Christian Espinosa, founder and CEO of Blue Goat Cyber, is a leading medical device cybersecurity expert, driving advancements prioritizing patient safety and data integrity. His proactive and innovative approach defines his work. As the author of “The Smartest Person in the Room” and “The In-Between: Life in the Micro,” Christian shares his journey from competitive to compassionate leadership. An avid adventurer, he enjoys extreme sports, heavy metal music, and spicy foods. His achievements as a certified skydiver, PADI divemaster, and Ironman triathlete underscore his commitment to personal growth and transformative leadership.

Key Moments

[07:14] Medical device cybersecurity is vital and rewarding.

[10:01] Quarrel with CEO led to new career.

[12:08] Sales and medical device safety concerns.

[16:36] Denali seen as more challenging than Everest.

Find Christian Online

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianespinosa

https://twitter.com/Ironracer

https://www.instagram.com/christian.espinosa.official

https://www.facebook.com/christian.espinosa.official

https://bluegoatcyber.com/

https://christianespinosa.com/

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Transcript Provided By CastMagic.io

Seth [00:00:00]:
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Intro Voice Guy [00:01:40]:
You’re listening to Entrepreneur’s Enigma, a podcast about the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey. Every week, your host, Seth Goldstein, interviews entrepreneurs from all walks of life about their entrepreneurial journeys. From store owners to fortune 500 CEOs, we all have stories to tell. So sit back and join us for the next 20 or so minutes while we explore the entrepreneurial world.

Seth [00:02:15]:
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneur’s Enigma podcast. I’m as always your host, Seth. Today, I have Christian Espinosa. I said that right. Right? Espinosa? Yes. I did it right. Fantastic.

Seth [00:02:28]:
It’s always it’s always tough to get people’s last names because they they can be tough. Anyhow, Christian is a renowned thought leader and best selling author of the smartest person in the room, a book that explores the limitations of seeking validation through achievement. Now Christian is a dynamic entrepreneur, leader, and who likes to inspire to harness others to inspire their innate wisdom, overcome perceived barriers, and summon courage to to thread new paths. Now this guy has done a lot. He is he runs a he sold his cybersecurity company, and then he opened up another one because he’s crazy that way. But not only that, he sent 24 Ironman Triathlons. Let’s let’s let that sink in. 24.

Seth [00:03:14]:
Or is it more now? Is it still 24?

Christian Espinosa [00:03:17]:
It’s still 24. Yeah.

Seth [00:03:19]:
I’m sure there’s no other

Christian Espinosa [00:03:20]:
I’ve taken I’ve taken a little bit of a break.

Seth [00:03:22]:
I don’t blame you. Take a break, please. That kind of thing. 27 summits under his belt. And, you know, it’s it’s crazy, but it’s awesome. And I love to see people really push themselves and have a great time with it. You you know, you like to skydive, mountaineering, mountaineer, and obviously, I mean, 24 I I guess you kinda like triathlons because you’ve done 24 of them. And your latest book is In Between Life in the Micro, which is a focused memoir about where he got hit things right, where he got them wrong, And in regard, it wouldn’t regarding words of tough today where, where he got them wrong and regarding life in the small, small moments within with intention.

Seth [00:04:09]:
Let’s move on. Let’s have you talk because my, my mouth is not working today. Christian, welcome to the show. How are you doing, buddy?

Christian Espinosa [00:04:15]:
I’m doing well. Thanks for having me on, Seth.

Seth [00:04:17]:
Great. And we were just talking about time zones before the show. You’re in Arizona, which flies by their own time zone. So they’re either in western or mountain, and I think you said you’re a mountain time zone. How’s the weather down there, by the way? I like to always highlight that because

Christian Espinosa [00:04:32]:
The weather is yeah. The weather is perfect now. It gets down to mid fifties at night and up to, like, high sixties, low seventies for the day. It’s like the perfect time of year. This is the time of year all the snows all the snowbirds come here and all the people from Canada come here.

