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\n\tJoe Luong is co-founder and CEO of <\/span>Crypta Labs<\/a> – a security startup that is developing a quantum based encryption to secure the Internet of Things (IoT).<\/p>\n \n\tThey focus primarily on what they call the \u2018fatality market\u2019 i.e. any IoT product that, if hacked, could kill. That includes transportation, driverless cars, normal cars, healthcare and critical infrastructure – all areas which are, in Joe\u2019s words, \u201cin desperate need of better or higher level of security and a higher level of encryption.\u201d That\u2019s exactly why Crypta Labs exists.<\/p>\n \n\tWe caught up with Joe to find out more about his history, the story of the business, and the difficulties they\u2019ve encountered when it comes to recruiting for a bleeding edge cyber security startup.<\/p>\n \n\tJL: <\/span><\/strong>Sure – but I will actually need to take one step back from that. I am an accountant by profession, and before iProsper, I was a roaming financial controller – basically a trouble shooting accountant, roaming the Earth to work in various different hotels. I did that for about 12 years before I decided to start my first company.<\/p>\n \n\tiProsper Media was essentially a digital agency specialising in financial services. We looked after banks, mutual societies, friendly societies, and helped promote their product. So there is a common thread there – accountancy to digital agency for the finance sector, and the financial sector is hot on cyber security, so your career path isn’t as unusual as it might first appear.<\/p>\n \n\tAnyway,<\/span> I ran iProsper Media for about seven years, and one of our main products that made the bulk of our revenue was called The Child Trust Fund<\/a>. That was an initiative started by the Labour government to help families save for their children\u2019s future – and that was taken on by the banks, the mutual societies, some of the big supermarkets. They all promoted this product and we played a part in helping the government promote it. <\/p>\n \n\tIt ceased when the Conservative government came into power, and I decided to look around to see if there was anything interesting happening. I met up with three guys at the Google campus in Old Street, and, although we didn\u2019t know it at the time, we were basically looking for each other. <\/p>\n \n\tOne was doing a PhD in mathematics, one was in cryptography and the other was a developer; they had this cool idea around the cyber and they needed money and a bit of business expertise. Over the space of about six months we did some basic research about the area and each other, and then we started Crypta Labs in May 2014. <\/p>\n \n\tJL: <\/span><\/strong>Yes, indeed. As it developed we brought on new people. We brought in more developers, and after that, we brought on board quantum guys, and then guys who are in software and hardware development. Then we talked about building this on a mobile phone, so we brought in some mobile phone specialists. The team grew as the ideas kept on developing.<\/p>\n \n\tJL: <\/span><\/strong>The initial idea was to use GPS location to develop a new type of authentication. Out of that came the idea of having a pseudo-random number as part of authentication. <\/p>\n \n\tAs I was trying to understand what a pseudo-random number is, what effect it had, we were pushing the idea further. A pseudo=random number is actually quite a bad number, in the sense that it\u2019s not a true random number. It is a number generated by a computer. If it\u2019s generated by a computer, another computer can crack it, and if another computer can crack it, the encryption is essentially flawed.<\/p>\n \n\tSo we pushed it to the next level, which is to make it into a true random number, and then the idea came to make it into a quantum random number which, in the quantum world, we believe it is the most securest way to generate random numbers. <\/p>\n \n\tJL: <\/span><\/strong>Recruitment is undoubtedly a tough part of building any company, but for a science\/tech startup like ourselves\u2026finding the right people with the right expertise was, and is, the hardest. I did a lot of door knocking.<\/p>\n \n\tBut with enough perseverance and persistence, we managed to find other people who <\/span>were able to help us. This is where identifi have really helped. Pete has been able to find me the talent I need in an incredibly niche field. We needed world-leading quantum scientists and the identifi team have helped link us with the likes of National University of Singapore<\/a>, Oxford University<\/a> as well as specialist encryption hardware experts. Without that, Crypta Labs would never have been able to develop to what it is today.<\/p>\n \n\tJL: <\/span><\/strong>Quantum is a hugely complex area and not everybody has the answer, that\u2019s the thing that we found. Nobody – and we work with the world\u2019s leading scientists – has the absolute answer to what we need, so my main job is to develop a team who can ask the right questions, and then go out and find answers. <\/p>\n \n\t \n\tThat\u2019s undoubtedly the positive of going into an industry that\u2019s hugely complex but seriously needs help. The industry is led entirely by academia, and academics are notoriously slow at working on a commercial model. But what we\u2019ve managed to learn is that our ability to draw expertise from literally every corner of the earth helps meet those challenges. We still face some, but less so now that we\u2019ve got a reputation in the sector for doing something quite unique and slightly quirky.<\/p>\n \n\tJL: <\/span><\/strong>Yeah. For example, I\u2019ve got a US General on my board of advisors; that by itself has its own attraction. When you\u2019re working in a security sector, trust is the most important commodity, and when you have people like that being part of Crypta Labs, that builds trust for us.