What It's Like Being the Only Security Startup in Your YC Batch
Alex Chantavy, Kunaal Sikka
BSides NYC 2025 (0x05) · Day 1 · Entrepreneur
This talk provides a candid and insightful look into the challenging yet rewarding journey of founding a security startup, Subimage, and navigating the highly competitive Y Combinator (YC) accelerator program. Presented by co-founders Alex Chantavy and Kunaal Sikka, both former staff security engineers at Lyft, the session delves into the unique hurdles faced by a deep-tech enterprise security company within a batch often dominated by consumer-focused or AI-driven startups. Their narrative offers a rare glimpse into the realities of product development, sales, fundraising, and cultural adaptation required to succeed in the fast-paced startup ecosystem.
AI review
A candid, honest war story from two credible practitioners who built something real and survived YC to talk about it. Good lane for BSides NYC, decent signal for security founders in the room, but this is squarely a case study talk — not research — and it never pretends otherwise.