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Make sure that you speak to your customers as early and as often as you can. This will help
build the deep understanding you need to have of the problem you are trying to solve and will
increase the likelihood of your value proposition being accepted and the contract signed. The
last thing you want is to spend six months in endless meetings that end up going nowhere.

Be sure that potential clients are made fully aware of the Return On Investment (ROI) that they
can expect. That means quantifying your value proposition and nailing the pitch. Speaking in
economic terms can increase the business unit’s urgency and help speed up the process.

2. Look beyond the established corporate market to other startups

If you run a great service, you can be sure that you will attract a huge client and your big,
vindicating pay day will come. However, as I’ve explained above, selling to well established
companies and multinationals is a slow and complex process.

In light of this, managing your cash flow requires a delicate touch and needs to be supported by
other opportunities.

Don’t get tunnel vision. Large banks and enterprises are far from the only clients available to
data security providers.

Financial Technology—also known as FinTech—is booming on a global scale; bank spending
on new technologies in North America is projected to reach 19.9 billion by 2017. The startups
and businesses pioneering this sector also need protection from potential data breaches and
attacks on sensitive information.

It makes sense to target smaller businesses in parallel with working through the enterprise sales
cycle. Not only can these businesses make decisions far more quickly than huge institutions,
but they will be more sympathetic to the startup reality. Supporting other startups will allow your
business to get earlier traction with smaller customers and contracts.

3. Be in the right market at the right time

It’s a great time to be in the business of data security. The volume of global data is growing
exponentially. By 2020, “about 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second
for every human being on the planet,” according to a study cited by Forbes.

As a result, companies are increasingly dumping all their data in vast “data lakes.” While a
practical solution to data growth, these repositories present a great temptation for hackers that
seek to steal sensitive information.

88 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine October 2016 Edition
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