Security Confidential S4 E6 Ilya Bodner

Manoj Tandon:
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Dark Rhino’s Security Confidential. I’m Manoj Tandon, your host, and today we are honored to have Ilya Bodner join us. Ilya has changed the way people buy, sell, and think about commercial insurance. He is a startup insurance enthusiast and an insurtech pioneer. He’s the founder and CEO of Bold Penguin, a rapidly growing tech company based in Columbus, Ohio.

Ilya’s career started on the front lines as an agent, and he’s been on a mission to upgrade the industry through one successful startup after another. Recent recognitions include Executive of the Year by BizTech, Best in Biz People’s Choice Innovation Leader of the Year by the Insurance Innovation Awards, and Columbus Business First 40 Under 40, Class of 2019.

Thank you for joining us, Ilya.

Ilya Bodner:
Thank you for having me on this. It’s really fun to be doing this from my room that I call my office, knowing that we’re not too far apart here in Columbus, Ohio today.

Manoj Tandon:
Yeah, and to our listeners, full disclosure: Bold Penguin, Ilya’s company, is also a client of Dark Rhino Security, so just keep that in the back of your mind so we let everybody know.

So Ilya, there are so many questions and I know we have such limited time, but I guess a couple of things that I’d love to understand from you is—you started life in Russia. So starting from Russia to the CEO of Bold Penguin, give us a little background on that journey.

Ilya Bodner:
Sure. How did it come to be? Yep.

I definitely will give you an abridged version because it’s a long and complicated story. But to say it in a few sentences:

In 1993 we immigrated here from Uzbekistan, which was part of the former Soviet Union. It’s just easier to say Russia rather than all this.

And I went to school here in Columbus, Ohio. We came with very little as a family, but America is the land of opportunity and it’s been amazing to go from what I call rags to riches—not necessarily monetarily, but just in quality of life and all that comes along with it.

So like I said, I moved here in ’93, got into insurance. Everyone had a job; we had a job. I realized—I went to The Ohio State University too, which I think that part was very important at that time.

To pay through college, a lot of what I did was run a food truck outside of the football games. It’s a little-known fact about me, but we sold gyro meat, street meat, and you can’t believe the kind of money you could make on one game. In fact, doing it for six games was enough to pay for a whole year’s worth of tuition.

Those were a couple of—“You gotta be kidding me!” moments.

I figured out that I really wanted to live the American dream. I really wanted to become something and have my own business. A lot of the male figures around me had their own businesses.

So knowing that I got into insurance and that was my destination, I started dabbling with the tech side of it. One thing led to another: started companies, met a co-founder—which I’m sure we’ll talk about in greater detail—but I had a couple of what I call home runs that allowed me to build self-confidence to do what I always wanted to do.

Manoj Tandon:
Yeah, I mean, there are several points that we could go down there.

And you mentioned a co-founder. Who did you meet up with and how did that evolve your journey?

Ilya Bodner:
Sure. So Bold Penguin has a couple of folks that are co-founders because we brought a few smaller startups together at one point, but the person I’m referencing in this particular example is Ben Clark, who’s a co-founder of Bold Penguin, and he also is an Ohio State graduate.

Columbus has a small entrepreneurial scene—it’s actually growing, which is fantastic. The time that I’m talking about is circa 2005. It was really tiny, and you sort of know the 50 to 100 characters that are mixing around doing something.

Ben was one of them; I was one of them. I’ll never forget the Caribou Coffee that we both got, which is no longer there. We talked for a couple of hours about a world domination plan and figured out that we could kind of jive together.

Picking a co-founder—somebody that’s in the foxhole with you for a while—is very difficult, and I encourage everyone to think twice, three times, four times about that. It’s in a lot of ways harder than marriage because you’re doing so much together.

So anyway, he and I came out of that and we had a couple of businesses together, and Bold Penguin is the one where we really hit our stride.

Manoj Tandon:
Well, I’ll tell you that I can personally empathize with that because at Dark Rhino we have two other co-founders, and a partnership, as you said, can be challenging in more ways than one.

Ilya Bodner:
Yeah, we’ve had a lot of our own trials and tribulations there.