Seth [00:04:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s not hot as baloney out there. Because otherwise in the summer, it was like a 115

Christian Espinosa [00:04:53]:
dry. Yeah. It’s Yeah. This past summer, it would be like a 120 for, like, 10 days in a row. It’s soup when it’s anything above, like, 110, it’s pretty hot here.

Seth [00:05:03]:
Well, I think above 8590 on the East Coast is too hot because we got we got humidity. Yeah. So it’s a little different. So how does all get started? I mean, like, how did you get into cybersecurity in the first place? I mean, because, I mean, I know Blue Coat is your second endeavor around with it. So

Christian Espinosa [00:05:21]:
Yeah. I did cybersecurity in the military. I was in the military, the Air Force.

Seth [00:05:25]:
Thank you for your service. There you go.

Christian Espinosa [00:05:26]:
You’re welcome. I was in the Air Force for 6 years. I did information assurance for cybersecurity in the Air Force, protecting classified networks and I worked for DHS for a while, Homeland Security, making sure certain state departments and government agencies were secure. Oh, that’s fun. Yeah. And then I did some testing of aircraft. I used to work on aircraft to make sure commercial aircraft were hack proof, like you couldn’t hack into that. That’s

Seth [00:05:52]:
very important. It’s very important.

Christian Espinosa [00:05:54]:
Yeah. Yeah. So then, I just kind of kept evolving. I had I sold my first cybersecurity business in 2020, Worked for the parent company for about a year and a half. Developed 6 blood clots. Almost died. Was saved by a medical device that could quickly diagnose me, a portable Doppler ultrasound. So after I recovered from those clots, I decided maybe this is the universe telling me to start a new business and focus on medical device cybersecurity.

Seth [00:06:20]:
Okay. Let’s imagine. Let’s pause there for a second. Can you imagine you have, like, a peacemaker that can be hacked? That is terrifying. We’re gonna take a quick break here from our sponsors and get right back to the show.

Christian Espinosa [00:06:33]:
Yeah. So terrifying is such a real threat. At least it used to be that Dick Cheney, when he was VP, had the wireless functionality as of his defibrillator disabled because there was a legitimate threat where somebody could from a pretty far distance wirelessly connect to his defibrillator and shock him to death.

Seth [00:06:53]:
That’s terrifying.

Christian Espinosa [00:06:54]:
It is terrifying.

Seth [00:06:56]:
Yeah. Oh my god.

Christian Espinosa [00:06:57]:
We don’t think about these things until they happen, and unfortunately, it’s too late.

Seth [00:07:00]:
Oh my goodness. Wow. So so blue blue go cyber is, like I said, words are tough for me today. Is is a cybersecurity company focusing on medical devices directly. Right?

Christian Espinosa [00:07:14]:
That’s correct. I feel like traditional cybersecurity is is kind of boring, to be honest. Like, you know, you’re protecting credit card information or health information, all that stuff has been stolen before and it’s an inconvenience. But if somebody hacks into an implantable like a defibrillator or an IVD system, in vitro diagnostic system and results in a false diagnosis or misdiagnosis, a patient could be killed or severely harmed. So the risk is much greater with medical device Cybersecurity and it’s more rewarding because I get to help people bring their new innovation to market which can change like, you know, humanity. The the for health care. Yeah. It’s pretty awesome.

Seth [00:07:58]:
That’s wild. And so do you do a lot of pentesting? So you do get to go in and try and hack it as well? Like, you’re gonna say, like, they give you here’s a defibrillator. Don’t put it in you, but here, try and break it. Like, you know?

Christian Espinosa [00:08:12]:
Yes. What we do, we do, ethical hacking and white hat hacking to call it. We’re ethical. So we do that, we do threat modeling, we do pretty much everything required, all the cyber security risk management assessment and all the testing for a medical device manufacturer to make sure that their device is secure and it can get cleared by the FDA in the US or MDR in Europe.

