Straight talk on cybersecurity brand and growth

Your team page is a security control

Buyers of early-stage security products know the product is immature. They get comfortable with the people instead. A missing team page is a hole in the buying journey.

Phill Keaney-Bolland

19 Aug 2026

How to stand out in agentic security when everyone is agentic

AI for security, security for AI is now the default pitch. Differentiation in the most crowded corner of the market lives one level down, in philosophy, refusal, and story.

Phill Keaney-Bolland

15 Aug 2026

250 conversations before a line of code

Justin Woody planned 100 buyer conversations for Twine and did 250. Nearly all of them pointed at a different problem, and the company pivoted before writing code. Here is how validation actually works.

Phill Keaney-Bolland

11 Aug 2026

Be marmite, not butter: Why divisive brands attract the biggest fans.

Yaya put its own proposition up for public critique. Roland Gurney took it apart, and the phrase that came out of it has stuck: be marmite, not butter.

We branded and launched ZEST Security out of stealth in 2024. TechCrunch has since named ZEST one of the top cybersecurity startups of Disrupt 2025.

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.