There simply was not enough time to start a new endeavor while still handling all the current responsibilities I had. I had to make a choice, I had to make sacrifices. If I was going to do this, I had to put all the chips in the middle of the table.
No important choice is easy, and I had a lot of questions to ask myself before I started up TeamRed. Some of the most important questions were:
1) Is it the right time to start an information security business?
2) Is the business model correct?
3) Is the technology available?
4) Do people need or want this product?
5) Am I willing to give up a comfortable life?
6) Am I willing to give up time with my wife and new born?
7) How much capital would be necessary to begin this endeavor?
The first thing I did was draft the model and the technology. Soon after, I met with friends in different fields ranging from academics, information security, manufacturing, and many others in order to discuss the idea.
During our conversations, the interest that the idea generated fascinated me, and these discussions taught me many things that allowed me to further evolve the idea. It was during a discourse with William Chiu, who would eventually become one of our co-founders, that I finally had enough data to confirm my suspicions - our inevitable connected future lacked the basic network security needed to keep our data both private and secure.
I kept going back to the incident with my father and thought of my daughter’s future.
One particular question would not leave my mind – did I want my daughter to be born in a future where the technology that enabled her lifestyle would also be a source of worry and fear for her and her family? The answer was a firm ‘no.’
That is how I made the decision to sacrifice both a comfortable life and time with my family in order to pursue a solution to a pervasive issue. By answering the tough questions, and taking a hard look at myself, I was able to go all-in with TeamRed and Pangolin. I still don’t regret the decision today.
This blog post was written by Miko Tan, TeamRed Founder.
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