Ready to build your own Founder-Led Growth engine? Book a Strategy Call
Frontlines.io | Where B2B Founders Talk GTM.
Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Actionable
Takeaways
Market Education is Key:
Initially, SMBs underestimated the need for cybersecurity. Kyle's journey underscores the importance of educating your target market about the value and necessity of your product, especially when it addresses non-obvious threats.
Strategic Partnerships for GTM Success:
Huntress leveraged partnerships with MSPs to effectively reach and serve SMBs. This approach can be crucial for startups looking to scale their solutions in markets where direct access to end customers is challenging.
Storytelling in Fundraising:
Kyle’s experiences with fundraising emphasize the power of storytelling. Articulating a compelling narrative that balances vision with realism can significantly impact your ability to attract the right investors and secure optimal terms.
Long-Term Vision Over Short-Term Wins:
Kyle views potential financial milestones like an IPO as steps towards a larger mission rather than ultimate goals. Founders should focus on the long-term impact of their solutions, maintaining alignment with their company’s founding principles.
Address Imposter Syndrome Within Teams:
Recognizing and addressing imposter syndrome can significantly enhance team morale and performance. Founders should actively work to build confidence within their teams, ensuring members feel valued and capable.
Conversation
Highlights
Huntress: Pioneering Cybersecurity for the 99%
In the rapidly evolving landscape of cybersecurity, one company stands out for its innovative approach to protecting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Huntress, led by CEO Kyle Hanslovan, has navigated the challenges of the tech sector to become a leading player in the industry. This article explores Huntress’s journey, from its inception to its vision for the future, highlighting the pivotal moments and strategies that have shaped its success.
The Genesis of Huntress
Huntress’s story begins with a vision to capitalize on the massive opportunity in the cybersecurity market. As Hanslovan explains, “The world is building $150 trillion of new energy assets. Big wind farms, big solar farms, big grid scale batteries.” Initially, the company aimed to develop software for trading power through these assets. However, they quickly realized that this approach wasn’t viable for a small startup team.
Facing dwindling resources and mounting challenges, Huntress made a crucial decision that would redefine their future. The team decided to pivot their entire business model. Instead of trading power, they would become a cybersecurity company focused on serving the often-overlooked SMB market.
This pivot was a game-changer for Huntress. By focusing on cybersecurity for SMBs, they addressed a critical gap in the market, providing invaluable protection for businesses that often lack the resources for sophisticated cybersecurity measures.
Understanding Huntress’s Core Offering
At its core, Huntress is a managed security platform. Their service helps stakeholders in the SMB sector understand and protect against cybersecurity threats. As Hanslovan describes, “There’s a lot of great IT talent out there, and there’s not a whole lot of amazing cybersecurity talent. There is a gap. What if you could buy the expertise of cybersecurity rockstars for the price of a product, enabling your most junior technicians to be more efficient, and for those awesome cybersecurity folks that you have, hopefully retaining them and allowing them to focus on what matters most to your business?”
Huntress’s platform provides crucial protection and expertise, helping clients make informed decisions about their cybersecurity needs. This is particularly important for SMBs, where sophisticated cybersecurity expertise is often lacking.
Innovative Go-to-Market Strategy
One of the key factors in Huntress’s success has been its innovative approach to reaching its target market. Recognizing that most SMBs don’t have dedicated IT staff, let alone cybersecurity experts, Huntress decided to go to market through IT outsourcers, often called managed service providers (MSPs).
Kyle shares, “We’ve got about 4000 of those. And they bring us to about 110,000 of those SMBs.” This channel partner approach has allowed Huntress to rapidly scale its reach and impact in the SMB market.
To build these crucial relationships, Hanslovan took an unconventional approach in the early days of the company. He recalls, “I ended up pitching my first handful of customers and was like, I will work for free one day a week in your office to learn more about MSPs. And I did that for probably the first two and a half years just to learn.”
This hands-on approach allowed Huntress to deeply understand the needs of their target market and refine their offering accordingly.
Overcoming Challenges and Skepticism
Building a company focused on SMB cybersecurity wasn’t without its challenges. Hanslovan recalls, “From the Angels to the series A all the way, believe it or not, into series B was the first time I got conviction for SMB. So that is five years in, people did not believe in my go to market.”
Despite the skepticism, Hanslovan and his team remained committed to their vision. He attributes this perseverance to “conviction” and having the data to back up their strategy. Kyle explains, “I had the people telling me the stories, people showing. I had the data that I was building from the bottom up on saying, look, this is how big the total addressable market is. That kept me going.”
This commitment to their vision, even in the face of doubt from potential investors, has been a defining characteristic of Huntress’s journey.
The Competitive Landscape and Huntress’s Edge
As the importance of cybersecurity for SMBs has become more widely recognized, the competitive landscape has intensified. Hanslovan notes, “Today, everybody wants to be a managed security platform of the SMB. You literally have the greatest enterprise players from above coming down. You have some of these incumbent smaller players from the bottom coming up, and then you’ve got unrelated companies that do just traditional IT management trying to come over.”
Despite this increased competition, Huntress maintains its edge through what Hanslovan calls “lowest total cost of ownership.” He explains, “Even though my product isn’t the cheapest, if you combine the cost of acquisition plus the cost of the operations or humans to manage it, plus that opportunity that you could be doing other things and those three things into TCO or total cost ownership. I am the lowest total cost of ownership and we just disproportionately win our deals.”
