Two thoughts keep Danny Jenkins up at night: his cybersecurity company growing too fast and his company not growing fast enough.
The CEO of ThreatLocker Inc. attempts to walk a fine line as his Maitland-based business explodes. ThreatLocker has added two dozen employees since October and has signed roughly 7,000 clients since its founding in 2015. The company on April 30 finalized a $20 million investment round, which will fund growth in ThreatLocker’s product, marketing, sales and cybersecurity support efforts as the business works to keep up with soaring demand.
That growth will continue, as Jenkins said he projects ThreatLocker will employ at least 200 people between Florida and its new European headquarters in Ireland by October 2022. Plus, he expects the business to double its number of clients by the end of the year. However, the business faces challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic and a tight labor market for tech workers. They include finding enough top-level cybersecurity talent to grow at a sufficient rate and deciding how much space to snag for its new Orlando office.
Cybersecurity talent was red-hot before 2020, and the pandemic did not make it any easier for ThreatLocker to find the workers it needs, Jenkins said. “Pre-pandemic, it was very easy to say ‘If you’re not employed, I’m not going to hire you.’ There’s a reason you’re not employed. Nowadays, there are so many good reasons to not be employed.”
Meanwhile, luring experienced cyber employees away from their jobs is tough. Employers are willing to match ThreatLocker’s offer to pay $30,000-$40,000 more because they don’t want to lose their workers, Jenkins said. The business found success in recruiting from local universities, namely the University of Central Florida. Offers to pay staff members for referrals and attending the growing number of live conferences also help ThreatLocker find talent, Jenkins added.
The company went fully remote due to the pandemic, but it eventually will need more space to deal with its workforce expansion. Jenkins said he expects ThreatLocker to adopt a hybrid approach that balances remote and in-office work. The questions of how many people will return to the office, how the office will adopt social distancing and how much ThreatLocker will grow all weigh on executives as they scout spaces.
“The challenge is, do we want to go big? Or leave it as is and say we’re inevitably going to have to move again, and we focus on shorter leases?”
ThreatLocker’s growth creates high-wage jobs in Central Florida. The positions the firm seeks to fill all pay average annual wages that are higher than metro Orlando’s average annual wage of $48,530. For example, the average annual pay for sales, developer and marketing jobs ranges from $59,000 to more than $100,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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