Sanjay Nagaraj
Appearances
Code Story
S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Now, what are we looking for is someone who has that mindset to go build that company. with us because it's a journey. Startups are always about ups and downs. If you're just purely coming in to say, I'm only going to have those highs or I'm only going to be learning all the time, then you're not going to succeed as part of that startup building, right?
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Someone should be with that mindset that what is that they want to build as a long-term company? What is that final customer success that they want to see? There are two things that mainly we look for anybody coming in. One is the grit, as in the passion that they have to go and build and the perseverance that they have to actually go make it happen.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Both of those things are very critical as part of the grit itself. The second component that we really look for and they grow into it in some cases as well is the customer obsession that they bring to the table. That means that they are serving the customer at the end of the day.
Code Story
S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Viable doesn't always mean it's fully sellable as well. Is this a product that's going to be a better mousetrap, as in an upgrade to something that exists, or is it a brand new market? My name is Sanjay Nagaraj, co-founder and CTO of Traceable.
Code Story
S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
We built the platform for scale. One of the values that we have is dream big. That means that for us, from day one, we basically were looking at solving a big problem for the 10 years as a journey that we go. The problem was understanding the APIs as a platform itself and solving a bunch of security and many other use cases over a period of time on top of the data that we have.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So we built the platform for scale. but what we did not anticipate was the complexity of customer environments the complexity of some of the large financials that we run where we process close to 400 billion calls per month yes the platform was able to scale but not the complexity of how we collect the data and the use cases that we need to make sure that we are solving for the customer
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
to make sure that they're deriving value on a continuous basis. And the second part of it is the go-to-market scale. How do we actually scale this across financials to fintechs to healthcare to retail and entertainment and everything else? How do we scale this across businesses from an overall go-to-market perspective?
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
All of those scales in terms of collecting data, go to market itself, we definitely had a lot of challenges along the way. And that's a fun part of building a startup.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
I think the most that I'm proud of is the team that's actually behind the product, the company and everything else. Because these are the folks who are making this happen day in, day out. If you look at it as a size of the company, we have about 180 people going to about 200 people as we scale the year and everything else. People ask me how big is our customer success as a team, as an example.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
The way I look at it is the customer success team is a 180 people strong team. Why I say that is you have
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
the customers and customer success and customer obsession everything's showing at the top but the people below that the entire team is focused on making sure the customer is realizing value starting all the way from a stage zero as in if you look at it as a sales cycle right i'm not even talking about the product building but purely from a customer touchpoint perspective
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
all the way into deployment to renewals to whatever the three, 10, five years right now. It's a three-year journey that customers have gone through, making sure that each of those touch points is what we are obsessed about end-to-end, right? So the team behind making all that happen is the one that I'm most proud of.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
They all come from varying degrees of experiences, but their single most in their mind is, are they solving a customer's problem?
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
As we started the company itself, the focus was a lot more on runtime protection from an API security perspective. But one thing that kept coming back to us was, hey, it's all nice that you're able to discover the APIs and able to identify the APIs in the data, give us visibility into it, but also protect it at runtime.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
But we want to be able to identify these vulnerabilities that are getting exploited at runtime in our pre-production system, right? So the mistake that we did, if I were to wind the clock back a long time ago, was we maybe delayed enabling that functionality for some of the customers, maybe about six months to a year. I wish that we had acted on that a little bit sooner than what we did.
Code Story
S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
But the thing finally worked out as in the same, what I consider as a delay and a little bit of a failure on our end turned out to be a bit of a success. The reason is we did not go and build a me too.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
When we realized that delay or the failure, but instead we doubled down and we said, let's go solve this the right way because customers would be benefited by us innovating on it, like going back to the minimum sellable product that way rather than just going and doing the table stakes. We took it to the next level to say, what should that differentiation be?
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So eventually when we went and launched our testing product, it's getting used everywhere. For example, today, because of the innovation that's come with it, we were able to replace some of the DAS tooling that the customers have, which are really not getting used from when it comes to APIs. So yeah, some of these failures that we got converted into successes, but the key was success.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
keeping our focus on executing and learning from some of those mistakes.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
The biggest thing that's happening now is, of course, we're accelerating our go-to-market from bringing in an amazing set of leaders in terms of sales and marketing and the product team and everything else. And of course, expanding internationally as well. Just recently, Citibank, with a whole bunch of existing and new investors, decided to do a strategic investment project.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
We were not looking for money, but it was more of we wanted to bring in some of these strategic investors to help us grow in larger organizations because they bring a lot of that context that may be missing on our end from understanding these large enterprises out there.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So that investment is helping us expand from an R&D perspective and go-to-market perspective as well, and lots more from a customer success perspective. But from a future, from a platform perspective, we are expanding into other areas. Just recently, we announced GenAI.
