Leadership Lessons from a Serial Entrepreneur | A Conversation with Lisa Falzone (Co-Founder at Athena Security & Revel)

This week we hosted Lisa Falzone, a serial entrepreneur and innovator best known for co-founding Revel Systems. After exiting Revel, Lisa turned her focus to physical security, co-founding Athena Security, a cutting-edge company that delivers advanced concealed weapon detection and threat analytics. In a fireside chat, Lisa shared how she’s built two successful companies from scratch, how she’s validated ideas, and when she knew she had product-market fit.

If you'd been there, here's what you'd still be thinking about:

Be ready to pivot, and do it with humility. At both Revel and Athena, Lisa’s original idea got her funding and in the door with customers, but wasn’t the product they ultimate went all in on. For Revel, she started with a mobile ordering system, but heard feedback from customers that what they really wanted to a POS system that worked with the iPad. And so she sold it to a customer without it being built… and then went to work to build it. That POS offering ended up being the flagship Revel product. And for Athena, the original product was visual light weapons detection, but the company ultimately pivoted to offer concealed carry detection based on customer feedback and needs.

Look for the pull, not the push. Lisa noted that the original mobile ordering product she built at Revel — it was good, and people wanted it — but she felt like she had to “push” it on to customers. Versus once they identified the mobile POS, she felt the market “pull”. In reflecting on her experience, she said “I've always wanted the better product market fit. [With Revel] there was a market for ordering for the ordering app. But I felt more pull, rather than push, for the point of sale. It was way more of a pain point.” If you feel like you are constantly needing to push your product as opposed to customers seeking it out for themselves, you may not have product-market-fit — yet.

A mission is great, but a business is better. Lisa is the ultimate pragmatist (and winning-focused founder). She notes that it’s great to be altruistic, and to have a strong mission, but it’s better to build a strong business. And then, she quiped, “you can add the mission on after you have product-market fit”.

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