The new early-stage cybersecurity PR playbook.
A practical guide for security start-ups building a reputation in their category. It covers when to go public and how to make the funding round count, along with early analyst relations and technical messaging for the mainstream press.
- For
- Cybersecurity founders and CMOs
- Stage
- Early stage, from stealth
- Format
- 20-page PDF
- Published by
- Resonance and Agentcy
The narrative gap that’s costing you deals.
Cybersecurity used to reward the best product, because buyers felt the difference in a proof of concept and word spread through practitioner networks. AI has compressed the development cycle so much that a better product no longer stays better for long.
The speed problem
The gap between a novel architecture and a commoditised one is now measured in months, because competitors build faster and often have better-resourced investors behind them.
The buyer problem
Buyers use AI assistants, alongside analyst reports and peer referrals, to draw up a first shortlist of suppliers before your sales team gets a call.
The narrative gap
This is the distance between the quality of your technology and the credibility of your public story. In a market where trust is what you're selling, that gap turns into lost deals.
Four moments that decide your reputation.
Each part is written to be used, so that you can take it into a team meeting and test it against your current plan before you decide what to do.
Coming out of stealth
The three questions to ask before you go public, and the reason a rival's first story is so hard to dislodge once it has set the terms of the category.
Funding announcements
How to lead with the problem, brief one tier-one journalist under embargo and plan eight weeks of follow-on content after the news.
Analyst relations
The two myths that keep start-ups waiting too long, and how to prepare and run a first briefing with an analyst.
Technical messaging
Why technical stories fail in mainstream press, how the message hierarchy fixes them, and a test your spokespeople can use with both audiences.
The five points we'd take away.
These are the main points in brief, and the playbook goes further on how to put each one into practice.
- Exit stealth on narrative readiness
- Go public when you can state your category in one sentence and name a customer you can reference, and when every founder tells the same founding story.
- Make the funding round work harder
- Put the raise inside a story about the market and the threat it faces, since journalists write about consequence and change far more readily than about funding.
- Start analyst relations early
- Analysts shape shortlists before a formal evaluation begins, so it helps to get into their vocabulary while the category is still forming.
- Translate the technical message
- Lead with the consequence, explain the mechanism in plain English and finish with what makes you different, because most start-ups only ever publish the last of these.
- Build credibility every quarter
- Every briefing and proof point adds to the public record that buyers and analysts read and AI assistants draw on.
You can’t reclaim a category story that someone else has already filed.
We can run the programme with you.
We run the programme the playbook describes for cybersecurity companies, with Agentcy tracking the journalists and analysts who cover your category and the AI answers that describe it.
Get the story ready
We agree a one-sentence description of your category, a proof point you can reference and a founding story every founder tells the same way, and we test them before anyone goes public.
Make the launch count
We secure a tier-one exclusive under embargo and release to the trade press when it lifts, followed by a plan of bylines and research stories for the weeks after.
Brief the analysts early
We choose the firms and analysts with you, prepare the briefing and problem statement and handle the follow-up, as our analyst relations guide describes.
Train the spokespeople
Our media training is built on the message hierarchy, so that your CTO can brief Forrester at 10am and a national broadcaster at 2pm.
Read it in full.
The playbook runs to twenty pages and covers the diagnostic questions, the embargo runbook and follow-on plan, the first analyst briefing and the message hierarchy. It's free, and there's no form to fill in.
Download the PDF- Pages
- 20
- Format
- PDF, 1.1 MB
- For
- Founders and CMOs
Explore it with AI. Ask an assistant to apply the playbook to your own launch.
Common questions about cybersecurity PR.
When should a cybersecurity startup come out of stealth?
Come out of stealth when the story is ready. You should be able to describe your category in one sentence and name a customer you can reference, even anonymously with a sector, a metric and a timeframe, and every founder should tell the same origin story. A closed funding round is a weak trigger on its own.
How do you make a cybersecurity funding announcement work harder?
Lead with the market problem and treat the raise as evidence that investors believe in your answer to it. Brief one tier-one journalist under embargo two to three weeks ahead and release to the trade press when the embargo lifts. Then plan follow-on content for weeks three to eight, such as a byline, a data-led research story and an analyst note.
When should an early-stage security company start analyst relations?
Start before it feels ready, because analysts shape shortlists long before a formal evaluation and you can brief them without a research contract. Prepare a 20-minute narrative with 20 minutes for questions, send a one-page problem statement ahead and follow up within 48 hours.
Why does technical messaging fail in mainstream press?
It usually leads with architecture and uses jargon and metrics a general reader can't decode, which buries the human consequence. Reorder the message so the real-world consequence comes first, followed by the mechanism in plain English and then what makes you different.
Close the narrative gap before a competitor does.
Resonance runs PR, analyst relations and spokesperson training for cybersecurity companies at every stage after stealth. Your competitors are building their reputations now, and the sooner you start, the more say you have in how your category's story is told.
Talk to Resonance More research