W
elcome to the TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.
From cybersecurity to SaaS for restaurants, the key to running a successful business is selling a product that solves your clients’ real problems. — Anna
2022 in cybersecurity
Cybercriminals had a pretty busy 2022, recent findings show. According to the annual report from Israeli cybersecurity company Perception Point, there was 356% growth globally in advanced phishing attacks attempted by malicious actors.
What’s scary to me is how often these attacks take advantage of the weakest link: us humans. For instance, the report shows an 83% year-on-year growth in attempts at business email compromise (BEC).
“In these attacks,” the report explains, “cybercriminals use fake emails to impersonate legitimate businesses and request large sums of money or confidential data from employees or business associates.”
I met Perception Point CEO Yoram Salinger a few weeks ago in Tel Aviv, so I was curious to hear his view on the report’s findings and emerging threats.
Facing AI-enabled threats
“The elephant in the room is obviously AI,” Salinger said. That’s because generative AI, in particular, “perfects the ability to deceive the defendant.” Forget about spelling mistakes and poor language: AI-enabled phishing emails, for instance, can look worryingly credible.
Knowing that some of us have started to receive AI-generated spam, I could only agree.
However, it is not all doom and gloom. “The tools the attackers have with AI are also available for the defendants,” Salinger noted.
His company is already leveraging AI to prevent threats but is gearing up for more. “We’re challenging ourselves by pen testing ourselves with AI-generated content and [confirming that] we still have the upper hand, but we’ll need to be on our toes.”
While dealing with threats on a daily basis can be scary, Salinger doesn’t think that fearmongering is a good sales technique. As we looked into recently, CISOs are already annoyed with cybersecurity pitches that tell them they are doing it wrong.
Rather than elevating fear, Perception Point prefers picking the right time to approach a CISO. It also highlights both its ability to integrate with existing solutions in the short-term and to replace them during the next renewal cycle. The latter, Salinger says, usually resonates with companies that are more than ever interested in cutting down costs.
TechCrunch (virtually) in Atlanta
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin (opens in a new window)
On June 7, TechCrunch will host City Spotlight: Atlanta. We have a slate of amazing programming planned, including a fireside chat with Ryan Glover, the co-founder of the fintech Greenwood, as well as a panel that examines the venture ecosystem within the Atlanta region and identifies the best ways to raise and meet with local venture capitalists. But that’s not all. If you are an early-stage Atlanta-based founder, apply to pitch to our panel of guest investors/judges for our live pitching competition; the winner gets a free booth at TechCrunch Disrupt this year to exhibit their company in our startup alley. Register here.
One killer feature
Haddock founder and Y Combinator alum Arnau Navarro has a piece of advice for startups trying to find product-market fit in the current times: Focus on a pain point serious enough that buyers are willing to change the way they do things to adopt your solutions.
Haddock, too, followed this recipe: While its product today is a SaaS management solution for restaurants, it started with “one killer feature,” Navarro said. Its focus was cost control because it can make or break a restaurant, especially when inflation is on the rise.
“A restaurant owner who’s not one of our clients yet called us in January,” Navarro told me. That owner had a very busy holiday season, but also found out his restaurant had actually lost money over that period due to rising costs. This is the initial pain point that Haddock addressed with its first version and that now evolved into a broader cost-control solution that helps restaurants track their cost fluctuation on a daily basis.
Cool kids
TechCrunch is searching for 200 early-stage companies for Startup Battlefield at Disrupt this September. This comes with a chance to win $100,000 in equity-free $$ and cool kid creds. Apply by May 31: techcrunch.com/apply.