It was a crowded Thursday evening at The Ned. The live music stopped and the CISO goes: “I get 50+ cold emails a week from startups claiming to stop zero-days. I’ve approved one proof-of-concept in 18 months.”
The math is brutal.
But Why Enterprises Won’t Bet on You (Yet)
Platform consolidation is accelerating. And SEC disclosure rules mean CISOs face personal liability for breaches – making them allergic to unproven tech.
But here’s the opening: Enterprises still run legacy tools that miss GenAI-powered attacks. Especially healthcare. Your ticket in? Solve what incumbents can’t – with proof.
The Playbook: From Stealth to Signed PO
1. Anchor to a Regulatory or Incident Trigger
Example: After the Okta breach, IAM (Identity and Access Management) startups landed pilots by demonstrating:
- 90% faster lateral movement detection than legacy tools
- Integration with existing EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) stacks
Action: Map your solution to SEC Rule 10 disclosure pain points or NIS2 compliance deadlines.
2. Pre-Bake the Procurement Checklist
Enterprise security teams demand:
- ≤5% false-positive rates (Forrester)
- API integrations with Splunk, ServiceNow, or Microsoft Sentinel
- On-prem deployment options despite cloud-first claims
Pro tip: Run a free architecture review with their team. It surfaces objections early.
3. Weaponise Your Unknown Status
Being small lets you:
- Customise detections for their unique attack surface in 72 hours (impossible for CrowdStrike)
- White-label reports for their board meetings
- Guarantee CISO-level briefings – no “customer success manager” handoffs
Action Plan: Metrics That Move the Needle
Before outreach, benchmark your solution against:
- Time-to-value: Can you deliver actionable alerts in <48 hours?
- Noise reduction: Show 70% fewer alerts than their current SIEM (Security Information and Event Management).
- Cost delta: Position as “30% cheaper to operate” using Forrester’s TEI models.
A Question Only You Can Answer
When your next prospect asks, “Why should we risk our reputation on you?”, will your answer be about features – or about their unpatched vulnerability that only your architecture catches? That’s the difference between a maybe and a mandate.
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