Emily Orton | From founding days to IPO
Channel: Slush
Date: 14/10/2021

No trace of darkness in this episode, where we talked to Emily Orton, Co-founder & CMO at the cybersecurity success-story Darktrace. Emily has been on board from the beginning, and shared some of her main learnings from the founding days to their recent IPO. In this fast-paced discussion, Emily and William discuss Darktrace’s early days in terms of customer acquisition and brand building, hiring and training people to become future leaders, scaling yourself as a founder in a rapidly growing and international company and the floatation of Darktrace on the London Stock Exchange. 

Expect to learn: 

- How Darktrace approaches hiring and why you don’t necessarily need a business degree to do business
- How Darktrace approached acquiring the first customers and building the brand and story behind the company
- How we can foster more research-driven innovation in Europe
- How Darktrace approached expansion
- Emily’s thoughts on Darktrace’s recent IPO

00:40 Introduction to Emily and Darktrace
07:06 Transition from tech to building a brand
11:54 How to create that initial momentum
17:20 What to focus on when hiring
22:55 Scaling yourself as a founder 
25:57 Fostering more research-driven companies in Europe
29:42 Global expansion
33:52 Darktrace’s IPO process