We sold our cars to make payroll, then hired a CEO above ourselves.

There is a month in Brandefense's history where the founders sold their cars to cover payroll. It is the part of the story that gets told at dinners, and it is not the part that mattered most.

The harder decision came later, when the team concluded that the company needed a chief executive with experience they did not have, and hired one above themselves. Founders rarely give up that seat while they still hold it.

The bet was that cybersecurity is a category where credibility is earned in enterprise rooms, and that the fastest route to those rooms was someone who had been in them before.

The company now protects roughly 4,000 brands across 28 countries. World-class security work turned out not to require a world power behind it, only a team that argues well at the table.