Public safety buyers immediately recognize inauthenticity—Hollywood misconceptions, wrong terminology, or features that don't match real applications. David emphasizes conducting extensive customer interviews and ride-alongs to understand not just what customers need, but how they speak, what language they use, and what messaging feels real versus manufactured. This authenticity becomes your competitive moat.

Unlike traditional B2B where customers compete and are reluctant to be case studies, BRINC's public safety customers actively want other agencies to succeed since they're providing a public good. This creates a flywheel where customers become salespeople, sharing success stories and advocating for the product without ego or politics getting in the way. Structure your marketing to facilitate this peer-to-peer selling.

BRINC identified events as their highest-performing channel and went deeper rather than broader—investing heavily in fewer, larger events rather than spreading thin across many tactics. David's philosophy: 10% of marketing work provides 90% of results. Small teams need to ruthlessly prioritize the core activities that drive pipeline and eliminate legacy channels that no longer perform.

When your brand story aligns tightly with your product differentiators and target audience, it becomes a tool for sales enablement and recruiting simultaneously. David validates his messaging when new employees say "I already know this" and when customers who don't know he's in marketing repeat the company's positioning verbatim. Purpose-fit brand messaging reduces training time and accelerates time-to-productivity.

When joining a startup with zero marketing, resist the urge to redesign branding and style guides. David's advice: "Do nothing" initially. Instead, spend weeks talking to customers, attending sales calls, and doing site visits until you deeply understand the ICP. Don't create 30-page documentation—internalize the knowledge so thoroughly you can think like your customer. Only then determine which channels and tactics to test.

Avoid sacred cows like "we need five social posts per week" or "we must send monthly email blasts." In the early days, once you understand your customer, rapidly test channels and creative approaches, then aggressively kill what doesn't work. Focus on learning which channels drive results rather than maintaining consistent activity across all channels.

For niche B2B markets, having team members who understand the customer's world creates enormous advantages in messaging, product development, and relationship building. David notes that the camaraderie and understanding he's built with public safety customers is something that stays with you—it fundamentally changes how you approach marketing to that audience.