3 ms·

I would suggest startups are the wrong area. Startups barely have money to pay for staff and often don't know or care about their security risk. They also tend

by czbond 12y ago

I would suggest startups are the wrong area. Startups barely have money to pay for staff and often don't know or care about their security risk. They also tend to use tools which allay some of that risk (eg: Stripe, etc for credit cards, non-storage of PCI-Compliant data). Mid-Sized companies often have sensitive data, older techniques, and/or budget - and can be convinced of their risk. I would suggest going the routes of medium size business up to lower Fortune 3000 companies. Reason, the CISO position is increasingly going to those in security with Penetration background rather than other areas of sercurity (eg: physical, Identity & Access, etc). You might look at a strategy similar to http://Phishme.com http://Phishme.com which is selling into larger accounts. [my background: used to implement and sell security into Fortune 1000 account and SMB's]

jonifico 12y ago
Do you have any ideas as to how to gather budget to release a business on a bigger scale?
- czbond 12y ago
  Security is an odd area. In selling (and implementing products), as well as helping a friend launch his Cloud security business - the market has a huge issue for startups if your approach it incorrectly. As opposed to areas ripe for SaaS penetration, security solving traditional or incremental problems face a large resistance because buyers/stakeholders "won't get fired for choosing Netegrity/Oracle/<largeco>" if something goes wrong. They can always blame it on the consultant implementation team. Plus, there's a large risk to an organization using a new player to solve an old problem. Phishme (not associated, but have friends who know them) took a new approach (email phishing) which wasn't offered by large players. We found this out a hard way in a startup, along with long sales cycles and requirements. For a security offering, the Mach37 accelerator can be a good place to start.

by czbond 12y ago

jonifico 12y ago

Do you have any ideas as to how to gather budget to release a business on a bigger scale?

czbond 12y ago
Security is an odd area. In selling (and implementing products), as well as helping a friend launch his Cloud security business - the market has a huge issue for startups if your approach it incorrectly. As opposed to areas ripe for SaaS penetration, security solving traditional or incremental problems face a large resistance because buyers/stakeholders "won't get fired for choosing Netegrity/Oracle/<largeco>" if something goes wrong. They can always blame it on the consultant implementation team. Plus, there's a large risk to an organization using a new player to solve an old problem. Phishme (not associated, but have friends who know them) took a new approach (email phishing) which wasn't offered by large players. We found this out a hard way in a startup, along with long sales cycles and requirements. For a security offering, the Mach37 accelerator can be a good place to start.