Straight talk on cybersecurity brand and growth

The enterprise contradiction: adopt AI faster, secure it later

Employees are being told to adopt AI as fast as possible in the domain they understand least. That contradiction is the market every agentic-security founder is selling into.

Phill Keaney-Bolland

14 Jul 2026

CISOs don't want more tools. They want fewer.

Security stacks are overflowing, budgets work by replacement, and the market's biggest fear is buying the wrong thing. Here is the story that wins anyway.

Phill Keaney-Bolland

7 Jul 2026

Security brands all sound the same too

Visual sameness gets the attention, but our RSA research found the same convergence in words: nearly all 77 startups write in one register. Voice is the differentiator almost nobody is using.

Phill Keaney-Bolland

30 Jun 2026

Brand Part 3: From Plan to Impact - The Journey of Turning Strategy into Branding Success

Strategy on a slide is not a brand. This episode is about the transition, and uses the Jaguar rebrand as the cautionary case.

Brand Part 2: Unstoppable Branding - Crack the Code with Blue Oceans & Archetypes

Nintendo stopped competing on the specification everyone else was racing on and built a category of one. The method behind that is teachable.

Branding Part 1: Before the Flashy Logos - The Must-Know Foundations of Branding!

Clients want to see the logo. The work that decides whether the logo lands happens before anyone opens a design tool.

We took Aryon from stealth to launch in 2025 with a brand and website built around prevention, not detection. The company has since raised a Series A backed by some of the biggest names in cybersecurity.

We built the brand and website for Geordie from inception in 2025, working directly with founders from Darktrace and Snyk. A year later Geordie won the RSAC 2026 Innovation Sandbox.

We partnered with the ex-Claroty founders from inception in 2024 to brand and launch Twine, the company building AI digital employees for security teams. Twine went on to reach the RSAC 2025 Innovation Sandbox final.

The Cybersecurity Cult Products Awards report

We scored all 77 startups exhibiting at RSA's Early Stage Expo and Next Stage on proposition, brand, and marketing. Here is what the category gets wrong, and who gets it right.