I would say that if anyone’s listening and considering a partner—if that other person feels like they’re elevating your game, then it’s a good thing. If you’re not feeling it after giving it an honest try, that’s probably not the best partnership.

Manoj Tandon:
And I know in our case we did have some mistrials with partnerships. I chalk it up to lessons learned.

Ilya Bodner:
Right. You are going to make mistakes at various levels, including your partners at times. But the trick is to know when it’s a mistake and end it quickly and move on.

Manoj Tandon:
I read a quote from you that every business needs three legs to a stool: you need an idea, capital, and great people.

Ilya Bodner:
Yeah, I firmly believe it. You do need capital, people, and an idea, and they all have to be just about the right size to make it work.

Because if you have a good idea and bad people, or not enough capital, or all the capital in the world but the wrong team—you’re dead on arrival.

Manoj Tandon:
Why did you stick with Columbus? Why not move to the West Coast?

Ilya Bodner:
On capital—yes, I had to go to the coasts. That’s where it is.

But I chose to come back to Columbus for a number of reasons. You’re three coffees away from anyone you want to meet. That’s very special.

There’s great mentorship, strong connections, and it’s a great place for both business and family. Cost of living is significantly lower, and it’s centrally located.

For our business specifically, being close to insurance companies—our customers—was a major advantage.

Manoj Tandon:
That’s a great point. Let’s talk about landing your first customer.

Ilya Bodner:
That’s the hardest part of building a company.

The first customer doesn’t buy the product—they buy you or the idea of you. They trust that you’re going to deliver.

We had to meet with over a hundred potential customers just to refine the story. At one point, we literally camped out in a parking lot just to meet someone we thought was the right person.

You have to go out of your way, sell the story, and be willing to live with the consequences.

Manoj Tandon:
We’ve had the same experience. You just have to knock on a lot of doors.

Ilya Bodner:
Exactly. It takes a lot of convincing, a lot of persistence, and it never really stops.

Manoj Tandon:
With a name like Bold Penguin, I’ve got to ask—what’s the origin?

Ilya Bodner:
I always wanted to name my company with an animal in it. A lot of insurance companies have animals, and I liked the idea of something friendly like a penguin.

We also wanted something memorable—something that would stand out.

The name came from watching a video of penguins jumping into the water. The first one looked incredibly brave—like a bold penguin—and that stuck.

Manoj Tandon:
You definitely capitalized on the name.

Now, insurance seems like a boring space. What drew you to it?

Ilya Bodner:
Insurance isn’t just boring on the surface—it’s boring all the way around. But that’s what makes it great.

There’s so much inefficiency and outdated processes. A lot of it is just unnecessary complexity.

We wanted to fix that. Sometimes the biggest opportunities are in industries people overlook.

Manoj Tandon:
Let’s switch to cybersecurity. From where you sit, is it a business problem or an IT problem?

Ilya Bodner:
It’s a company problem.

People are being extremely reckless with it—not intentionally, but they underestimate the risk.

You can’t just throw money at IT and expect it to be solved.

Manoj Tandon:
We see that a lot, especially in SMBs.

Ilya Bodner:
Exactly. Most companies don’t have the expertise internally, and cybersecurity is hard to consume. There needs to be a simpler way for businesses to adopt it.

Manoj Tandon:
How do you see the insurance sector evolving?

Ilya Bodner:
It’s going to become more digital.

Like fintech did for banking, insurtech is transforming insurance. It’ll take time, but everything is moving toward a more seamless experience.

Manoj Tandon:
Final question—what’s next for you?

Ilya Bodner:
I get to be in a unique opportunity right now. We get a second bite at the apple—we continue building Bold Penguin.

This time around, we know what we’re doing. As we grow, we’re entering the second phase of the company.

My focus is across everything—customers, staff, culture, finance, legal—making sure the business is set up to scale.

Manoj Tandon:
Before we let you go, anything you’d like to plug?

Ilya Bodner:
No books or shows, but we are constantly hiring.

If you want to join a company tackling a traditionally boring space in a fresh, fun way, reach out. Some roles aren’t even posted—we’re always looking for great people.

Manoj Tandon:
Ilya, thank you very much for joining us.

Ilya Bodner:
Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.