Innovative Strategies for CyberAI Startups

Wiz's $32B acquisition by Google (their largest) is wild. But, it's not the most interesting part. It's their early playbook... and how they got started. The playbook is from Cyberstarts, an Israeli early-stage VC firm that focuses on investing in Israeli founders in the cybersecurity space. They've produced 7 unicorns, 1 decacorn (Wiz). A mind boggling hit rate. If you listen to 20VC, you might have caught the episode with Gili Raanan, GP/Founder of Cyberstarts. This is where I heard about the playbook. 👉 The Sunrise Program & CISO Community. Startups need a few crucial ingredients in the beginning: ✅ Talent & expertise ✅ Rapid customer feedback for iteration to nail PMF ✅ Distribution to get in front of customers ✅ Rapid revenue growth (not always, but depends on your ambitions) The Sunrise Program was designed to fuel all of these and help entrepreneurs at their inception (as described on the Cyberstarts' site). A large component of the program is their CISO Community. CISO (buyers) would invest time to provide product feedback & expertise (as advisors), insights into their hardest challenges, testing of the product, and evangelism. Not only does this help build better products that align to buyers' needs... It also creates a built in fanbase and distribution channel. Naturally, you want to help support & grow what you help build. The playbook works as follows: 1. Bring in your buyers (find the best in the industry so they also act as signals to the market later) 2. Leverage their expertise & guidance on what challenges are hardest for them to tackle 3. Focus on that challenge 4. Build with inputs, feedback, and iterations with your buyers 5. Create early fans and evangelist of your product 6. Convert design partners into early customers, fast path to first $1M 7. Leverage the broad network of buyers who your first buyers know 8. Get introductions to those buyers (early evangelist helped build, so they naturally want to help promote) 9. Word of mouth is the best referral for distribution 10. Revenue closes faster 11. Faster revenue growth attracts more talent, investment, customers It's brilliant. Over the last couple years, I've talked to a few Wiz customers. They all said something similar.... "Wiz is one of the best $%^&ing products we've ever used."

From 0 to $30M: Analyzing the playbooks of 2025's Hottest Cybersecurity Startups I've tracked every major cybersecurity funding round this year through Execweb. The pattern is clear: The startups raising $30M+ aren't following the old playbook. Here's what 7AI ($36M), Noma Security ($32M), Cogent Security ($11M), and Unbound ($4M) did differently: 1. They Sold the Problem, Not the Product 7AI didn't pitch "AI agents." They pitched "Your SOC analysts are drowning in 10,000 daily alerts." Cogent Security didn't sell "vulnerability management." They sold "Threats move at AI speed, but your remediation moves at human speed." The best founders lead with pain, not features. 2. They Built Before They Pitched Every one of these startups had paying customers before raising. Noma: Already protecting GenAI deployments at scale 7AI: Teams using their platform daily Unbound: 7,000+ data leaks prevented pre-funding VCs don't fund ideas anymore. They fund traction. 3. They Targeted New Attack Surfaces Notice what they're NOT building: • Another SIEM • Another EDR • Another firewall Instead: • GenAI security (Noma) • AI-powered SOC automation (7AI) • Enterprise AI governance (Unbound) They found problems created by NEW technology shifts. 4. They Recruited from the Problem Space 7AI founders: Previously built security at scale Cogent team: Engineers from Abnormal, Coinbase, Blackstone Noma founders: IDF Unit 8200 alumni Your team IS your first product. Elite operators attract elite capital. 5. They Priced on Value, Not Competition Traditional model: "Competitor charges $50K, we'll charge $40K" New model: "We prevent $5M in breach costs, we'll charge $500K" The shift from cost-based to value-based pricing changes everything. Here's the brutal truth: In 2025, you can't raise on a pitch deck. You can't compete on features. You can't win by being 10% better. You need: → A problem that didn't exist 2 years ago → Proof you can solve it at scale → A team that's lived the pain → Customers who'll advocate for you → Metrics that show real impact The bar has never been higher. But neither have the rewards. We're seeing $100M valuations at seed stage for teams that check these boxes. Which playbook are you following? If you're building in cybersecurity and want to connect with CISOs who can validate your approach, let's talk. At Execweb (Acquired by CyberRisk Alliance), we've facilitated 3,000+ intro sales meetings between innovative vendors and Fortune 1000 security leaders and facilitated millions in deal flow. The best time to build relationships is before you need them. #Cybersecurity #StartupFunding #VentureCapital #B2BSales #SecurityStartups #GTMStrategy

#Cybersecurity startups: Y'all need to prioritize product story and UX design as highly as shipping code, from day 1. As remarkable as a solution is, as big as the problem it solves is, a startup's fate can just as easily be decided if using the tooling takes 6 clicks instead of 2. Why? Because that math gets very cruel at the scale of use. "That will double my team's processes." "This looks great, but this would add too much to my team's plate." That's feedback from #CISOs and security leaders I've heard, and many variations on those themes, time and again. Remember: the tech you're trying to sell is but one piece that must fit comfortably into a large and complex puzzle made of humans. From the design partner phase and beyond, invest in customer success as a marketing function that meets often with product and UX. This is where marketing is most closely described as the anthropology of your customer. Shadow their processes, get deep customer interviews on use, don't rely on just quantitative surveys. In a market rife with constant newcomers, intuitive and pleasing UX is an incredible differentiator. The faster you can hew to your end users' needs (not buyers'), the better. When everyone else looks like spreadsheets in a dumpy UI, technology can stand out by making the PEOPLE on #cybersecurity teams happier about the work and PROCESS they have to follow. ⚰️ I've seen incredible tech solving hard problems fail to get adoption because they don't invest enough or iterate fast enough on UX.