Seth [00:08:36]:
That is wild. So you see you’re literally going in there and trying to break things and then documenting if you broke it, how you broke it, and how did not how did the how did you break it essentially? Like I said, words are

Christian Espinosa [00:08:49]:
tough today. Yeah. We we document how we broke it and then how the manufacturer can fix it. Yeah. And this is even things like, we work for the company that has a laser that helps remove acne. You can find it in a medical spa. And that device was hackable and we were able to turn off the cooling mechanism and increase the intensity of lasers so we could burn someone pretty severely, right? So we we had to work with the manufacturer to, like, get rid of that vulnerability because you don’t obviously want that to happen if you’re in a med spa getting acne treatment.

Seth [00:09:23]:
It’s bad if you have acne. Now you have a 3rd degree burn. That’s not that’s that’s that’s kind of counterintuitive. It’s not exactly how you wanna go. Right. Oh, that’s oh, wow. So you say you’re doing you’re doing good work. That’s that’s awesome.

Seth [00:09:35]:
I love that. So have you always been I mean, you worked for the military, so you haven’t always been an entrepreneur, but I guess kind of in the military, you were kind of a techie of sorts. What made you want to start your own business in cybersecurity versus like, I mean, I guess you did DHS for a while, but what made you want to do a, your own cybersecurity company versus this work for someone else? I

Christian Espinosa [00:10:01]:
had a run-in with a CEO of a company. I was a VP working for that company, the the company where I tested aircraft. And it was just constant sort of tension between the CEO and myself and it became so much that I’m like, screw it, I’m just going to quit without having another job lined up. And I had never done that before so I just quit one day and I thought you know what this is my opportunity to maybe try solopreneur or freelance work. So I did that for about 6 years, got kind of bored with it and started my first company and, you know, I had up to 16 people at one point.

Seth [00:10:34]:
Oh, wow. So this is Blue Goat just you or is it you and a few people or

Christian Espinosa [00:10:39]:
I’ve got a team of around 20 right now.

Seth [00:10:41]:
Oh, wow. So you kind of went above and beyond with your last company is. It’s awesome.

Christian Espinosa [00:10:46]:
Yeah. I’m It’s nice. A little over a year into Blue Goat, I’m already at a higher revenue level than I was after 6 years with my last company. You know, you tend to at least for me, I I paid a lot of the dumb tax. They like to say in my first company I’m trying not to pay it again and learn from those mistakes. Because I almost did not start a new company but I thought all the lessons I learned in that first company I should be able to do this one a lot smarter.

Seth [00:11:13]:
Yeah. I make different mistakes. Exactly.

Christian Espinosa [00:11:17]:
And then the next one I’ll get better. You know, it’s an iterative process.

Seth [00:11:20]:
It is how it is. Absolutely. So what so in your mind, I mean, because I mean, I think I knew the answer, but let’s make it obvious. What is the best thing about being entrepreneur versus working for the man for that matter?

Christian Espinosa [00:11:35]:
I think the best thing for me is having my destiny in my control. It is also a scary thing because there’s no one to save you. There’s days you can’t take off, but I prefer that because I also feel like it forces you to grow. If you can’t grow personally, your business will not grow.

Seth [00:11:55]:
Oh, I love that. Yeah. That that is a quarter of the of the episode right there so far. So what’s and what’s and what keeps you up at night? I mean, being an entrepreneur in the cybersecurity world, I’m sure a lot of things keep you up at night.

Christian Espinosa [00:12:08]:
There’s probably 2 main things that keep you up at night. One of them is sales. Without sales you have no company. So I’m always trying to figure out how to get more inbound leads, how to master partnerships, how to work outbound and get that dialed in. That’s something that keeps me up. The other thing that keeps me up is we work with these medical devices that are often life saving devices and I want to make sure we are accurate and complete and very thorough with our testing and our analysis. Because if one of these devices is hacked and it kills somebody and we’ve worked on it, that will obviously not look good for me.

Seth [00:12:45]:
Yeah. It doesn’t look good for them either because they’re dead. That’s not good at all.

Christian Espinosa [00:12:50]:
Yeah. So I mean, so that’s what I’m saying. It’s like the risk is a lot greater than just having your credit card data stolen.

