Scott Barnes

THIS... is why we started Summit Venture Studio... These are 27 software development projects Spencer Walker and I worked on while inside the University of Utah. The Y-axis is Millions of dollars (valuation). The X-axis are value inflection points. The two companies that had the highest value at exit/raise in this chart were actually valued much higher but it skewed the graph so I am just showing how much they raised. The GREEN all exited or raised money, the BLUE were all licensed to established companies so a real value was never set after that and the RED were shut down. An interesting point to think about is that these projects were "assigned to us" and were not "chosen" as good business opportunities. Now we are screening the deals we work on for commercial viability. I am super excited for the future. Who wants to come and play with us and start a company with us? We have 8 in the pipeline and I just finished a meeting where we agreed to launch our next company hopefully in the next few weeks.

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Code Willing’s concordance solution accelerates data ingestion, modelling, simulations and backtesting. Enables quants to get tested trading strategies to production markedly faster. We partnered with Code Willing on a similar premise - to accelerate the integration of ‘alt’ data (ie data without reliable identifiers). Alt data is increasingly important to trading strategies, so having an easy button for data integration is another example of time to value.

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It is important to revisit concepts that might have eluded me. Take the Intuit Lacerte Software Development Kit (SDK). For the non-programmers, a Software Development Kit is instructions and tools for connecting to local data sources. Think of them as APIs but for accessing local data and hardware instead of cloud data. The first time I looked at the Lacerte SDK over a decade ago, I did not understand how it worked. The best I was able to do was to pull basic client information (names and address) for generating mailing labels. This was before my firm was doing digital delivery. As I started using Robot Process Automation (RPA) tools to input data into Lacerte, I learned about batch input. This let me gain a new understanding of the structure of Lacerte's data. Just last winter, I built some RPA tools to read organizer PDFs from Lacerte to build Document Requests List in SafeSend and Firm360. This let me gain a new understanding of the flow of Lacerte's data. Just a month ago, I connected with TruePrep AI to build tools for inputting data into Lacerte. My original plan was an RPA method since it was something I was familiar with. In that moment, I had decided to take another look at the Lacerte SDK. With an additional 10+ years of experience in understanding Lacerte's data structure and data flow, the SDK all makes sense. In my excitement of applying new knowledge, I can now generate those previous Document Request Lists more efficiently as well as add, update, and delete data from Lacerte. What does this mean? It means, custom import tools that can be catered to a firm's workflow like trial balances, depreciation, etc. It is always important to revisit concepts that have been previously elusive. We are the sum of our experiences and even a few months (from winter to spring) can change how we find solutions to problems.

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Happy birthday Iris!! One year ago today we had our “hello world” moment at HeyIris.AI and shipped the first version of our product. The premise was simple: build a knowledge map based on company documentation, and use that to draft responses to RFPs and security questionnaires. I had completed over 750 RFPs and security questionnaires leading an edtech company, so I knew the opportunity to flip this process on its head. Rather than requiring subject matter experts getting together in a meeting to dig through documentation and write responses, what if an AI could become an expert in your company and do that work for you? One year later, and Iris is deeply engrained in the day-to-day lives of our customers. One year later, our partners have all experienced a transformational shift in the way they do work. Every day I meet other people who experience a magical moment with AI, after using Iris. People who get to enjoy their vacations. Get works done in hours instead of weeks. Feel more welcomed at their company. Feel more useful to their colleagues. For many, AI is a scary machine taking over our jobs. For others, it’s a fad about to burst. For our users… AI is what is giving them renewed excitement. For our users… it is something they will never not do work with again. Everyone said I was crazy to chase after this— but isn’t everything worth doing pretty crazy? Thank you Sagee Moyal, Zach E., Khalil Ahmed, Talha A., Gadi Paskoff, and Cole Doherty for helping build this rocket ship. At a time when we are at the peak of inflated expectations with AI (every day I meet prospects who have had 3 or more bad experiences with AI products) I am nothing but proud of the what we have accomplished. One year after launching the first lines of code for Iris, I am excited to announce the launch of promises made, promises delivered. As COO of an edtech company, I was constantly involved in prospect and customer conversations where we promised features by a certain time, and that almost never gets kept track of by companies... Now, Iris automatically tracks the commitments made in RFPs and security questionnaires like future features and project deliverables. Turn feature commitments into jira tickets, and keep your team motivated to deliver on the promises made. It means product-driven companies can bring real priotiziation to their roadmap, based on the most valuable data they have: customer commitments, and opportunities they lost based on gaps in functionality. This is the beginning of an entirely new era of Iris— one where security teams and companies can finally drive roadmap and prioritization based on the work they have done. So naturally, we are launching it at RSA next week!! Heading to San Francisco and want to check it out? Reach out to me!

