Designed the MVP That Took a Cyber Security Platform From Stealth to a Fortune 100 Customer

Context

Quantro Security builds AI agents for enterprise cyber defense.

• The first product, VM.Analyst, is an AI agent for vulnerability management

• Founders came from Tenable, Qualys, and CrowdStrike

• Backed by Gradient

• I designed the MVP from scratch under the stealth name Cymantic AI

• The company came out of stealth in March 2026 with NRG, a Fortune 100 energy company, as its first named customer

The Problem

A new AI cyber product has to clear three hard UX problems at once.

• The buyer is not a security expert. CIOs and CFOs sign the check, but they cannot tell if the AI is doing real work. The product has to show value in a way they understand right away.

• The product is a black box. AI agents do work in the background. If users cannot see what the agent found, decided, and fixed, they will not trust it.

• There is no live data and no users yet. A pre-launch MVP has to feel real on day one in sales demos. Empty screens, fake data that feels real, and clear "what just happened" moments matter more than features.

The Process

1. Defining the first-value moment

Started with one question: what is the one thing a user should walk away with after their first session?

• The answer: "The AI found X problems and already closed Y of them."

• Every flow, screen, and copy choice was built backwards from that moment

2. Mapping the user journey

Drew the journey for two user types.

• Security operators (daily users): triage → review → approve

• Executive buyers (the deciders): see results → understand savings → trust the system

The Design

Marked the moments where the agent had to hand off to a human. Those are the trust-making moments. Top: the priority.

1. Decision-first dashboard

The dashboard shows what to do next, not what happened last week.

• Top: open problems that need a human

• Middle: what the agent closed since last login

• Bottom: trends, only for users who want them

• No vanity metrics

2. Designing the AI reasoning surface

Built one shared pattern for "show your work" across the product.

• Every agent action has a short "why" next to it

• Users see what data the agent used, what it decided, and what it skipped

• Confidence scores show up only when they help the user decide, not for show

3. Empty states and demo readiness

Treated empty states as a feature, not an afterthought.

• Every empty screen explains what will show up there and why

• Demo states used realistic data so the founders could sell the product before it had customers Other screens

The Outcomes

• The MVP shipped and went into demos with enterprise buyers while still in stealth

• Quantro came out of stealth in March 2026 with NRG, a Fortune 100 energy company, as its first named customer

• The product is now in active sales with more Fortune 100 prospects

• The first-value framing and reasoning surface became the design backbone for the next products on the platform

• The decision-first dashboard pattern was reused across later screens, cutting design time on new AI agents