How can you convince companies to engage with a young startup?

Kevin Moore, Chief Revenue Officer at Abnormal Security, gives his masterclass on how to get your first customers and how to sell enterprise software at a startup. He covers everything from how to find the right person to contact within an account to how to convince companies to work with startups. Kevin is the Chief Revenue Officer of Abnormal Security, where he leads worldwide revenue generating activities. He brings strategic and operational experience with over 20 years of success leading global, high-performance sales teams at companies including Vectra AI and Proofpoint.

Kevin Moore: Success in sales at a startup company does start with this, having a solution that solves a real business problem and that there's evidence of market demand. So as part of that process, before the launch, it takes that customer centric approach to market research, to ensuring you're building a product that the market's going to buy. And I firmly believe that the majority of startup companies fail because they build something that they think are cool, Or they build a niche product that solved maybe a problem that they themselves have had experienced that only a finite group of people will actually end up buying or really narrows the market for you. but I think, If you've been, if it hasn't been validated by the broader market, And that, there's a product with a real market demand, then the product becomes more of an evangelical sale later down the road. And then you have to convince the customer, they have a problem versus a problem that they already have. So it really, again, it starts early in this process. [00:02:00] And then how can you convince companies more broadly to engage with a young startup that has no track record?

It does start with the understanding and being passionate about the problem that you're solving and in the value that your solution provides. Over anybody that's in, competitor in the market or incumbents has to be clear, has to be concise.

and in the problem you're solving should be backed up by credible third data. But here at Abnormal Security, we know that the problem that we're solving happens to be the largest problem in cybersecurity today as relates to financial loss from enterprises, right? Falling victim to socially engineered attacks results in invoice fraud, which literally results in people wiring money to the adversary that's backed by the FBI's, internet crime.

And so it's a very credible space so that credibility can come in a lot of ways. The bottom line is you have to build further credibility with the prospect and why they should be talking to you in the first place. It can come early in the process.

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