A Better Mousetrap
Written by Shala Hainer Thursday, September 15 2011
Snapshot: Zuly Gonzalez, co-founder, Light Point Security
While working to secure some of our nation's biggest secrets from online threats, Zuly Gonzalez and Beau Adkins found a new way to protect personal computers. They formed Light Point Security, which isn't like any other virus protection. With their combined technical skill, they developed a way to keep the viruses and other threats from ever reaching your computer rather than trying to detect and repair damage after viruses invade your system.
Gonzalez is accustomed to pressure with her job at the Department of Defense. As she prepares to leave her job to dedicate herself full-time to Light Point Security, she is ready for the additional pressures that come from being not only a woman in the male-dominated tech industry, but also a minority woman.
Born in Puerto Rico, she moved to Massachusetts with her family at age 5. She returned to Puerto Rico to earn a degree in computer engineering then moved to Maryland to work for the Department of Defense and earn her master's degree in electrical and computer engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
She is taking a family-centered approach to growing Light Point Security, which is completely self-funded. She considers it a “lifestyle business,” one that grows slowly over time, and she encourages other women to take that same approach to help balance running a business with running a family.
Gonzalez lives outside Baltimore with her fiancé and company co-founder, Beau, and their “canine child.”
Womenetics: Where did the idea to start Light Point Security come from? What propelled you to take action and start the company?
Zuly Gonzalez: I always wanted to start my own company, but I never envisioned it to be something as ambitious as a tech startup. It started with the simple idea of building a better kind of security product out of our frustrations with current security products. The idea slowly grew over time until we finally hit on a winning strategy. We took advantage of emerging technology and combined our knowledge of internet security with our knowledge of cloud computing to build a web security product that would make it practically impossible to get infected by viruses online – something no other security product has been able to do to date. We started developing the product in our spare time, and once we proved it could work, we formed our company, Light Point Security.
Womenetics: What makes your internet security product different from other popular products, such as virus protection software?
Gonzalez: All other virus protection software focuses on guessing whether something is malicious by analyzing it and looking for known signatures. This approach results in always being behind the curve. In essence they are forced to wait until new malware is released before they have a shot at detecting it –this is a losing strategy. In fact, studies have shown that anti-virus software detects only about 20 percent of new malware.
Our product, Light Point Web, is different. We don't look for signatures or attempt to guess whether something is safe or malicious. We simply move the dangerous activity of browsing the web off of your computer. With this method it doesn't matter if a website is malicious. You can still view the malicious website and not get infected.
More importantly, anti-virus software detects a virus after it is already on your computer. This is not an effective approach. We believe malware should be stopped from reaching a computer in the first place. With Light Point Web, malicious content never reaches your computer.
Womenetics: As a woman in the tech industry, you often face the perception that you're not as qualified as a man. How do you handle this type of criticism and maintain your confidence?
Gonzalez: I've learned not to let it bother me. Simply realizing, and accepting, that this perception exists goes a long way. By accept I don't mean that you give up and give into this incorrect notion. All I mean is that you acknowledge that this perception exists. If you acknowledge that this view exists it is less likely to negatively affect you when you encounter it because you are less likely to take it as a personal attack against you.
Believe in yourself. Love yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. You are smart. You are capable. You are strong. You are beautiful. And you can do anything a man can do, only better!
Fighting and arguing are rarely effective. Don't try to change someone's opinion by arguing with them. Instead, my advice is to change their view by showing them how good you are through your hard work. People don't like to be told they are wrong. Let them come to the realization, on their own, that you are just as capable as any man. When someone comes to a realization on their own it becomes a much more powerful idea.
Womenetics: You focus on growing your businesses slowly and in a controlled fashion. Why is this important to you? How does this benefit you and your clients?
Gonzalez: We believe Light Point Security has a much higher chance of success if we maintain slow and controlled growth. We understand that we'll make mistakes, and this allows us to make mistakes in the beginning without having a disastrous effect on the business. Most critical mistakes are made early on when a business is still in its infancy, and the founders are still learning the unique aspects of that particular business.
Our slow-growth strategy has two immediate benefits for our customers. First, to grow quick and fast, you usually need to spend lots of money, which means you have to bring in lots of money to stay afloat. In turn, the opposite is usually true for slow growth. Keeping Light Point Security's costs down lets us pass along the savings to our customers.
Second, we're able to keep the negative effects of our mistakes to a minimum. Since we're not busy putting out fires, we can dedicate more time to customer service, which is very important to us.
Womenetics: Where do you see the company in 10 years? Do you plan to build it and sell or continue growing it with your co-owner?
Gonzalez: We plan to slowly and organically build Light Point Security into a globally recognized security company. However, if the right buyer came along that we felt could strengthen the business and the brand, of course we would consider it.
