Okay, welcome to this special edition of the Cybertrops podcast. We're here at the Inch360 event in beautiful Spokane, Washington on the campus of Gonzaga University and, uh, excited to have Brian Yamanaka here. Brian, uh, why don't you start by telling us who you are and what you do? Yeah, thanks for having me, Jethro.
I'm Brian Yamanaka. Uh, I'm the CEO and founder of a, um, company called Archangelos, where we specialize in governance, risk, and compliance, as well as cyber security, uh, program advising, And, um, Consulting Services for Startups and Small to Medium Sized Businesses. Uh, so I'm here at this, uh, Inch360 event, which is actually in a beautiful space on Gonzaga's campus. It is, yeah. because I'm still what I would consider relatively new to the area.
I moved here from Seattle about three years ago, uh, with my family. And Um, have always been in the tech space, and, you know, Seattle's a very different, I'll say community than it is out here in Spokane.
And so, by coming to the Inch360 event, and even volunteering to be on the planning committee, it's given me a lot of, um, uh, networking opportunities, built new connections with other engineering leaders in the area, and have really, um, sort of established, you know, who I am and where I am in the community here.
Uh, much quicker than I think in Seattle, and I have nothing against Seattle, I think it's just different here, the, the community is, um, I'll say one that's also continuing to grow and be in flux, I think there's a lot of people in the Spokane area that are like me, coming from Seattle, or, some other tech hub, and, um, it's, it's great to see the embrace, um, and, See folks be embraced when they come here and, uh, with open arms, you know, Heather
and her team have just been phenomenal with regards to welcoming people in and we're seeing it at the event here. Um, uh, there's a lot more people than I thought would be here. And I think that's just a testament to the growing community as well as, you know, welcoming the folks in. Yeah, I, I'm glad you brought that up because like you, uh, I moved here about three years ago and.
have also been very welcomed in, and specifically by Heather, uh, Heather Stratford, CEO of Drip7, that we, um, we've had her on the show, and she's, she's fantastic, but, she's, she's really good at making people feel like they matter and that they belong, and she does a really good job, at that, and so, um, There have been several people who have said, Well, I know Heather, and she invited me to this, and, you know, she just, uh, knows a lot of people and
is able to connect with people really well, so I think that's powerful. What's your, uh, takeaway from what you've experienced today as, as part of this? Well, as I had said before, my, my, takeaways is definitely that, the tech community here is a lot larger than I thought. There are, um, You know, very experienced and, bright folks here, even from the universities, you know, there's some students that were here that stopped me afterwards and we were talking and, uh, it's just unexpected.
you know, I think the other takeaway is that, uh, I think intellectually and especially in the security space that, there's something special out here in Spokane. Uh, I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, but, you know, there's, there's great companies that are continuing to get funded. Um, there's more tension that's, uh, Spokane's garnering in the, in the startup and the, the SaaS space. So, yeah, my takeaway is, is really that there's a lot of talent out here.
There's a lot of great people. it isn't talked about outside of Spokane very much. Um, so I would hope that. As we continue to grow as a community here, that we can make more of a name for ourself, um, and attract more talent and, and folks of the, the area. Yeah, it, it actually reminds me, especially being at this, uh, conference here, reminds me a lot of the mid aughts of, uh, Utah and Silicon Slopes and the Provo, uh, Lehigh, American Fork area.
There was a lot of growth in that area in the tech space specifically, and a lot of stuff happening around that and people getting together and, and doing things in it. And it felt very grassroots, uh, when I was down there and this feels very similar, like coming to this conference today, it just has that same vibe of people like welcoming, welcoming, wanting you to be successful, wanting people to be part of it.
And, uh, and that's just, that feels good, you know, it feels like they're like we're on the upswing and like there's going to be some good things coming out of this. I like that a lot. yeah, the community here is, is just, um, has been fantastic is, you know, being someone new to the area. Yeah. Like yourself. Yeah. So tell us about your company and what you guys do and how people who should be reaching out to you to connect with you.
