Building a Mobile Security Company in Silicon Valley: Domingo Guerra, Co-Founder and President of Appthority (Part 1)

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Domingo came into the market at a time when his original value proposition to enterprises wasn’t that urgent. Over time, however, the mobile security challenge has grown into a critical issue, and now the company is thriving.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Domingo Guerra: I’m originally from Monterey, Mexico. I didn’t move to the US until I was 18. Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Monterey is very well-known for some of the largest companies in Mexico. A lot of folks wanted to be soccer players when they grew up, but I wasn’t very good at sports. I wanted to focus on academics and try to do well. I remember a talk when I was a kid where they said, “You need a lot of luck to do well in entrepreneurship. Luck was preparation and opportunity together.” I wanted to pursue both more opportunities and better preparation. So, I moved to the US for college and did engineering.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you do your college?

Domingo Guerra: At UT Austin. I focused on Mechanical Engineering originally. It was something that I could be very hands-on with. I like tinkering and seeing how things worked. It was also very rooted in trying to identify a solution for almost any kind of problem.

Sramana Mitra: What year did you finish UT Austin?

Domingo Guerra: I graduated in 2003. At that time, I started working for Applied Materials down in Austin. I was in the robotics team. Eventually, they moved all of our team to California to the design centre. I had heard of Silicon Valley before but once I lived here, I saw the amount of opportunity and talent around. It’s very common that everyone is passionate about their work. Even after work, they were talking about their projects. You get to learn a lot of new and cool technologies that way.

Sramana Mitra: How long did you stay there?

Domingo Guerra: I spent almost six years in internships and full-time jobs. While I was at Applied, I got a chance to do a Master’s in Engineering at Stanford. I was going to school and completing my work on weekends. It was something where you can take advantage of the opportunity of a large company where they do a portion of the tuition reimbursement. They have the flexible work schedule so you can continue your education and work at the same time.

Sramana Mitra: What year does this bring us up to?

Domingo Guerra: I graduated from Stanford in 2007 with my Master’s in Mechanical Engineering. After some time, I moved over to Brocade Communications. During Brocade, I moved away from just product design and wanted to do more. I realized that even if you have a successful design, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be a successful product in the marketplace. You need a lot more than just engineering and design. You need to win at marketing, operations, and a lot of different aspects. I wanted to be able to have more of a say into the success of a product.

I moved over to Brocade to a Product Introduction role. I got to work with not only engineering, but also sales and marketing. I got to build upon my engineering background and also learned some more about the business and strategy around launching a product. I repeated the model they had done at Applied Materials. At night, I went to an MBA program at Santa Clara University. This would have been 2007 through 2011. I spent four years at Brocade and completed my MBA. I already knew how to design products but now I wanted to know how to launch products.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Building a Mobile Security Company in Silicon Valley: Domingo Guerra, Co-Founder and President of Appthority
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