Seth [00:12:55]:
Yeah. Especially because this credit card data, I mean, everyone’s credit card data is already stolen pretty much. You can kind of I mean, literally, they’re like and I I figured something by rote me and they’re like, hey, we’ll give you a year and a half or a year, 2 years of, credit monitoring. Great. Sign up for that. You know how many credit monitoring services I have

Christian Espinosa [00:13:13]:
on my plate right now? 25 probably.

Seth [00:13:16]:
Yeah. Or 30. But literally, if someone wants to spend money on my credit card, my credit card company alone will say, this doesn’t look like you. Was this you? And I’ll say no, and then they’ll they’ll cancel the charge. Like, it’s like, that’s not a big I mean, it’s an issue. It’s pain in the ass issue.

Christian Espinosa [00:13:32]:
Mhmm.

Seth [00:13:32]:
Have your defibrillator be hacked from a mile away and have yourself shocked to death seems a little bit more pertinent of an issue, I would say.

Christian Espinosa [00:13:42]:
It’s not really inconvenience. It’s more of an issue like you said. Yeah.

Seth [00:13:45]:
Yeah. It’s it’s a big issue. Exactly. So what made you I guess, is what made made you do 24 Ironman triathlons? Like, just doing 1 alone, but then 24.

Christian Espinosa [00:13:57]:
Yeah. I used to work out all the time and lift lift weights and get on the treadmill. And a friend of mine made a bet, very competitive guy, smack talker. He bet me to to a triathlon Okay. Competition. So I did a triathlon as a short one. I didn’t know how to swim. I didn’t have a bike.

Christian Espinosa [00:14:13]:
I borrowed a bike and I ended up beating him. But then after that, he talked so much smack I was determined to beat him. After that, I thought, man this is kind of cool. It gives me a purpose for my training. I’m not just going to the gym to lift weights, to look good. I’ve actually got a reason to train. So I started to sign up for races. So I would train for that race and then eventually I’m like, what’s the next bigger race? So then there’s a half Ironman.

Christian Espinosa [00:14:36]:
Then it’s like okay what’s after that? A full Ironman. Okay what’s after that? Maybe an ultra marathon. So I just kind of kept upping the ante, you know. And then once I got to that certain level of fitness, I’m like I might as well try to keep this level of fitness. So I’ll put another race on the calendar to force me to stay fit.

Seth [00:14:51]:
I love it. And before you know it, you blink. You’ve done 24 of these crazy things.

Christian Espinosa [00:14:56]:
Yeah. There’s a couple years I did 3 in a row. I I think 1 year I did 3 of them within a 6 week period. Your body

Seth [00:15:02]:
is not gonna like you when you’re a senior.

Christian Espinosa [00:15:05]:
It may it may like me more. I don’t know.

Seth [00:15:08]:
You don’t know exactly. My dad just got a new ankle because he’s a lacrosse player. He just got a new I don’t even know you could get a new ankle.

Christian Espinosa [00:15:14]:
Me neither.

Seth [00:15:15]:
You can get you can get ankle replacement. I’m like Oh, wow. If anyone’s gonna get a joint or a bone replaced, it’s my father because he is, you know, mentally sane and sound and all that stuff, but structurally, oh, he’s a mess. Anyhow, why is this why is it 7 summits? What is that? I’m very curious by that.

Christian Espinosa [00:15:33]:
The 7 summits is the highest mountain on every continent.

Seth [00:15:37]:
You’ve done that twice.

Christian Espinosa [00:15:38]:
I’ve done I’ve only done 2. I’ve done Kilimanjaro, which is in Africa. Oh. And Mount

Seth [00:15:43]:
2 of the 7 summits.

Christian Espinosa [00:15:45]:
Yeah. And Mount Elbras, which is in Russia. It’s the highest peak in Europe.

Seth [00:15:49]:
Oh, wow. About Mount Kilimanjaro is gorgeous because you’re out and you look out across the savanna and you’re really high up. I mean, are you gonna do Everest, do you think?

Christian Espinosa [00:16:01]:
It’s on my list. Yes. Denali is probably the I’m not really I’m not really trained as well enough for Denali. I think Denali is more challenging than Everest. Really? Yeah. It’s more remote. There’s no established base camp. You have to cash all your food.

