Ravi Nori, Sr. Director of Cloud & AppSec at Gopuff

In this Sage Spotlight, Ravi Nori, Senior Director of Cloud & Application Security at Gopuff, shares his experience with the challenges of navigating vendor selection amidst a flood of solicitations. His insights reveal how Sagetap facilitates a targeted approach to vendor engagement, highlighting successful collaborations and the exploration of new technologies that align with Gopuff's needs.

Key Takeaways

• Ravi's Role and Challenges: As Senior Director of Cloud & Application Security at Gopuff, Ravi faces the daunting task of filtering through countless solicitations to find relevant technology solutions, emphasizing the importance of efficiency and relevance in the selection process.
• Sagetap's Organized Approach: Sagetap offers an organized platform that allows Ravi to quickly identify and engage with technologies that are pertinent to Gopuff's needs, enabling him to decline what's not applicable and focus on potential matches.
• Successful Vendor Collaborations: Ravi highlights successful introductions to vendors such as Flare, a threat intelligence platform that complements their existing solutions, and Traceable, an API security company that addresses specific use cases like API discovery in an agentless manner.
• Appreciation for Sagetap: Through Sagetap, Ravi has not only found valuable additions to Gopuff's security technology stack but has also gained insights and opportunities that would be difficult to access through traditional sales channels, showcasing a high appreciation for the platform and its team.
• Continuous Learning and Exploration: Despite not adopting every technology, Ravi values the learning experience and exposure to new and emerging solutions facilitated by Sagetap, emphasizing the platform's role in expanding his knowledge and options in the tech landscape.

Full Transcript

 Ravi Nori: So currently I'm the Senior Director of Cloud & Application Security at Gopuff.

 I don't really have time to sit and listen to long-winded sales pitches and things like that. I just want to be introduced to technology. I only apply for things for which I have an interest in, but I do have to state my use case, so it's good for both me and the vendor.

We get a lot of solicitations, I get tons of solicitations every single day, and I don't have time to go through it all. And again, so this is a very organized way to do it because I can look at the opportunities that are being presented to me, pick and choose anything that I feel is applicable, decline anything that's not applicable. So it's a very organized way of getting introduced to technologies that are relevant. And I say relevant with bolding and underlining.

Sahil Khanna: Are there any that really stick out to you — vendors that you've met via Sagetap — that you think are particularly exciting in what they're bringing to the market?

Ravi: Yeah, so one vendor that we've actually incorporated, they're a very up-and-coming, hot new startup called Flare. So basically they're a threat intelligence platform. Was really impressed with the organization and information that they provide. Our SOC team works with Recorded Future, but we just, more information is always better.

Got introduced through Sagetap. They're a great addition to our threat intelligent platforms, like Recorded Future that we have in process, but our SOC team is constantly looking for new feeds, organized ways of managing alerts that we see in our environment.

So Flare was a natural addition. They came in at a great price. They're willing to work with us to get their foot in the door into a hot emerging startup. So that was really exciting.

Another company that we're actually talking to right now that, again, I had this API security use case, got introduced to a company called Traceable.

And again, we have a very tight budget constraint after I had the introduction in terms of what they do and what use cases they can solve for, particularly around the areas of API discovery, which are really weak in. Doing it so in an agentless way, et cetera.

And they were, they're very transparent in the calls. Sometimes you get a connection with the presenters and they did a really good job. So we're actually gonna be doing a POC with them in the next couple of weeks.

And again, I've learned a tremendous amount, even though I don't sometimes adopt all the technologies. I just don't get this opportunity doing it, the normal sales route or somebody approaches me on LinkedIn, you just don't get that. So really, I have a high appreciation for this platform and your staff. They do an extremely amazing job.