Womenetics: Where do you find funding for your business? What techniques, such as outsourcing, do you use to grow a completely self-funded company?
Gonzalez: Our revenue comes from our service's subscription fees. Currently we're not outsourcing. We're fortunate enough to have the skills necessary to handle everything in-house. The trick is to use inexpensive methods that will give you the same results as more expensive methods. For example, instead of paying for physical servers to host our service we're using cloud computing to get the same results, but at a much lower cost. We're also using search engine optimization (SEO) to drive traffic to our website instead of paying for advertising.
Womenetics: One of your recent blog posts discussed why there are so few Hispanic-owned businesses in America. What advice would you offer other minority women interested in starting a business?
Gonzalez: I think the single best thing a minority women interested in starting a business can do is to find a mentor, preferably another minority women who has run a successful business in that industry. This is going to leave you with a very narrow pool of candidates, so don't be discouraged if you can't find a mentor who fits that criteria right away. I think it's important to have more than one mentor, each with her own set of strengths and experiences. The important thing is to find at least one mentor to get you started. Later on you can grow your mentor network.
Although it would be best to have at least one minority female as a mentor, a good technique to use if you can't find one right away is to study a minority women you admire and try to pick out the attributes you find compelling about her. What makes her confident, in control, smart?
Second, find a co-founder. Running a business is hard enough with a team by your side. Going at it alone makes it that much tougher. The co-founder doesn't have to be another minority female, just someone you trust, can work with, and hopefully has experience running a business.
Lastly, work hard. Give it all you've got (without neglecting your family). Don't let your gender and/or race stop you from succeeding, and don't fall into the trap of believing the negativity you are sure to run into. As a minority woman, your unique experiences and perspectives are an advantage to solving those difficult problems men have been unable to solve.
Womenetics: How do you balance your duties with Light Point with your government technical security position? Are you planning to move over to Light Point full-time in the future?
Gonzalez: It's tough. I'm still working full-time for the government as a technical security project manager. That takes up most of my time and leaves me little time for Light Point Security. This will be changing soon, however. Very soon I'll be leaving my position at the government to work full-time on Light Point Security.
Womenetics: How do you market your internet security services, and how do you incorporate social networking? Do you reach out more toward individuals or other businesses?
Gonzalez: We mostly target individuals, but we do have some users that are small businesses. We've done limited marketing. As I mentioned earlier, we use SEO to drive targeted traffic to our site. We also have a blog and participate on relevant online communities and social networking sites.
Twitter has been a big one for us. On Twitter we have individual personal accounts as well as a company account. My approach to using Twitter is different from the norm, but it has been very successful for us. Instead of tweeting links to our site, I spend most of my time engaging with folks and looking to meet new people. So basically, I use it mostly as a networking tool. I do tweet links to interesting articles I find, as well as links to our site every now and then, but it's not my primary use of Twitter.
My approach to getting followers is also different. Most people measure their success on Twitter by how many followers they have. The more followers they have, the more successful they think they are. In fact, there are known methods for acquiring a lot of followers in a short period of time. I don't subscribe to that philosophy. Since my goal is to meet people and form professional relationships, I'm interested in quality over quantity. I prefer a smaller group of quality followers over a large number of low-quality followers. The low-quality followers will clog up my feed with noise and make it harder for me to engage with my quality followers.
Something else we have had a lot of success with is attending relevant industry conferences. Conferences are a great place to network with like-minded people and meet potential customers – those you can form business partnerships with and new friends. Some of our best business partnerships have come from attending conferences. I suggest looking for conferences in your local area first. Not only is it cheaper, it will also make it easier later on to catch up in person with the contacts you made -- that is assuming there are lots of locals that attend.
Womenetics: Outside of work, you are passionate about animal welfare. How do you find time to volunteer or help with animal rescue/welfare groups?
Gonzalez: Technology is a wonderful thing. I don't have much time to volunteer in person; however, I can make a difference through the power of the internet. I'm able to help animal welfare groups from the comfort of my home at 1 a.m.
Womenetics: What is your favorite way to de-stress and unwind?
Gonzalez: This is a tough one. I actually have a hard time relaxing. As strange as it may sound a lot of times I'll clean to unwind. For some reason I find cleaning to be soothing. I also enjoy curling up on the couch with my dog and fiancé and watching a movie.
Based near Atlanta, Shala Hainer has been writing and copyediting since 1995. Beginning her career at newspapers such as the Marietta Daily Journal and the Atlanta Business Chronicle, she most recently wrote and edited articles for several nonprofit organizations before purchasing a flower shop in 2006. She earned a bachelor’s in communications from Jacksonville State University.
