Frankly Speaking 12/15/20 - Startups should say what they mean!

A biweekly(-ish) newsletter on random thoughts in tech and research. I am an investor at Dell Technologies Capital and a recovering academic. I am interested in security, AI/ML, and cloud.

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I know we all can’t wait for 2020 to end, and what a good way to end it… with a vaccine! This is my last newsletter for the year. I wish everyone a safe holiday and hope to connect with you in person soon!

LET'S BE FRANK

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the various security buzz words. In fact, many people play the infamous infosec buzzword bingo at RSAC and Blackhat (kudos to Kelly Shortridge for making this every year. I’m sad I couldn’t do it at Blackhat this year). Honestly, it’s confusing!

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post complaining that many security startups use the term “zero-trust,” and it confuses CISOs and security practitioners. This is the inherent problem with buzz words. Many high-powered and well-funded marketing departments spend tons of money briefing analysts and educating the market about a buzzword. As a result, the buzzword has a ton of baggage. It comes with implications about a problem and a particular solution. For example, in security, privileged access has a specific meaning. It doesn’t refer to all accesses that have a lot of permissions a normal person would expect. It specifically refers to admin access to applications and endpoints.

Another, more recent example is cloud security. I understand that this might be partially my fault. I’ve said that cloud security is a good GTM motion for many security startups, and that datacenter security is dead. However, many companies claim to do cloud security when they have nothing to do with it. Just because you do security analytics in the cloud doesn’t make you a cloud security company! You actually have to solve a security problem that results from a company’s cloud deployments and usage. Again, it seems obvious but happens too frequently.

I can go on and on about other examples, such as companies that use AI/ML (thankfully that’s starting to fade) and companies that have a “scalable platform.”

My point with all this is that using buzzwords confuses the customer. Although it might make a company more relevant and bring it into the spotlight temporarily, it will ultimately hurt sales. The reason is that the customer will have a misconception of the problem and solution, causing disappointment when they learn what your product actually does. Also, this would make marketing leads useless because they don’t actually target the right customer and/or buyer. So, you’ve wasted a bunch of money on marketing that hasn’t positively affected sales.

Using buzzwords is lazy marketing! (Of course, unless it applies to your company directly.) I know it’s hard to come up with a succinct problem statement and a clearly articulated solution in certain markets, especially ones that could have explosive growth. However, there’s no free lunch. If you want to be a disruptive company, you have to think of creative ways of marketing and messaging your product.

On the VC side, it’s a waste of time for both sides. Actually, it’s surprisingly similar to a customer interaction. You lure me in with buzzwords, and I spend 1-2 hours digging in only to figure out that you do something completely different than what I expected, so I have to start my process over. Now, we’ve wasted 1-2 hours of both of our times, and I think negatively of your messaging and marketing.

Messaging is super important even for an early-stage security startup. It helps drive product and GTM strategy. Don’t be lazy with messaging, and focus on developing good problem and solution descriptions. It’ll be better for you and the industry. Your prospective customers will thank you for it.