<\/p>\n \n\tThen we have the <\/span>University of Bristol<\/a>. We\u2019ve been working with them for about two years – we brought them on board to deliver a bespoke product for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and again, those names build trust between everyone involved. We brought on board prominent people from our sector to help us so that when we do recruit, when we speak to people, they understand what we\u2019re doing is high-end, has relevancy, and can save lives.<\/p>\n \n\tJL:<\/span><\/strong> As a CEO for a start-up I get involved with everything! I make a mean cup of tea… <\/p>\n \n\tBut yeah – I get involved with everything from initially looking for people onwards. Now that I know the sector fairly well, it\u2019s not that difficult to find the expertise. It\u2019s more that with new hires – especially when you\u2019re trying to integrate them into your core management team – it\u2019s actually quite hard for them to understand the idea of working for a startup, or working to a specific product vision and then taking that to a commercial level. Because of that I\u2019m not necessarily looking for the main expertise. I\u2019m also looking for people who have got cultural values that are aligned with ours.<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s incredibly important with a startup, because the goals keep shifting all the time – but the goals can also be met very quickly. We can literally put in all of our resources into any project that we see has an immediate return on investment, so we can move very fast. But from a person who doesn\u2019t understand the idea of working for a startup and having that agility, that can be quite challenging, so we looked for people who are able to change as and when needed.<\/p>\n \n\tJL: <\/span><\/strong>Absolutely. Flexibility, adaptability and focus. In many ways it\u2019s contradictory because you need to be focused on the right thing, but you also need the ability to be a generalist, to understand the ecosystem and adapt to it. But when we do focus, we focus absolutely\u2026<\/p>\n \n\tJL: <\/span><\/strong>Exactly. That\u2019s exactly it. That\u2019s what I mean when I said working for a startup is incredibly hard. It\u2019s not for everybody, and I\u2019ve had several teams that have come in and out because they don\u2019t understand how the startup mentality works. Everybody wants to run their own company but nobody knows what that means.<\/p>\n \n\tJL:<\/span> <\/strong>The biggest part of any startup is the team, you need to be able to trust each other, listen to each other and challenge each other at every turn. I’m lucky to have a fantastic team with me at Crypta Labs.<\/p>\n \n\tWe\u2019ve got Oliver Maynard, our CTO, who is a very experienced \u201ctraditional\u201d CTO, in the sense that he is very technical but he\u2019s also built and sold numerous business in the past. And he is essentially our tech brain – he understands some of the hugely complex products that we\u2019re building. It also helps that Olly and I have been friends for many years where, in our previous lives, we worked together at iProsper Media. <\/p>\n \n\tOur Head of Operations is Anna McLaughlin. Anna is lawyer by profession that moved onto startups several years ago. She now specialises in managing all aspects of our grants, government projects and helping us taking the product to market. <\/p>\n \n\tThen we have our legal manager, Samara [Zimmerman]. Pretty much everything we do requires some form of compliance, especially when we come to cyber security and government work. It is a hugely bureaucratic and compliance-led sector, so we brought a legal manager on board. <\/p>\n \n\tWe\u2019ve also got our first technical hire beside our CTO, Mayeul d’Avezac our Head of Research and Software. He has a PhD in physics, but he\u2019s also got expertise in software development, so he kind of crosses the chasm between the tech and the science. <\/p>\n \n\tThen we have various people who deal with the special projects for us. Here the team expands exponentially, because we now hire probably about 15 to 20 different experts around the world. We have two or three guys in Singapore – <\/span>Alex Ling<\/a> is world renowned in the field of quantum encryption, for example. He\u2019s one of our main consultants we work with.<\/p>\n\n\tIdentifi: Hi Joe. Before Crypta Labs, you founded <\/span>iProsper Media<\/a> – a full-service digital agency. That\u2019s an interesting transition, how did you go from that into cyber security?<\/h3>\n
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\n\tIdentifi: So it was just four of you?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: Is the core idea that you had at the start still central to Crypta Labs?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: As recruiters, we\u2019re interested in the business challenges of that early period too. Who were the first people that you got on board, and what were the big challenges to grow the business?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: Is that a particular problem in cyber security, or in quantum encryption, or\u2026<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n\n\tIdentifi: Your name attracts those kind of candidates, rather than you having to proactively go and plug the job market?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: Your role as CEO is building these partnerships – do you get involved in the recruitment process for new hires as well?<\/h3>\n
\n\t“We can literally put in all of our resources into any project that we see has an immediate return on investment.”<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n\tIdentifi: Adaptability is one of the characteristics you look for, then?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: You need to focus on the right thing, but the right thing could be different tomorrow?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: What does your team look like now?<\/h3>\n
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