Andrew Peterson, Founder and CEO of Signal Sciences, Joins Decibel as Founder Advisor

We are excited to announce that Andrew Peterson, co-founder and CEO of Signal Sciences (recently acquired by Fastly for $775 million) has joined Decibel as a Founder Advisor. Andrew grew Signal Sciences from an idea on a napkin into the market leader in web application and API security - protecting some of the largest SaaS and e-commerce sites in the world from cyberattacks including Airbnb, Airtable, Datadog and DoorDash. As an active angel investor and advisor to many startups, Andrew now supports founders in their journey to find product-market fit – helping them secure wins with early customers and ultimately scale their leadership team in their high growth years. He recently shared his wisdom for founders building companies in today’s environment in our Q&A:

Tell us about where you grew up and when did you start your first “company”?

I grew up in Seattle, Washington and was the youngest child in my extended family. My older brother is brilliant and athletic, my cousins are all very tall and talented, and in my early years all the adults always treated me like the baby of the family. I obviously didn’t like being treated that way and had a chip on my shoulder to prove that I could keep up with the bigger kids. At age 10, I tried reading the stock section of the newspaper instead of the comics so I could talk about public companies instead of cartoon characters. Later on in life, my parents told me I was too young to get a job in tech so I decided to take online courses to get my Cisco Certified Network Assistant (CCNA) certification and started a company in high school to set up home networks, printers, and computer systems in my neighborhood. I learned early on how to punch above my weight and prove to others that I should not be underestimated. That mindset was very helpful for me later in life.

You spent your early career at Google and Etsy, but have said that volunteer work in Africa best prepared you to start a company. What did you learn there?

I went to Stanford and was lucky enough to work at Google for 4 years right after school – I learned in both places how some of the most talented people in the world can attack a problem at scale with vast resources. But in many ways my year in rural Tanzania better prepared me for life in a startup. I volunteered at a non-profit to try and support health facilities in very underprivileged areas – we didn’t have running water, power, or any first world resources and wanted to improve the quality of care for families who didn’t have access to modern medicine. That kind of an environment really stretches you – I learned to appreciate the diversity of talent on the ground in our local community and focus on specific outcomes like getting vaccines for children. This kind of work is very similar to the early years of a startup – you have limited resources and can only make progress if you can align what you have towards a clear goal. When you live in a bubble, you need to find a way to break out – spending time abroad was a transformational year in my career.

What inspired you to start Signal Sciences?

I came back from Africa and got a job running product at Etsy, one of the largest online marketplaces for small businesses. A big part of my job was ensuring the buyers and sellers could trust our platform, and I very quickly learned that this was easier said than done. My co-founders, Zane and Nick worked in engineering and security, and together we were always coming up with new internally developed technologies to protect our site from advanced fraud, bots, account takeover attempts, and internet attacks that seemed to rise exponentially every month. We found that a lot of friends at other B2C companies wanted to copy what we had built, and that inspired us to start a company to try and build a product that could solve the problem for everyone. I give my co-founders a lot of credit for coming up with the idea, and for convincing me to take the leap with them to start the company!

What were some of the lessons learned from Signal Sciences that you can share with founders?

People have asked me how I had the confidence to run a security company given that I had no prior experience in cybersecurity. In retrospect, I think it was one of the advantages that we had compared to our competitors. I think a company’s strength can be the diversity of skills that is brought in from day one – we had cybersecurity experience but also could import some of our best ideas from our B2B2C and B2C backgrounds. Unlike traditional companies, we could combine best-in-class user experience and product design from our consumer backgrounds with enterprise IT requirements that we had seen on the front lines of a web scale platform. I personally feel uncomfortable when I’m too comfortable – I think a lot of founders will say that if a team doesn’t feel challenged by the pace of innovation and growth then you are probably vulnerable to a competitor who is attacking a problem in a new and different way. We embraced our diversity as a company from day one and that became one of our core differentiators.

What are you going to be doing next with your career?

I am excited to spend the next few years as a Founder Advisor with Decibel and do my small part to help founders on their journey. There are no “cheat-codes” to starting a company but it is always helpful as a founder to get advice from those who have been in your shoes – it saves you from re-inventing the wheel or spending your energy trying to run through walls. I am so grateful to all of the entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors who helped us along the way and I have found it very fulfilling to share whatever wisdom I can with others.  Though it is hard to predict the future, I would like to start another company someday and like many founders I am always dreaming up new ideas. But I am also reminded that starting a company is a 10-year plus commitment if things go well and it requires putting your mind, body, and spirit into the work. I may need to take a breath and spend some time with my family before diving deep!

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