I jumped on a call this morning with two brilliant founders building an AI security startup. They asked me an amazing question: “Should we build a platform or stay focused as a point solution?” I answered first that I don’t know. Then I said there’s a platform paradox. Here’s what’s happening in cybersecurity right now: enterprises ARE consolidating toward platforms. Palo Alto, CrowdStrike, Microsoft, buyers want fewer vendors, not more. So the instinct is to build a platform to compete. But that’s backwards. My recommendation: Build the best point solution in your category. Then get acquired by someone building the platform. Why? Point solutions that master one problem create repeatable sales processes. Your champions know exactly who needs you and why. Your sales motion gets tighter with each deal. Platforms require you to compete on 5+ dimensions simultaneously. Your sales process stays complex forever. And you’re competing against vendors with 10x your resources. The platform players aren’t building everything from scratch. They’re acquiring best-in-class point solutions. Be the solution they can’t build fast enough themselves. But here’s the real issue Before any of that matters, they have an audience problem. They’re solving a real problem in AI security. But their buyers aren’t searching for the solution yet. The market awareness doesn’t exist. Which means before they can sell anything, they need to build an audience that understands the problem. Audience first. Product second. So I suggested they start posting 2-3 times per week. LinkedIn and Reddit. Not about your product. About the problem. Make the invisible visible. Share what’s at risk. Explain why traditional approaches fall short. Educate the market on threats they don’t know exist yet. This is a minimum 12-month play. But it’s the only way to create demand for a category that doesn’t exist in buyers’ minds yet. THEN… Find 3-5 enterprises who’ll work with you as design partners. Advisory board seats, equity, deep discounts, whatever it takes. You’re not selling yet. You’re learning who your buyer actually is and what criteria they’ll use to evaluate solutions in this emerging category. Bottom line In emerging categories, education IS the sales process. Build the best point solution. Build the audience that understands why it matters. Let the platform players come to you.

𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝟮: 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗔𝗜/𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 One of the most pressing challenges in cybersecurity today is the global talent shortage, with 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘅𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝟯.𝟱 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱. This gap poses substantial risks, as unfilled roles lead to increased vulnerabilities, cyberattacks, data breaches, and operational disruptions. While there are learning paths like 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗮’𝘀 𝗣𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝘆𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 to help aspiring cyber professionals upskill and build careers, Generative AI (GenAI) and Agentic AI offers a scalable solution by augmenting existing teams. Together, they can handle repetitive tasks, automate workflows, enhance incident triaging, and automate code fixes and vulnerability management, enabling smaller teams to scale and maintain robust security postures. Additionally, they enhance cybersecurity efforts by improving defenses while keeping humans in the loop to make critical, informed decisions. Here are few concept about GenAI in Cybersecurity that I’m particularly excited about: 1. Reducing Toil and Improving Team Efficiency GenAI can significantly reduce repetitive tasks, enabling teams to focus on strategic priorities: • GRC : Automates risk assessments, compliance checks, and audit-ready reporting. • DevSecOps: Integrates AI-driven threat modeling and vulnerability scanning into CI/CD pipelines. • IAM : Streamlines user access reviews, provisioning, and anomaly detection. 2. Extreme Shift Left GenAI can rapidly enhance “Secure-by-Design” into development processes by: • Detecting vulnerabilities during coding and providing actionable fixes. • Automating security testing, including fuzzing and penetration testing. 3. Proactive Threat Hunting and Detection Engineering GenAI can enhance threat hunting by: • Analyzing logs and sensor data to detect anomalies. • Correlating data to identify potential threats. • Predicting and detecting attack vectors to arm the sensors proactively. 4. Enabling SOC Automation Security Operations Centers (SOCs) can benefit from GenAI by: • Automating false positive filtering and alert triaging. • Speeds up analysis and resolution with AI-powered insights. • Allowing analysts to concentrate on high-value incidents and strategic decision-making. 𝟱. Enhancing Training and Awareness • Delivering tailored training simulations for developers and business users. • Generating phishing campaigns to educate employees on recognizing threats. In 2025, I am excited about the transformative opportunities that lie ahead. Our focus remains steadfast on innovation and resilience, particularly in leveraging the power of Gen/Agentic AI to enhance user experience, advance our defenses and further strengthen the posture of the payment ecosystem.   #VISA #Cybersecurity #PaymentSecurity #12DaysofCybersecurity #AgenticAI