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I have found a good solution to the cold start problem for my side project: https://utahtech.work In order to have a good job board, you need to have job listings and people looking for jobs. When I first launched this project, I had none. I decided to attack the job listing front first. I now have an automated process in place that will check the number of published jobs on my site. If it's below a certain threshold, I will borrow (scrape) job listings from another source. There are some minor issues to work out like formatting the job description and adding tags. I may need to integrate with an AI service or write some sort of algorithm to correctly auto-tag each job listing, but that will be a fun challenge. If you're in Utah and looking for a job with a local tech company, take a look! You can also subscribe to receive updates when new jobs are published.

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Cheater decimates entire team in 10 secs or less. Would you continue playing? Match replay: https://lnkd.in/gH4BYUSH This is a 3D model of a Counter Strike match from Valve corporation official, ranked servers, as it happened in real time, visualized using player XYZ positions and actions that are analyzed by our AI to observe player behavior, including cheaters and griefers (can be any 2/3D game where players are moving in with the ability to attack). To replay the match and see the visualization for yourself, visit the link above. it's free and open for everyone to try.

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Welcome to the “Big 4” era of cloud. It's hard developing and being agile on quicksand but that is what you need to do for this disruption. Startups are finding traction with tooling, infrastructure, and various approaches at the application layer says latest note from Greylock's Jerry Chen and Jason Risch on state of funding right now. CISOs and data teams leveraging GenAI across cloud data platforms point to "the need for a new approach to cloud data security to ensure protected information such as regulated data and core IP is not ingested into AI models." Security is looking to AI agent approaches to revolutionize SOC, identity, and improve remediation in apps and infrastructure. Market shifts like this are super-disruptive and can be meteoric in scope. I was in SF a lot of years ago with Jerry and Nima Badiey one night for hours talking about that last transformation to the cloud -- I weighed in on all those "Black Swans" circling for the win all around us. It was not lost on me that being with those two while wearing the Heroku / Salesforce badge was kind of ironic considering where they were at the time (and had technologies that were far more challenging than I let on!) The infrastructure, tooling and staying out of the muck of it all was the key then and now. They are who you listen to in Silicon Valley this time. Great post. Go read it here: https://lnkd.in/gXpAkziA #VC #greylock #nvidia #genai #tooling #developer #ciso #blackswans

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It’s not only important to back up the application data but backup configurations in a separate vault as well so you know how to get back your cloud environments as a whole to restart your applications. #cloud #cloudsecurity #CloudResilience #backupandrecovery #disasterrecovery #cloudcomputing #multicloud #Kubernetes #awscloud #vmwarecloud #containers #azurecloud #gcpcloud #devops #backup #ransomware #ransomwarerecovery #cyberresilience #ransomwareprotection #ransomwareattacks #cloudbackup #clouddisasterrecovery

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I read an interesting article on Crunchbase this morning titled “Crossing The Series A Chasm.” https://lnkd.in/gAzr_ucm The article uses ARR metric and example data, which appear to be largely applicable to software startups. I enjoy connecting with like-minded individuals who share a passion for AI infrastructure and technology. Cheers!"

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I've watched organizations go through huge cultural shifts by changing seemingly small things... One of those "small things" is implementing unit economics. From a cloud perspective, unit economics can be implemented by a CFO or VP FinOps without any technical approvals (which can take up a lot of time). So, finance leaders should all have their teams measuring cloud spend using "cloud unit economics". But, this goes beyond just costs. It's about aligning metrics with broader business goals, like cost-per-user with efficiency targets. With granular cost analytics, you can better measure and manage cloud spend. The first step is setting the right denominators for your unit economics: - Identify Key Cost Drivers: Map cloud usage to relevant units. - Quantify Each Unit's Cost: Analyze the true cost per unit. - Connect Usage to Efficiency: Link units to optimization goals. By implementing cloud unit economics, teams gain new insights into their cloud usage, enabling them to ask better questions, make informed product decisions, and drive efficiency at every level. It's not just about cost savings... it's about empowering your organization with the knowledge to make strategic decisions.

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The security landscape is increasingly complex, and the never-ending sea of solutions (and acronyms) isn’t helping. Thankfully, the Expel team is here to debunk 10 of the most common MDR myths. Check out the blog post: https://okt.to/fkxJ0j

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A SMB building a SaaS product can you build the 6 CISA's Secure by Design components into your product as part of a #securebydesign foundation. Part 1/3 below on 1 )Increase the use of MFA, and 2) Reduce use of default passwords CISA's Secure by Design pledge has 6 reviewed components: 1.       Increase the use of MFA for users 2.       Reduce the use of default passwords 3.       Reduce classes of vulnerabilities 4.       Provide security patching 5.       Have a Vulnerability Disclosure Program 6.       Provide logging for your customers.   In your design you should consider the use of MFA to be the default behavior of your application. CISA recommends that you follow a 'seat belt chimes' design pattern to remind users to enable MFA. As you design the product you should require that administrative users of your application enable MFA. Admins should also be able to require their users to have MFA as a part of the default experience. You can see an example of this in the Cloudflare console in my post on creating a hardened account. On Zatik.io/blog   Your MFA features should focus on current best practices of phishing resistant MFA, or app based 2FA. Supporting SMS 2FA is something but is an engineering dead end when trying to sell to enterprises.   When building a SaaS application, you must not have any default passwords. Users must be prompted to create a new random password at account creation. If an admin is creating an account for users, you must support the ability to require users change their passwords when they first log in.   Please reach out if you have questions on implementing CISA’s recommendations in your product roadmap.