Code Story
S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
API protection because at the end of the day, most of the generative AI applications are being built on APIs which are wrapping up either local models that exist as an open source models that can be deployed locally or they're using third party APIs like OpenAI or Gemini or whatnot as more and more these third party services, AI services start to come in.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
uh so the gen ai application protection became very key for us and we announced that at rsa as an early access so we're going to continue to expand we have a very rich platform which enables a lot of the threat hunting aspects of it that we look to expand that beyond because all businesses are going to become api driven that means that
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
All the traffic that's flowing through in the web is going to be more API focused. So looking forward to expand a whole bunch of functionality and, of course, growing the team to serve more and more customers.
Code Story
S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
The family is always behind the scenes, motivating you to do things the right way, motivating you to go achieve what you're set out to achieve. But an individual, as I was talking about, my co-founder as well, has had a great influence in the past and also continues to have that great influence even today.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
There are, of course, a lot of the investors that influence, great investors that we have, not just from Citi that are joined newly, but Steve Herrick from IBP, John Rionis at Unusual, Gio Disick, Sorenson. All these guys have lots of influences in terms of very positive influences in terms of helping us where the market.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
is going to go and also making sure that they're supporting us as we scale the company. But I think there are, of course, two key things that I think I continue to always grow towards. One is I'm sure you and your listeners may have looked into these things. There are two books that I'm always very interested in. One is great. Angela Duckworth is the author for that one.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Influenced a lot of my thinking around. It's not enough just if you have passion, you need to have perseverance associated with it because it's not just enough saying, yeah, I want to do this. I want to do this because there are going to be a lot of ups and downs as part of what you build as a startup. So you need to persevere. There are many naysayers that we have had in the past as well.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
You can't do this. You can't do this. We were able to persevere and make things happen, right? The other one is the mindset by Carol Duet. Those two books that at least have influenced a lot in terms of my thinking from a startup building. But at the same time, am I telling you that as a startup, we have somehow reached a place where we are amazing? Nothing like that.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Everything is a journey, right? It's a five-year journey. I believe it's going to be a 10-year journey where at least you get to a point where you can say that, yeah, there are some things you set out to achieve and you have achieved those, right? So it's a journey that we are going through. And I'll be very honest, as I said, when you asked me what am I most proud of, it's the team.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So I get to learn from the entire team on a daily basis.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Humility and conviction probably are the two things that are most important for taking this forward because it may be the best thing since life and you may feel that you know everything about it.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So that's where the humility part of it comes in, where they should be willing to learn and make sure that they are not somehow stuck with the idea that this is the best thing that's been built and maybe many other things that others have done. So they need to be a lot more open. to listening than feeling that they know everything.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
But at the same time, the reason why I combine the conviction part of it is that there will be a lot of naysayers as they go and build this. Make sure that you have the conviction to go make things happen that you think is right. So the gut side of it from an entrepreneur perspective is probably the most important thing, right? The second thing that I would tell them is
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
If you are the most passionate about it, but if the moment there is a downer that comes your way and you give up on it, or there is a moment where your team may not like what you've done or your team may not be the right team because you'll go through a lot of changes as well as you go build a company. If you are not able to go through, that's when you will fail.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
You may have the next best thing, as you said, from an idea perspective or a product perspective or whatnot. Don't underestimate the rest of the things that are needed to go build a company. And that's where the last thing that I would say is make sure that you understand all aspects of go-to-market information. If you're an engineer, make sure you understand the entire sales side of the process.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Without knowing that, you won't be able to take the company forward. The products I like to look at as the most important thing for any company, but at the same time, products along with the right go-to-market execution and the right kind of customer obsession, those three are the ones which form a basis for something that you can succeed as a company.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So I would highly recommend all the young entrepreneurs think beyond just what they built as a product.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Thanks a lot for having me on this one. It was a pleasure.
Code Story
S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Traceable as a company is in the business of protecting APIs for businesses. If you look at businesses like Starbucks, it could be Disney, name it, many of these businesses that exist out there, most of their applications are built on APIs. That means that every single business today, if it is already not API driven, they are going to be in the next five years.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
a lot of the transformation around apis are the ones which are leading what they say as a digital transformation that's been happening but most importantly when you think about what happened during the pandemic the lines outside starbucks that used to be there was replaced by the lines online in terms of everybody using mobile applications to order or the delivery pretty much used to happen as part of the lines outside right
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So that means that a lot of the traffic started to move towards APIs, because if you have a mobile application or a web application, it's almost guaranteed that behind the scenes, they're all being served with APIs in the background.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
so one thing that was clear for us was that as a business if you are using apis to build a customer base and serve the customers that means that you need to be protecting those customers as well in terms of the data they are trusting you with those apis but also you as a business you're responsible for making sure that
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
you're protecting against attacks on those APIs and you're protecting those APIs against abuse or fraud that can be committed as part of those APIs. That means that you're protecting the bottom line The way we got started was, prior to this, there was another company that me and my co-founder were part of building. My co-founder was the founder of AppDynamics, Jyoti Mansal.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
We built that company, AppDynamics, as well, where we were in the business of application performance management. where we were helping businesses to make sure that the end user experience is maintained.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
But one of the things that we were seeing was as this growth of APIs started to happen and picked up a lot more when we started the company in late 2018, was that these businesses were really looking for products that can not only help them understand these APIs, but also protect these APIs at runtime.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So we got started with this idea in mind that let's go not just go solve a niche problem of API security, but go solve the problem of understanding these APIs from the ground up. And then, of course, go and protect these APIs based on that understanding and the context that we build around those APIs.
