Why Tines Blew Up Its Own Winning Product Before AI Could

Key points

Key takeaways from Not Another CEO interview with Tines co-founder and CEO Eoin Hinchy (September 2026):

Lived problem. After 15 years in security at Deloitte, eBay and DocuSign, Eoin foundedTines in Dublin in 2018 with co-founder Thomas Kinsella to build the no-code security automation platform he wished he had.

Founders beat sales teams. Eoin alone won an early bakeoff against a $60B company because buyers could feel the missionary-versus-mercenary difference.

Refounding around AI. Concludingthat LLMs are uniquely good at writing code,Tines rebuilt its core product around AI before the market forced it,locking top product people in a room to reimagineTines 3B,an AI-native platform for every team agents and automations. No existing customer was forced to migrate.

Raising $270M without a deck. Tines raised over $270M from Goldman Sachs,SoftBank,Accel,and others without ever proactively raising capital or building a pitch deck.

Nobody cares. The reframe Eoin says makes the hardest parts of the job easier,not harder,failures are quiet,unrequited efforts rather than dramatic explosions.

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