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There you have it! Discover how Ask Sage, Inc. achieved its DoD IL5 Authority to Operate (ATO) package and FedRAMP high SSP in just 2 weeks for under $4,000! 🚀 We had received a quote from a 3PAO for $300,000 and a 6-month timeline. But with ATO In a Box from Ask Sage, we revolutionized the process! From comprehensive policies and procedures to templated FedRAMP appendices and NIST 800-53 and CMMC documentation, ATO In a Box does it ALL! This game-changing solution turbocharges your ATO process with Generative AI, saving you time, effort, and resources. Join us for an exclusive CPE Eligible Webinar in partnership with Carahsoft on July 16th at 2PM ET. We'll dive deep into ATO In a Box and show you how it can transform your ATO journey. Register now using the link in the comment section and be part of the ATO revolution! Don't miss out on this opportunity to streamline your ATO process and achieve compliance faster than ever before. See you there! #AskSage #ATOInaBox #GenerativeAI #Compliance #DoDIL5 #FedRAMP #CPEWebinar

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hougaard.com New Post: What happens if you mess with Rec in AL? - https://lnkd.in/giF72sg7 What happens if you mess with the built-in Rec variable in AL? That’s what I’m exploring in this video, check it out:

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#Automation comes in various forms. One is robotics, like the article below. Another is process automation, driven by data and software, solving the same labor shortage problem higlighted in the TechCrunch article. Entytle automates tedious, time consuming and laborious Installed Base workflows for OEMs, using data, AI and software. Different side of the same labor shortage coin. #installedbaseintelligence #oems #laborshortage #productivity

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Datafold recently announced that they will sunset the open source data-diff package to focus entirely on the Cloud offering. Y42 is announcing today that data-diffing is available (in Beta) for every Y42 customer. We go way beyond that standard data-diffing what is available in the market today: - 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴: You can preview how values change as you apply your transformations - 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀’ 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀: When someone creates a Pull Request (PR) to introduce a change, data and code diffs are displayed side by side. - 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀: Even if no code changes are applied, the data still changes with every refresh. Y42 is the only platform that allows you to compare an asset's previous run with the current version—or any other version—to see how the asset has changed over time, thanks to its Virtual Data Builds mechanism. Check it out in my demo below - I would love to hear your feedback!

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For the second year of hosting STL TechWeek, our single biggest goal for the team was to not burn out as hard as we did last year. Success needs to be defined by more than deliverables and statistics, but by the state of our people in the end. So this year we set some different benchmarks: ⭐ We acknowledged our big vision, as well as our limited resources, short timeframe, and small team....raising the bar doesn't need to compromise our sanity and well-being. ⭐ We opened ourselves up to receiving more support and involvement from partners throughout the week....no one succeeds alone, accepting help is part of the growth journey ⭐ We set more realistic goals and offered additional support to each other along the way...."thriving" is what real winning looks like. ⭐ We invested in better rest, relaxation, and recovery after the event.... because nothing is worth breaking yourself over. ⭐ We embraced the fact that good work, done by good people, is always a work in progress....the world does not expect perfection, and neither should we. This year, I'm so grateful for having more energy and enthusiasm on the other side of TechWeek, because there is a lot more happening this summer. With the Startup World Cup underway and the Wedge Innovation Center opening in just a few months, our team is preparing to return to work with a thrilling road ahead. Which feels awesome. I'm also blessed to spend meaningful time with my children to demonstrate what the other side of hard work looks like. Showing them how to create balance in life is so important. (Candidly, I don't do that enough) Now, after two weeks of rest, we return with an eye to the horizon...and ready to kick ass 😎

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New connector alert! Mailgun users can now connect their email data Spotlight (our email analytics offering) in addition to those using SendGrid. One connector at a time, we're solving #ESP first party data blind spots (DM me for a free POC).   Access to Spotlight allows:   *Global view of performance across your entire customer base, enabling users to tackle your most critical customer issues first. For those using multiple sending platforms, this extends to a unified view across both SendGrid and Mailgun (more connectors to come...)   * Scoring and actionable insights make for easy identification and communication of issues before your customers surface them.   * Most importantly - reporting built specifically for YOU. No more patchwork reporting built on top of a data warehouse that involves one-off queries, dev help, and massive costs to maintain.   Every ESP needs easy and intuitive access to first party data. If you're not happy with your current reporting solution (or lack thereof), reach out. We can have a free POC up and running within 5 minutes.

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