Founders Everywhere: Craig Goodwin
Founders Everywhere: Craig Goodwin
Craig Goodwin is the co-founder and CEO of Bleach Cyber, a cybersecurity platform designed specifically for startups, small and medium sized businesses (SMBs), as well as their service providers.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
Most cybersecurity breaches happen to companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and startups are particularly vulnerable to these attacks. Bleach Cyber is addressing these vulnerabilities by providing advanced, yet accessible, cybersecurity solutions tailored specifically for SMBs, SMEs, startups and the providers who service them. Through API integrations with existing tools, Bleach Cyber provides proactive recommendations in the form of "security opportunities" to reduce risk and meet compliance standards. The platform was designed to be simple and straightforward, even for non-technical users without any prior security knowledge. True to its name, Bleach Cyber will disinfect, sanitize, eliminate stains, and ensure hygiene - for your cybersecurity!
Bleach Cyber co-founders Craig Goodwin, CEO, and Steve Daniels, Chief Product & Technology Officer, have known each other since they were eight years old. They attended school together, then joined the British Army and served for more than a decade, including deployments to operational theaters like Iraq. Craig left the army to start his corporate career, and Steve soon followed. They’re both experts in the security and cybersecurity space and have worked together at various organizations, but this is their first venture together. Craig shares more about the mission to help SMBs and startups get secure and compliant.
What’s Bleach Cyber’s North Star?
Our North Star is to become the go-to cybersecurity solution for startups and SMBs from the very beginning of their journey, much like QuickBooks for finances or HubSpot for CRM.
What’s the inspiration behind Bleach Cyber?
I've been running cybersecurity for large businesses and enterprises for over 20 years, so I've seen just how difficult it is for them to get secure. Even when enterprises have huge budgets, and thousands of tools, it is still a really tough job to get secure. On the opposite end of that spectrum are SMBs, SMEs and startups, and they’re actually at even greater risk of attack. The inspiration behind Bleach was to enable these small businesses and startups to achieve a sufficient level of security to protect themselves, but within the constraints of their smaller budgets and limited resources, because it's just really freaking hard to do that right now.
What makes Bleach Cyber a must-have vs a nice-to-have?
SMBs and startups are increasingly targeted by cyber threats, and securing their systems is crucial, especially when they’re trying to close enterprise deals. Our defining factor is our unapologetic simplicity. Small businesses often lack the time, effort, and resources for expensive and complex enterprise-grade tools. Many existing tools are designed for large organizations with extensive security teams that can handle complex systems. Bleach, on the other hand, offers a beautiful UI and a seamless experience. It only takes a few clicks to integrate with your existing tech stack, allowing you to secure your business in minutes rather than months. This simplicity, ease of use, and quick, cost-effective security make Bleach a must-have, especially considering the serious consequences of not being secure, be that huge fines or reputational damage.
Tell us about some recent milestones that Bleach Cyber crushed.
We recently announced our $2M funding round and we did a really good job of choosing the right investors, which is so important. I also want to highlight that within 12 weeks of launching the platform, we had over 500 customers and it’s growing every month. We are also partnering with service providers and just closed our first 6 figure deal with a security services company, where we are powering their consultancy offerings making them faster and more comprehensive.
Any favorite podcasts?
I enjoy listening to Stephen Bartlett, The Diary of a CEO. He has some amazing guests on the podcast and there’s loads of incredible insights.
Fun fact: When I’m not busy being a founder or a father to my 2 kids, you’ll find me on a road bike.
Listen to Pelin Wood Thorogood with Scott Hartley on the Venture Everywhere podcast: Radicle Solutions, Listen now on Apple and Spotify and check out to all our past episodes here!
