We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Reginald Andre a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Reginald, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing someone has ever done for me was firing me. I had a tech company with my business partner of 9 years. We got into business with a handshake deal and never anything in writing. 9 years later when I approached him in having something in writing, he unexpectedly terminated our partnership and kept sole ownership of the company we built together. At the time, I was devastated. My hopes, dreams, time and identity were tied up in our shared vision. However, after processing my grief and anger, I realized how much knowledge and resilience I gained in those 9 difficult years.

While how it ended was deeply disappointing and unfair, I’m grateful for the personal growth all those long days and nights made possible. Focusing on that rather than dwelling on what I lost has empowered me to move forward positively as I continue using what I learned to dream bigger on my own terms.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I help businesses stay protected by providing cybersecurity and IT. I stumbled into this industry somewhat by chance over 20 years ago when I helped a customer at electronics store, I worked at. He was impressed with my IT talents, and I soon had a stream of requests from his friends. We both quickly realize there was a need for this service, and we started a business together.

We had a business breakup, and afterwards I decided to go on my own and start my own business that I own 100%. Our company is dedicated to safeguarding organizations against digital threats. We take a multilayered approach that combines anti-malware tools, firewalls, access controls, vulnerability testing, staff training, and other critical safeguards.

What I love most is giving my clients peace of mind, knowing their sensitive systems and data are protected 24/7. Business owners have enough to worry about without adding cyber-attacks to the list! I aim to be a trusted partner they can rely on to fully manage and monitor their security posture. Our company specialized skills, continuous education and relationships with our clients allow us to offer affordable rates for small business.

I’m especially proud when clients report averting major breaches thanks to protections we implemented proactively. Seeing our work literally save companies from catastrophic data and financial loss is extremely rewarding. At the end of the day, I measure my success by my clients’ safety and confidence in staying shielded from digital threats. That drives me to keep enhancing my capabilities to meet the accelerating pace of cybercrime. I want every business owner resting easy knowing their technology interests and data assets are secure with me on the job.”

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I’m a firm believer in Dave Ramsey’s whose philosophy is to avoid debt when launching a business. So when I founded my cybersecurity company, I was determined to forgo loans or credit cards and instead start small using the few dollars I had in my pocket.

I have kept overhead ridiculously low – no need for fancy offices or furnished space year one. I invested in solid cyber protection tools for clients, not luxury surroundings for myself. My home became my headquarters, keeping costs contained as I steadily grew service contracts. Carefully tracking income and outflows each month, I remained quite lean yet fully self-reliant on what my expertise could generate without taking on any debt.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Early on in my IT consulting business, I primarily provided reactive tech support services. I would respond whenever clients called with some system outage, network slowdown, software glitches, or other technical headaches that were interrupting their workflow. I was good at quickly diagnosing issues and restoring normal operations, so I built a solid base of loyal customers.

However, I started noticing a concerning pattern – too many calls related to malware infections, unauthorized logins, and other symptoms of breaches. After further assessing many clients’ infrastructure, I realized how dangerously vulnerable most of their technology environments were. They lacked firewalls, endpoint protection, access controls and other fundamental security measures.

So I shifted gears into more of a proactive cybersecurity-centric model. Now when onboarding customers, I require implementing strategic defenses upfront to harden their networks and devices preemptively. This means fewer emergency incident responses down the road. I provide ongoing staff awareness training, conduct frequent vulnerability testing, monitor threats round-the-clock via SIEM tools, and continually patch and upgrade systems before attacks happen. Essentially I pivoted from just reacting to problems to preventing them altogether through robust, managed detection and response services.

While clients appreciate rapid response when their operations are down, they value avoiding operational impacts and data loss even more. My new business motto became “an ounce of protection is worth a pound of remediation” as I partner with customers to build resilience rather than just restore service after disasters strike.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.arksolvers.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arksolvers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arksolvers
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ark-solvers
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/arksolvers
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiXrDyQGUuHhnI7ovQ7GORw/featured