Cortex’s Guide to Enterprise Sales: Why Making Change Feel Small Drives Big Adoption

Cortex’s Guide to Enterprise Sales: Why Making Change Feel Small Drives Big Adoption

Revolutionary technology often fails not because it doesn’t work, but because it feels too disruptive to adopt. In a recent Category Visionaries episode, Cortex CEO Zack Rosenberg revealed how making radical change feel incremental drove enterprise adoption.

When Cortex first launched its video AI platform in January 2021, they faced a common enterprise sales challenge: convincing large organizations to embrace transformative technology. Despite early interest from major publishers like CBS and iHeartMedia, initial traction didn’t translate into sustained growth.

“We thought we were running in the right direction. We thought everything was going great. We were signing up these big publishers,” Zack explains. “Then by the end of ’21, weren’t that much further ahead.”

The breakthrough came from a fundamental shift in positioning. “We knew if we wanted to be successful, we had to make or convince people that we’re only making a 5% change. We’re actually making a 500% change,” Zack notes. “People are willing to change 5%, but nobody’s willing to change 50%.”

This insight shaped their entire go-to-market strategy. Instead of leading with their revolutionary technology, they focused on how their solution fit into existing workflows. It’s an approach Zack illustrates through the evolution of Uber: “Could you imagine walking into the very first investor meeting and saying, ‘hey, we’re going to create self-driving trucks, but first we have to do these 19 things?’ That meeting would have been very short.”

The key is recognizing when to reveal your full vision. “You certainly have a big vision, but you can’t necessarily sell that big vision on day one,” Zack advises. This means starting with immediate, tangible benefits that feel like natural extensions of current processes.

For Cortex, this meant positioning their video AI platform as an enhancement to existing content monetization strategies rather than a complete overhaul. By summer 2022, this approach was working. Clients weren’t just staying—they were expanding their usage because the perceived risk of adoption had been minimized.

Their positioning strategy rests on three key principles:

1. Lead with familiar problems and solutions
2. Frame innovation as evolution rather than revolution
3. Build trust through small wins before introducing bigger changes

“Positioning is probably the most important skill of any entrepreneur,” Zack emphasizes. “You can have the same product, same marketing, same everything, but the way that you position it could change the market you go after.”

This approach requires decisive leadership. “Startups don’t work on indecisiveness,” Zack notes. “It’s okay to sit there for a day or two or three and usually even a little bit longer than that, but you got to pick the direction and you got to have conviction once you do.”

For B2B founders selling transformative technology, the lesson is clear: your innovation’s impact doesn’t have to match its perceived disruption. By making radical change feel incremental, you can drive adoption while still delivering revolutionary results.