Hello World
Tags: startup, cybersecurity, edtech, livingsecurity
Published: 2020-01-29 15:08:16

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/g553xdzfxyuhuk3h89kf.png)
 
The net economic value of creating another tech blog these days is near zero. That's my fear, anyway, as I set out on this journey.
 
Trust me. I don't want to just add to the noise. But there's something special about our team here at [Living Security](https://LivingSecurity.com?ref=dev.to), and I would love to share that story.
 
Ghandi said, "whatever you do in life will be insignificant, but it’s important that you do it anyway." Because even though it sometimes feels like everyone around us already knows the information that we know, that is definitely not the case. We all have valuable information within our heads that may seem trivial to us, but to someone who is just starting out, may be invaluable.
 
So here we are. A small startup engineering team, fueled by coffee and determination, helping to build a cybersecurity awareness ed-tech company that we hope can make a small dent in the universe.
 
As for myself, my name is [Dan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danschoonmaker). I joined the Living Security team in July 2019 as our 2nd full-time developer, and the person tasked with making our offline, experiential-based training more digital. To understand what that means, allow me to explain what it is we do here.

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/kyeiojjit2qk46hb28b5.png)

Living Security was founded in 2017, by two of my close friends, [Drew](https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-rose) & [Ashley Rose](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-rose-11678463). They knew professional organizations needed to do something to improve their boring cybersecurity training programs, so they went out and created an [escape room product](https://livingsecurity.com/products/escape-rooms?ref=dev.to) that an enterprise could use to train their employees on the latest security awareness concepts, relative to their industry. Their hypothesis was that this form of immersive training was exactly what companies needed to reduce the greatest security threat to their organization - [their employees](https://livingsecurity.com/blog/how-do-i-do-security-awareness-training-for-my-employees?ref=dev.to).

Once the [Living Security escape room](https://livingsecurity.com/products/escape-rooms?ref=dev.to) product got off the ground, and began making a name for itself, it was time to develop a SaaS product for ongoing cybersecurity awareness training. That's when the first version of [CyberEscape](https://livingsecurity.com/blog/cyber-escape-launch-party?ref=dev.to), our [online training platform](https://livingsecurity.com/products/online-training?ref=dev.to) was born. Our [CEO Ashley](https://livingsecurity.com/blog/lessons-from-the-war-room-mom-wife-ceo?ref=dev.to) went out and found a consulting company here in Austin to help her build an initial [MVP version](https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/mvp). This allowed her to share her early vision with potential customers, investors, and most importantly, us! Her eventual engineering team 👾.

Today, just over a year later, our online training is used daily by employees from [all over the world](https://livingsecurity.com/blog/national-cybersecurity-awareness-month?ref=dev.to), at some of the largest companies on the Fortune 1000 list.

For me, the opportunity to work at an ed-tech company, focused on an industry as important as cybersecurity was really enticing. In previous roles I never really felt like the work I was doing was making a positive impact on the world. Here at Living Security on the other hand, it's refreshing to know that the people using our software are learning important skills that will help protect not only their employer's sensitive data, but their own [personal data](https://livingsecurity.com/blog/beware-of-black-friday-scams-2019?ref=dev.to) as well. And in today's world where our data is commonly over-shared, sometimes even without our consent, keeping our sensitive data secure is more important than ever.

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/8kp80ds7pnwi9jxhmr65.png)

I hope you find our journey as entertaining and informative as it will be for us living through it. We would love to get to know you, hear your feedback, and hopefully provide value to the worldwide developer community.
 
Until next time, stay secure!
 
Dan