Christian Espinosa [00:16:15]:
The weather’s, you know, a little more volatile because there’s not as many people monitoring it. And,

Seth [00:16:20]:
there’s

Christian Espinosa [00:16:21]:
not a like, Everest is a rope. You’re kind of on a rope just going up the whole way. Denali, you’re not. And you’ve also got a, like, use skis and pull your food on a sled and cash it and build your camp and Denali is a little more involved, I think.

Seth [00:16:36]:
Oh, wow. I wouldn’t thought that. Because I mean, Everest well, I guess Everest is also kind of in the zeitgeist right now. It’s like, they found a a guy that died there in 19 fifties. Like, it’s always like Everest. Everest this, Everest that, and it’s like, well, Denali seems like to be even more challenging. Wow. So Everest then so you can do Everest Denali.

Seth [00:16:55]:
It’s awesome.

Christian Espinosa [00:16:56]:
Yeah. Maybe. We’ll see. Yeah. I’ll probably do Aconcagua next, which is in, South America.

Seth [00:17:02]:
Oh. In the Andes. That’s that’s Yeah. I guess it’s telling me I’m big mountain ridge in the Andes. Otherwise, it’s like swamps and you know, the rainforest and stuff. So there you go. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Seth [00:17:13]:
So then why is it big why is the most important thing to carry with you all the time? This can be as woo as you wanna get.

Christian Espinosa [00:17:21]:
The most important thing to carry with me in like mountaineering or just

Seth [00:17:23]:
in general? In general.

Christian Espinosa [00:17:27]:
Probably a knife in general. Yeah.

Seth [00:17:31]:
You never know when that bear is gonna come out and, like, jump at your in Arizona. Not really in Arizona. But That’s

Christian Espinosa [00:17:39]:
too many bears here.

Seth [00:17:39]:
Coyotes. Coyotes.

Christian Espinosa [00:17:40]:
Coyotes. Yeah. I just got my, concealed weapon permit, concealed carry. So I I carry a gun with me now just in case.

Seth [00:17:48]:
Just in case. Because, you know, those coyotes are a little wild. Coyotes and coyotes.

Christian Espinosa [00:17:52]:
People, you never know about people too. You know, people are crazy.

Seth [00:17:55]:
The coyotes and coyotes. Aren’t they darn like the smugglers called coyotes?

Christian Espinosa [00:18:00]:
I think they are. Yeah. You got the real coyotes and the smuggler coyotes. Yeah.

Seth [00:18:05]:
Yeah. And

Christian Espinosa [00:18:05]:
You got they’re also called the mules. So I thought the mules too that carry the drugs. That’s

Seth [00:18:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. Be careful out there. Exactly. Exactly. But Christian, this has been so much fun. Where where is the best place for the people to find you and hang out with you online?

Christian Espinosa [00:18:19]:
Yeah. Probably LinkedIn, is a good place or my company website bluegoatscyber.com or my personal website christianspinosa.com. My books are also available on Amazon.

Seth [00:18:28]:
Of oh, The Better May?

Christian Espinosa [00:18:30]:
Yeah. And and and Audible if you prefer to listen to books.

Seth [00:18:34]:
Did you did you read them?

Christian Espinosa [00:18:36]:
I had Calio Griffith read them. He did Trump’s, The Art of the Deal. I think he’s got a better voice than me, so he he read them.

Seth [00:18:44]:
Well, good. Well, hey. Know what you’re good at and hire for the rest. Exactly. Alright, Christian. Thank you so much for being on, and we’ll see everyone next time.

Christian Espinosa [00:18:54]:
Thanks for having me on, Seth.

Intro Voice Guy [00:18:55]:
That was a great show. If you’re enjoying Entrepreneur’s Enigma, please consider giving us a review in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps us reach new listeners. If you like Entrepreneur’s Enigma, consider the other shows on the marketing podcast network at marketingpodcast.net.

Seth [00:19:30]:
Goldstein Media hopes you’ve enjoyed this episode.