Spotlight on the CyRise teams: Devicie
You work on the problems that no one else wants to work on, and you develop skills that no one else has. This was the mindset Martin’s dad instilled in him from young, and it’s an approach that has seen him grow to tackle some of the most unglamorous of problems in the most creative of ways. Devicie is the poster child for this, and the culmination of years of deep technical experience, wrapped up in a beautiful-to-use, intuitively thought-out SaaS solution.
Let’s take this back a few years so we can better understand the genesis of Devicie. “My first job my dad got me was setting up staff computers back in the 90s.” explains Martin. “It was one of those things… you work on problems that no one else does and you get the skills that no one else has. That stayed with me and in my early days I did a lot of jobs like that. The first ten years of my career was building systems for businesses where I worked alongside customers. I’ve always liked being a customer-facing person. It helped me to understand their problems and build the tech based on their needs.”
After ten years, Martin went into business for himself. Working from project to project, on a consulting basis, he built and automated systems to make life easier for the people who worked in big business. Working regularly with insurance and other high-risk enterprises, he was dealing more and more with cyber crime. These systems not only needed to improve efficiency, but needed to be secure. “Over the last 20 years I’ve built systems for over 250 companies, so two years ago, together with my business partners Jason and José, it made sense to launch our MSSP, Secure Measure.”
From services to product
It’s not an uncommon tale: start with services, see the problem, and then build a product to fix it. “With Secure Measure, we knew the problem of staff devices. We’d built solutions for the largest and most sophisticated companies and agencies in Australia. The one thing we noticed that they struggled to do was to deal with anyone working remotely. As soon as an employee leaves the office, they can’t manage them. They can’t get security done. You can’t even get updates done when they’re remote, let alone consistent layered security. “
“They keep trying to solve it themselves, or by working with consultants, but the struggle remains. It made sense for us to build a product to solve the problem. Fortunately for us, the current climate has meant absolute alignment for product-market fit. Pre-COVID, many business leaders were unaware of how great their risk was. This pandemic has meant that those who were previously unaware this was a problem, now recognise that their exposure to cyber crime has increased.”
Making Devicie human centric
The care for people runs deep and it’s reflected in the product. “I’ve always treated end users like they were my customers and always had a strong sense of ownership, aiming for successful outcomes to solve the problem. Another thing dad said to me was that ‘you don’t just build tech for tech’s sake; it’s gotta make sense for a business’.
Indeed, this is how they’ve been successful: by making it human-centric. “It’s an awesome experience for end users. It gets them up and running in a quick and easy way that saves business and IT huge money. Not only do we save you money, we improve efficiency and the user experience of every staff member, but provide a security solution that makes sense for this climate.”
It’s a two-pronged approach. “Give the user what they need to get their job done, and give the business what they need to get security done. We do that seamlessly because our focus is on the human, which is a point of difference for device management. We use Intune, which means we’re securing the user, not just the device.”
Deeply technical, yes, but Martin has a quirky, creative mindset that means by nature, he thinks about things in a unique way. A life-long musician, his approach to problem-solving is unique. “I don’t like to see a problem like this keep going unsolved. I still see people struggling with device management the same way they did 20 years ago. In my brain I rank problems, and the solutions for this are so poor. It was an alarm bell in my brain… bing, bing, bing… so I had to solve it. It almost feels like a calling. Current solutions fail because the reality is you can’t separate the people from your business, and you need to protect both your systems and your people.”
On how it feels to be a founder
“I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”, Martin says, half seriously, half joking. OK. Mostly seriously. “It’d be cruel to suggest that anyone else do this, because there’s such a wide scope of problems you have to solve. You end up solving problems in areas you don’t know exist at the time. But you have to weigh that challenge against a life where you don’t test yourself sufficiently; where you are frustrated that you don’t have the authority and power to solve problems in the way you want to. I have to remind myself that all the trials and challenges of being a CEO are worth it over having to feel that way.”
“In that way it’s totally liberating, when you get traction and actually solve problems. I got to create a company that reflects who I am and solves real problems, and now my customers get to live that reality.”
He values people, and strives to make their life easier. “That’s why I work in security and privacy. It’s important to me that tech makes lives better, not worse. Tech should improve lives. That’s how we should test tech. Is it suitable? Does it improve life ? Or does it make it worse?”
A creative’s approach to tech solutions
All of this from a man who initially loathed working in IT. ”I spent the first part of my career feeling like I didn’t fit in; like I wasn’t the right kind of person… maybe not “nerdy” enough? But actually, being an out-of-the-box thinker is my strength. It makes me build better tech.”
“I hated solving shitty problems. I was learning, yes, but didn’t enjoy it. I was a musician. I saw myself as an artist.” His turning point was realising this nuanced approach could work in his favour: he takes the regimented approach to security technology, and makes it work for people. “It sounds like bullshit but it’s not. Dealing with security, there’s a lot of pain. Helping businesses deal with privacy properly, saves their customers a tonne of pain.”
“Privacy is essential to free-thinking society. If I can help this, then that translates to a better world. I feel stoked to work in tech these days — I’m proud of it. It’s something I’m passionate about.”
Martin gets a real kick from taking a traditionally black and white approach, into the grey. “You’re solving problems that live in the grey, but you’re using binary systems. And that’s an exciting challenge. We’ve been trying to systemise people in an attempt to control security, but people don’t operate like that. And so we’ve got to build to accommodate them. That’s how I see how technology needs to be.”
