Nishant Vispute is a fun loving person who likes to hack and go on long motorcycle rides. “An average student throughout my academics; just happened to be good with computers”, says Nishant about himself. Before starting out on the entrepreneurial [blocktext align=”right”]If you are not facing challenges then you are doing something wrong.[/blocktext]journey, he gained 6 years of experience in various Fortune 500 companies, starting his career while he was still pursuing his education. His first interaction with gadgets happened while in school and the interest in hacking and security grew stronger and stronger as he grew up.
Nishant Vispute has had a very interesting career. His first job was in local hardware shop while he was still studying. He got into technical support for both home and corporate users for Dell computers, and later with Nomura. “Those were the most fantastic year until 5 months back when I started SecureSight Technologies”, he adds. Having worked at various levels including Senior Security Member and Senior Software Developer for some time, Nishant didn’t stay with one job for long, because there was so much to learn and gain, and so less time to do it he says.
Also a passionate motorcyclist and tourist by heart, he loves going on long rides with his shortest long distance ride being 350 kilometers in a day.
Inception of SecureSight Technologies
The idea of starting a company came later but it all started after I had started consulting to SME’s soon after my last job in 2012. One of my initial customers was a SME. I was called in to assist a hacking incident which had left my client with devastating effect. The client is in business of bulk SMS and Email, they had a few server with almost minimum security and was not patched for over 3 months, they lost a huge amount of business to various kinds of hacking issues and this was not the first time they had faced this particular issue. This was my que to see a future for SecureSight Technologies.
So after a few more months of research and analysis I found that this type of issues are not rare. In fact, their occurrences were growing on a day to day basis. Not just that the damage it was doing had surpassed beyond currency value, it was billion dollar issue back in 1995-2005. Since then it’s in hundreds of billions and now what we see is the ‘Targeted Attacks’ such as on Scada systems, which are specifically designed to monitor system like nuclear reactors.
Fact is that, unknowingly start-ups and SME’s participate in large scale attacks. If you connect the dots you can see the pattern in there, and only the trained eyes can verify them. That was when I decide to venture out as a Company rather than an independent consultant.
What is SecureSight Technologies
Our ideology is simple – “Hack to update and protect”. So we do the best we do, we Hack. We hacked the process of security service delivery process and the mechanism behind it. We have developed something which until this day only an enterprise could have afforded, and to kick start security service process disruption, we came out with two offerings – Startup Security Package and Pay as you use Security.
However, our research and planning has slowed due to the lack of funding. I started by bootstrapping, and after 5 months of incorporation we still do not have much sales figures, as a large amount of time was spent on building a robust, unique, and ambitious platform which answers most of the question that start-up or SME have regarding information security. What we have is something which will be huge, a right product and service and most importantly the TEAM.
Vaibhav was my professor when I started to learn hacking and he has been mentoring me in this field since then. For me he was a go-to-guy. Since day one we had a very strong bond as we both shared the same passion toward this field. He brings over 10 years of experience. On the other hand, I have over 6 years of experience, most of which is with Fortune 500 companies in Technology and Finance.
SecureSight is here to change the opinion that start-ups and SMEs have regarding the Information Security, most importantly to offer the most interesting and innovative options in the field of Security which are specifically designed and developed for start-ups and SMEs.
Since inception we have been focused on creating a array of services for various size and types of companies including start-ups and SMEs. As of today, we have variety of service modules to cater SMEs, start-up and Enterprise. We are currently in talks of acquiring a certain software that will increase and boost our portfolio. Most of the work that we have done so far, and also the one which we are developing revolves around the Start-ups and SMEs.
To begin with ‘Startup Security Package’, a first of its kind year-long packaged security solution for start-ups. This particular package is designed to answer most of the security concerns arising at the early stage companies.
The start-up package provide you with Website Security scanning, Vulnerability Scanning, Network Optimization, Policy Documentation and Employee Awareness Training.
As you can see, the package comes loaded with certain set of security Scanning, Training and Standardization services. Each of these service play a vital role in a start-up company. Also as you see, the package gives you a broad prospective from various stand points.
The best part of the package is that with all this we also assign your company a Point of contact who is at your disposable on weekly basis to ensure that security implementation that has been done is working, also he acts as a CISO for your business in case your client has questions regarding the security in the company. Not to forget that once you take a subscription you do not need to invest a single dime more to buy any security software or hire a security professional to take care after you implement the security.
The other offering that we currently have is ‘Pay as you use’. We have broken the traditional security services in over 4 major categories and 24 different types based on their complexity. This particular offering is most suitable for the company that has a very specific requirement and also not sure of the budget they want to allocate. The service in pay as you use starts as low as 3,000 INR giving the startu-p and SMEs control over the budget at the microscopic level.
We have always thrived to deliver the Enterprise quality at Independent consultant Rate. Apart from these current offering we have something big which is still under development, but should be out in a month or two. SecureSight Technologies is set up to deliver the innovative solutions.
SecureSight Technologies recently got accepted in “Microsoft BizSpark” for one of the recent offerings that we are developing, and is un-disclosed at the moment. However to give a insight – with that project going live, we will change the whole process of ‘service delivery’. It is the most ambitious project SecureSight Team is working on since December, and it is really big.
The Way Ahead
SecureSight will be an international company, that will be a pioneer for developing a new and strategic approach for making Information Security feasible for Startup and SME’s. We already have started working on a long term project which will take us to new heights. We did manage to achieve our technical milestone, and we intend to keep it that way. SecureSight Technologies sure does hold a very bright future, not just from the unique offering or innovation prospective, but also based on the market details. We will go international very soon, based on the current Interaction with the both the Indian market and International market that we are in talks with. Also that the International market has a better awareness level and hence it is looking much brighter at least for now.
We have already defined a 5 year plan not only for scaling or growth, but also for expansion in the international market. And with a right sales team, Investors and their mentoring, SecureSight Technologies can give more than 5-6 times return in a very short period of time.
Challenges and Learning
Finding an investor for a service company has been the biggest challenge. It’s not that there aren’t people who would invest in service based company, just that we haven’t explored it completely yet due to various reasons. And yes we are looking to raise Seed or Angel funding as soon as possible. Another big challenge is with the sales. Although no one in the core team has direct experience in sales and marketing, we now do know how to sell a thing or two. But our challenge when it comes to sales and marketing is lack of awareness and misconception amongst the start-ups and SMEs. Considering or implementing Information security does not mean that there is a problem with your product or service. It could be a known flaw on the platform on which it was create, maybe the protocol used. Security does not end at ‘Hacking’, in fact hacking is a part of solution to verify the problem. In India most of the SME companies still aren’t so much aware about the Information Security. Bringing that awareness first has been one of the hurdles.
The best part of being a hacker is that we know a thing or two about navigating through the worst case situations. And that skill has been handy till date. And looking at a situation as a challenge is what we like to do. So it’s kind of hard to define the challenges, as most of them are just another day at any start-up. If you are not facing challenges then you are doing something wrong.
I just took few baby steps in the entrepreneurship, so my experience is very limited. I would say, trust your instincts. My experience so far has been overwhelming and the most exciting. Every day at work brings a new challenge and puzzle to solve. That is what keeps me on the toes and excited.