Leadership Lessons from Corey Thomas: Scaling Rapid7 from Startup to IPO

Leadership Lessons from Corey Thomas: Scaling Rapid7 from Startup to IPO

Author: Venture Guides July 16, 2025 Duration: 38:57
Welcome to Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast, the podcast for early-stage founders and startup leaders who know that great companies aren’t lucky… they’re built through smart execution and a bulletproof go-to-market strategy. What does it really take to scale a cybersecurity company from startup to IPO? On this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye interviews Corey Thomas, Chairman and CEO of Rapid7. Corey shares hard-earned leadership lessons from his 16-year journey, from navigating international expansion and acquisitions to building elite teams and mastering product-market fit. Whether you're a founder or an executive, this episode delivers real-world strategies for scaling with discipline, crafting winning narratives, and making smart, sustainable growth decisions.

Sage Nye, Managing Partner at Venture Guides, hosts Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast, a series built on the premise that lasting companies are engineered, not discovered by chance. This podcast moves beyond theoretical advice to focus on the tangible mechanics of launching and scaling a business, specifically for founders and leaders in the early, precarious stages. Each episode features frank discussions with a range of voices crucial to the journey-technical founders who have navigated product-market fit, investors who scrutinize traction, and go-to-market experts who specialize in building repeatable sales engines. The conversations are candid by design, stripping away the glossy narratives to examine what actually worked, what failed, and why. Listeners will find a resource devoid of fluff, where proven playbooks and operational realities take center stage. It’s for those who understand that strategy is meaningless without execution, and that a bulletproof go-to-market plan is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Tune in for the real talk needed to translate vision into viable, growing revenue.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 16

Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast
Podcast Episodes
Beyond Capital: How Venture Guides is Redefining the Venture Playbook [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:37
Welcome to Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast, the podcast for early-stage founders and startup leaders who know that great companies aren’t lucky… they’re built through smart execution and a bulletproof go…
Trailer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:31
Welcome to Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast—the podcast for early-stage founders and startup leaders who know that great companies aren’t lucky… they’re built through smart execution and a bulletproof go-…