The original idea for Leen started out in customer success, not security. The team came together to build a personalized co-pilot for customer success teams – a problem born out of our own experiences and those of teams with whom we have worked closely.

However, after months of attempting to develop a moat and determine our optimal GTM approach, we took a step back and had a difficult, introspective conversation.

The idea simply wasn't working.

Although customers expressed interest in the product, there was no willingness to pay.

Around the time OpenAI released their models, the potential for developing competitive advantages was still uncertain. Additionally, macro factors were not in our favor.

We realized quickly that we were a vitamin, not a painkiller. That was a difficult pill to swallow.

While pivots are common among startups, and realized that we had all left our jobs for the same purpose: to build a world-class startup that solved the problem(s) of many. And what we were experiencing was a typical startup journey.

By this point, we recognized that our team was strong and we had a level of trust and camaraderie that encouraged us to explore new directions.

That led us to cybersecurity. While we acknowledge it’s a hard pivot, it wasn’t something we were entirely unfamiliar with. We deliberately decided to shift towards something that aligned with our team's skills and experience.

Fortunately for us, two events hadn’t taken place – neither had we raised capital nor had we hired any employees. That made pivoting relatively easier as we didn't need to convince others to join us in our new direction. While possible, it'd have added an extra step to the process.

However, we needed to discuss the pivot with several investors who were familiar with our previous idea. While we had to justify the change, most of them understood and were receptive to the new direction, and in fact, more excited about the problem we were solving for.

Looking back, it's one of the best decisions we've taken as a team.

Today, we’re growing both in head count and customers. We have teams across San Francisco, Nashville, Gainesville and Rajkot, and customers spanning three continents and five categories!