"Prioritize excellence, listen intently, foster partnerships, and success will follow. It's a formula we've seen work time and again."
Mike Greene Tweet
Mike Greene has deep software and cybersecurity experience acquired from a range of different roles with a variety of global high growth companies.
He is currently CEO of Enzoic. Prior to Enzoic, he was the CEO of ID Watchdog, an identity theft protection company that was sold to Equifax in 2017.
Before IDWatchdog, Mike held senior management positions at Symantec, Webroot, Thompson Micromedix, Raindance and Baxter.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Mike Greene: I have been working in technology for more than 35 years, much of it in security. Prior to Enzoic I was CEO of ID Watchdog which was acquired by Equifax.
The two co-founders of Enzoic recognized the dangers of password reuse, saw hackers exploiting lists of compromised credentials, and saw an opportunity to increase everyone’s safety on the Dark Web.
The company was founded as an online database with an API that would allow partners to block compromised credentials. Enzoic now prevents account takeover, identity theft and fraud through threat intelligence monitoring and automated remediation.
Our solutions help organizations identify compromised credentials, exposed PII, and vulnerable payment card data and act swiftly to mitigate the risk.
Our mission is to help companies strengthen their security posture and our products are held in high regard by the cybersecurity industry.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Mike Greene: Enzoic has undertaken an amazing business journey, growing our team 800%.
I think our greatest success in the past year is not a simple single bullet but rather a continuous focus on executing day in and day out to bring an innovative and solid product to market.
In 2023, we saw success on multiple fronts, from delivering a best-in-class product to continuing to grow our channel partner network and our customers.
What advice do you wish you had received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Mike Greene: When I think back to the dot-com boom and even many businesses today, I think you get a sense of instant success and unicorn valuations. While those are wonderful, I think it is always important to remember that fundamentals matter.
Deliver a great product, focus on amazing customer experience and happiness, listen to your customers, be a good partner, and things will come together— we have seen the benefits of following that course of action.
Enzoic started as a product company delivering great products and that purpose holds firm today. In the coming quarter, our focus is on expanding our sales and continuing to be a great partner.
Here is a two-fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Mike Greene: One of my favorite books is True Grit by Charles Portis. I really like Westerns and their focus on the human spirit—resilience, determination, and integrity—all lessons we can benefit from.
In addition, I have really enjoyed and frequently shared the book The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horwitz. Startups and early-stage companies are full of hard decisions. While we start with a vision, the path usually isn’t linear and is full of rollercoaster-like ups and downs.
Ben walks us through “The Struggle’ that is inevitable when vision and reality meet. I really appreciate the advice he gives and the experiences he shares on managing through these difficult times.
It’s a great gift for anyone in the high-pressure startup world, as it will help them navigate the inevitable ups and downs.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Mike Greene: The real challenge for Enzoic is to continue to manage our growth in a positive way, maintaining our culture, our vision, our excellent product delivery, and our customer and partner focus as we continue to expand.
Many times these key elements falter as companies are sometimes forced to make difficult trade-offs to support rapid growth.
At Enzoic we will always choose culture, customers, partners and quality; but sometimes this creates other challenges.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Mike Greene: It’s difficult to distill it down to one thing. That being said, in the age of celebrity CEOs, reality TV, and more open information sharing, I don’t think people understand the complexities and burdens of making hard decisions and the potential upside and downside consequences of some of those decisions – and the lack of clarity in the moment that often accompanies them – almost like blazing a trail through an unmapped forest.
Through that lens, it’s easy for people to look back and criticize some of those decisions. At the same time, while we do have to carry these decisions, it is also important to push decision-making down through the organization – trust your team – even as we business leaders have to continue to own the outcome.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Mike Greene: This was a tough one—so many superpowers, so little time. Flying and time travel aren’t business superpowers, are they?
If they are, I guess I’d pick time travel so I could launch into the future and get a good idea of how to steer the company to capitalize on all of the big new trends on the horizon.
On a more realistic and practical note – I think I would like the power to be able to identify everyone’s biggest strength, and help to develop that.
We can’t do everything on our own, so the ability to help others become their best selves would be a great asset and a great gift to share.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Mike Greene for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Mike Greene or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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