about Traceless, then that's useful because we're helping their customers be more secure. Right. If an MSP finds that we've sold to a customer and they want to move it away from a direct relationship, that's fine with us too. Okay. You know what I mean? Like I've gone through so many like channel only, not channel. I've had a lot of large software companies that we were early day with that become public. And then they get toxic where like the new rep is reaching out to the customer saying, hey, how about your renewal? And then the customer is like, hey, is this weird to you that this rep is like asking me about this? And, you know, like we're tight with our customers. I just went through that with a vendor. So, yeah, it happens. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that like, that is not who we are and there's a great opportunity for us and all the MSPs and their customers to, to be more secure. And I think that that was really like, you know, when we started, man, it was like, all right, I'm going to make this 50 bucks a month.

[17:20] All you can eat if you're in America, $99 if you're international. Okay. Right, because of fees, of SMS delivery, whatever. Yeah. And I really felt, I was grabbing my... How long did that last? Because it can't still be, right? No, it lasted like four or five years. Okay. And I really thought, if I make this just so easy to buy, it's just, I'm going to help all these MSPs protect themselves. Well, then we have a bunch of people say, like, I can't take this price seriously. Are you guys a real company? You know what I mean? Yeah, of course. Okay, God, I'm getting yelled at for charging too little. Okay. So we've kind of harmonized our pricing as we've evolved. And, you know, as a company, we're going to continue to evolve and hope to maintain

[18:03] reasonable pricing that's easy for people to consume. Okay. Yep. Growing pains. And, yeah, I see. That's Peter right there. Let me ask you, you guys are wearing these little track suits. Yes. Is that the uniform? That is the Traces uniform. Okay. It was actually, and we talked about telling the story. So Peter is my technical better half. And we're, to set the stage, we're in the pitch it contest, which we ended up winning.

[18:29] Which was great. And, you know, another example of a community supporting innovation. So shout out to Pitch It.

[18:36] And we basically were sponsoring a startup booth. And I said, Peter, I don't know, what are we going to wear? And he goes, well, I'm going to wear sweatpants. Right? Okay. All right. So imagine, okay, I show up every year. I got all my friends, all my people. And my guy's going to be there in sweatpants. I'm like, I don't think that's a look that I feel good with. It's like, no, no, hold on, man. You're asking me, the technical guy, to come and be in a conference center for three days, talking to people nonstop. I got to be comfortable. I was like, okay, okay. I never thought about being a vendor and what that might be like from an insertion. Stand at a booth all day and be on the feed. Yeah. You got tennis shoes as opposed to dress shoes. Yeah. And so at that time, our logo was black. And we had like a magenta kind of like colorway. Ooh, magenta. That's a word you don't hear right out there. Yeah, it's a good one. And we started like, no, we should wear onesies. We should wear, what about tie-dye? And we just went down this rabbit hole. And we ended up with like crazy psychedelic tie-dye that we found an artist to do for us. Right. And what was cool about that is that became our deal. And people know us, right? And people who don't know us now know us, right? When we meet them. Well, I'll say this. I walked by your booth last night and I saw, I'm like, okay. Yeah. Okay. Let me move along here. But I didn't see...

[20:06] I'm trying to remember if I saw swag at your booth. I don't think I saw swag. Yeah. So what we have are regulation weight, ultimate Frisbees. So like actual competitive discs. Okay. We have carpenter pencils. Like Frisbee golf regulation? No, like ultimate Frisbee. Ultimate Frisbee. Okay. Which is more like team sport where you're like playing almost soccer or football. Oh, okay. Half soccer, half rugby. Yeah. Frisbee. Exactly. And then, you know, Frisbee golf is a whole thing because you have like drivers, otters. You got all, you had eight or nine discs, right? So, you know, we got carpenter pencils, which are pretty fun. All right. I'll have to go look at those.

[20:43] Yeah. But I saw the track suit and I'm like, all right, I'm going to move along. Yeah. And that, that happens. Right. I think like, I remember we sponsored evolve one year and you get feedback. And one of the groups that I presented to you was like, your, your presentation is offensive to me. Right. That was like, you know, so it elicited like an even more severe emotional response. And I think the other thing, as you know, owning a business, you can't please everyone. Oh, no. Right. And so if we're eliciting an emotional reaction, good or bad, and it's not hurting anyone, I think we're doing the work we need to from a marketing perspective. Yeah. I mean, not everybody likes me. So I'm still here podcasting.

[21:25] I guess haters are going to hate, right? They are. They are. Okay. should check the schedule. We are behind. Who's next? Should probably check.

[21:38] Yep. She's there. Okay. We can wrap it up. Because we could talk about more stuff. But Gene, thank you very much. Yeah. Traceless. Actually. So the website, when I first, Traceless.io. Traceless.io. Now it's Traceless.com. So either one gets you to there and you can see all the stuff. We didn't finish scoping out the MSP part of the program. So there is a MSP slash reseller opportunity for us. Yep. All right. They can get that at the website. We do it all through PAX 8. Okay, it's all through PAX 8. So go to the portal. You can buy direct, right? Or you can buy through PAX 8. Again, we're pretty flexible. Even change your channel. Okay, fine. You want to buy through PAX 8? Run your business. Do your thing, right? But it's easy for MSPs to provision Traces accounts for their customers through PAX 8. And that's the beauty of the relationship. All right. We will be in touch. And we'll have to chat about pitching too. I'll tell you that off the air here. Yeah, yeah. We can find time on the Zoom. team's meeting. All right. That is it, folks. And this camera is going berserk. It went wild again. That's going to do it for this episode. Gene Rich with Traceless and the psychedelic.

[22:50] Tracksuit. That's it, man. Very nice. I'll be back with more from Pax8 Beyond here in Salt Lake City. We'll see you soon. Holla.