Um, so at Archangelos, I mean, right now it's just me and another business partner that, um, I have Carl, and, uh, we've actually been able to get in with a lot of companies very quickly, and I think the reason for that is because, um, we found this nice little spot sort of in between, like, being kind of like a coach player, I'll say, and the reason I, I, I, make that analogy is because when we go into startups and, um, smaller companies, um, Uh, a lot of the, the
coaching I'll say that we do is with the founder because the founder is there to build a product to, um, you know, delight their customers, if you will, and they don't have the time to, uh, put towards, Hey, how do I get SOC 2 compliant? How do I maintain a good security posture? How do I build out a cyber security program? And by the same token, when I say player, it's, you know, there are engineers that are typically in these organizations.
They need someone to build the product, but again, they're focused on feature development. And, um, and building the product out. So, we kind of sit in the middle in terms of being able to work with both sides of the house to establish a program, to meet certain compliance needs, whether that be HIPAA, PCI, um, and governance, uh, frameworks like SOC, um, or NIST.
so we shoulder a lot of that on us to be able to have those teams focus on, you know, what they're good at, what, what they should be focused on. Yeah. Uh, do you do any work with, uh, like EdTech startups around COPPA or, um, FERPA, compliance or anything like that?
So I haven't, um, I know that Carl, uh, has in his past, um, with FERPA, uh, it's a space that, you know, we're definitely interested in, but being as small as we are, we're sort of being very disciplined and focused on, on where we're operating today. You know, as we scale out and grow, that might be Definitely an area that we look into. Yeah, interesting.
It's, it's something that as more schools are adopting, different pieces of technology, not everybody is playing by those rules, and, things as simple as accessibility, which is not one of those things, but, accessibility, like, there's been a rash of, lawsuits against schools for making websites that are not accessible. And because they are government institutions, they basically have to be accessible and, and they can be sued for violating that.
And it's one of those little things that, like, nobody even thinks about, unless they have someone in their community who needs that accessibility, right?
and then, you know, in, five or six years ago, there was this rash of lawsuits all across the country of schools not being accessible, their website's not being accessible, and it was like, a lot of money went towards dealing with that lawsuit, and updating their systems, which is the right thing to do, but that could have been prevented with somebody like yourself saying, here's, here's what you should be focusing on. Oh, you're building that website?
Do these two things, and it'll make it accessible, and make it a little bit easier. And I think that's what you're saying you do on the cyber security.
Jethro Jones, Transformative Principal, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro,
Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro, Jethro Um, kind of like what we talked about today at the conference, it's how do we better prepare you by building out a cyber security program, running the vulnerability scans, um, and empowering your team to also own that process so that it isn't a call that you have to make to the consultant every time, your team has the in house knowledge and skills to at least be able to provide
like tier one support if anything happens. Yeah, very good. So how do people, uh, get in contact with Archangelos? Uh, you can check us out on LinkedIn. Um, that's where we spend most of our time. Uh, we have a website. Uh, it just goes, you know, at a high level through what we do. Um, but, DM me on LinkedIn. Uh, follow Archangelos on, on, on, on LinkedIn as well. you know, we're always happy to have a conversation and connect and learn more about your business.
Yeah. And, you know, just a little A secret piece of advice for people out there, when you're working with a startup, they may not know exactly who they're serving yet, and you've got a pretty good idea, but having these conversations is incredibly valuable to you, and to the people that you're talking with, because you may not be able to solve their problem, or do something for them, but you can at least talk through things and help them see what they do need to do,
and if you're not a good solution, you probably have a connection that is, right? Oh, 100%. Um, we've spent so much time in this, um, industry and with our experience, uh, our network is pretty deep. So if we can't do it, I'm pretty certain we know someone that can. All right. Very good. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate you. Thank you, Jethro.