Code Story
S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
One thing that we at Traceable look at is more in the terms of what we like to call it as a minimum sellable product rather than something as a viable product. The reason why we look at that is at the end of the day, when you're building a business, you're looking to sell that product to customers so that they're actually paying money for it because they're deriving value from it.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
viable doesn't always mean it's fully sellable as well is this a product that's going to be a better mousetrap as in an upgrade to something that exists or is it a brand new market because if it's a if it's an existing product that means that the minimum sellable product typically looks at hey here are the table stake features that exist as part of the product and on top of that how do you go add differentiating functionality within that product that's one late one category of it
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
If you're creating a brand new product, something like what OpenAI came up with, then you're thinking about this as a totally green field in terms of where you can go and solve a brand new problem.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
We had an interesting aspect where there were parallels in the application security world for us from building what could be looked at as a minimum sellable product, but also there was brand new where like API security as a market did not exist. So we drew from both places in terms of what is required for an existing. I'll give an example.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
In the parallel side of it, Universe in the AppSec world and broader InfoSec world, there existed, always has existed, web application firewalls, which were built for protecting these legacy applications. So we drew some of the key features that are required to be in the API security product from that old world.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
But we had to now go and say, on top of that, what is the differentiation that people need from a brand new market where they can go and say, this is the product that actually bridges that gap between legacy applications into your next generation of APIs. So we started to think about that in that terms and obviously approach that to build a V1.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
with those key features that are needed from what would be from a runtime protection perspective, but key features that are needed from solving an API security as a new problem.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
There is a concept that we use internally that comes out of actually one of the investors in the company, Unusual Ventures, is something which we look at it as a four lists as an approach. What I mean by that is typically when you go build anything as a roadmap, you're thinking about what are the sellers asking? What are the customers asking? What's the innovation that we want to build?
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
that exists. Anything that we do build out as a roadmap is always part of these four characteristics that way. The early versions of the product that we build is always vision and customer driven. It's not sales driven per se, right? And of course, the tech tech part of it would be less at that given point of time.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
So everything in my head, I look at it as 18 month journeys that every product building and every customer focus company is going to go through, which is what we exactly did as well. The first 18 months was about vision building with those early design partners as part of the customers and vision part of it.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
One thing that we at Traceable look at is more in the terms of what we like to call it as the minimum sellable product rather than something as a viable product. The reason why we look at that is at the end of the day, when you're building a business, you're looking to sell that product to customers so that they're actually paying money for it because they're deriving value from it.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Then the next 18 months was a lot driven from a sales perspective and definitely existing customers. Then the next 18 months is a little bit focused around the tech tech aspect of it. And of course, the sales and customers will always be there. But one thing that we have done continuously is slot these into four lists as part of the list itself that we have.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
But one key thing that we have always done is to make sure the vision is always at the top of everything that we do, because customers can take you in directions that your vision doesn't align with. or your sales folks can take you in a direction that the vision doesn't align.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Tech debt aspect of it is something that all engineers love to go and attack, make sure that it's always up to date and you're continuously addressing those. But the approach that we take is tech debt should be aligned with something that we're building against the vision or against what the sellers are asking or what the customers are asking, right?
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Because otherwise you're solving tech debt for the sake of solving on the a feature that may not even be getting used or may not actually have an impact.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
One of the first things that me and my co-founder did on day zero of the company was to lay out what is the philosophy of the company itself and the values that we want to align by. One of the key philosophies that we have followed as we built the company was it's your company is the philosophy. Yes, we happen to start the company as founders of the company.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
But beyond that, we are equal contributors compared to anybody coming in, whether they have minus two years of experience or 25 years of experience in the industry itself solving problems. It's their company that they are building now going forward, right? That philosophy actually has served us well, because when I say minus two, we had some early engineers who were in their
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Second, third year of undergrad, for example, they came in as an intern working with us for three months, but they built some of the core pieces of functionality three years ago, which is actually the reason why the company exists today in terms of selling the product itself.
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S9 E26: Sanjay Nagaraj, Traceable AI
Some of the technology that we used, which was EBPF-based data collection and everything else, came from some of the contribution from some of these interns, as an example, who came in. They're now part of the team and as full-time employees. But why I'm saying that is it means that the philosophy helped us to bring in the right set of people.