This focus on providing the best overall value, rather than just the lowest price, has allowed Huntress to thrive in an increasingly competitive market.
Adapting to the AI Revolution
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape the tech landscape, Huntress is actively exploring how to leverage this technology to enhance its offerings. Hanslovan sees AI as a powerful tool for augmentation rather than replacement. He explains, “We found very few cases where AI truly replaces, but many cases where it augments. So you can imagine, on my end, as I’m considering efficiency, I’m having to bat away some of the crazy questions of like, can AI just ruin all this? And I’m like, look, my Tesla drive tries to kill me eight times a day with its AI. It’s not perfect, but what it can do is it makes my distracted self way better at driving.”
This balanced approach to AI integration allows Huntress to enhance its services while maintaining the human expertise that is crucial in cybersecurity.
Vision for the Future
Looking ahead, Hanslovan has ambitious plans for Huntress. He envisions the company becoming a central player in the cybersecurity landscape for SMBs globally. Kyle muses, “Five years into it, I’m probably looking at, all right, I see a billion dollars in ARR coming. How do I get to 2 billion?”
But for Hanslovan, these financial goals are just a means to an end. He explains, “What SMBs want to hear is, all right, great. You’re protecting 300 or 400,000 of us SMBs. How do you protect the 34 million that are in the US alone, let alone the hundreds of millions across the globe?”
Conclusion
Huntress’s journey from a small startup to a key player in the SMB cybersecurity sector is a testament to the power of adaptability, innovative go-to-market strategies, and a clear vision for the future. By pivoting their business model, embracing a channel partner approach, and maintaining a focus on providing the best overall value to their customers, Huntress has positioned itself at the forefront of the cybersecurity revolution for SMBs.
As the world continues its digital transformation and the importance of cybersecurity grows, Huntress is well-positioned to play a crucial role in protecting the backbone of the global economy – small and medium-sized businesses. With their innovative platform, strategic approach, and ambitious vision for the future, Huntress is set to continue pioneering cybersecurity for the 99%.
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Pukar Hamal
CEO and Founder of SecurityPal
Pukar Hamal, CEO and Founder of SecurityPal: $21 Million Raised to Power the Future of Customer Assurance
Mollie Breen
CEO and Co-Founder of Perygee
Mollie Breen, CEO and Co-Founder of Perygee: $6.4 Million Raised to Build the Future of IT/OT Security
Umaimah Khan
CEO and Co-Founder of Opal Security
Umaimah Khan, CEO & Co-Founder of Opal Security: $32 Million Raised to Build the Future of Identity Security
Diana Rabba
Head of Marketing of Exein
Long Game Marketing: Building Trust in High-Stakes B2B Sales
Julie Preiss
Chief Marketing Officer of Centripetal
Why Your Cybersecurity Brand Sounds Like Everyone Else
Christian Almenar
CEO & Co-Founder of Monad
Christian Almenar, CEO of Monad: $19 Million Raised to Solve the Cybersecurity Big Data Problem
Michael Assraf
CEO & Founder of Flamingo
How Flamingo generated 1,000 waitlist signups before launching a product using a free community tool | Michael Assraf
Joshua Motta
CEO & Co-Founder of Coalition
Joshua Motta: How Coalition Created the “Active Insurance” Category ($5B Valuation)
Harley Sugarman
Founder & CEO of Anagram
Harley Sugarman, Founder & CEO of Anagram: $10 Million Raised to Transform Human-Driven Security
Sebastian Stranieri
CEO & Founder of VU Security
Sebastian Stranieri, CEO & Founder of VU Security: $24 Million Raised to Build the Future of Digital Identity & Fraud Prevention
Ryan Lasmaili
CEO & Co-Founder of Vaultree
Ryan Lasmaili, CEO of Vaultree: $16 Million Raised to Build the World’s First Fully Functional Data-in-Use Encryption
Lisa O’Reilly
Vice President of Marketing of iVerify
How iVerify’s First Marketing Hire Built a Research-Driven Engine
Stephen de Vries
CEO and Co-Founder of IriusRisk
Stephen de Vries, CEO and Co-Founder of IriusRisk: $40 Million Raised to Build the Future of Threat Modeling
Colby Proffitt
VP of Marketing of Shift5
From the Pentagon to B2B: Colby Proffitt’s Journey and ABM Insights
Tony Scott
CEO & President of Intrusion
How the ex-White House CIO turned around a failing cybersecurity company by fixing the product first | Tony Scott
Arjun Bhatnagar
CEO & Co-Founder of Cloaked
Arjun Bhatnagar, CEO of Cloaked: $25 Million Raised to Build the Future of Data Privacy
Peter Prizio Jr
CEO of SnapAttack
Peter Prizio Jr, CEO of SnapAttack: $8 Million Raised to Power the Future of Threat Management
Aurelie Guerrieri
Chief Marketing & Alliances Officer of DataDome
Aurelie Guerrieri, Chief Marketing & Alliances Officer at DataDome: 20 Years in Silicon Valley – Insights on the Evolving Tech Landscape
Rohan Sathe
Co-Founder & CEO of Nightfall AI
How Nightfall AI uses CISO dinners to generate pipeline | Rohan Sathe
Austin Gadient
CTO & Co-Founder of Vali Cyber
Austin Gadient, CTO & Co-Founder of Vali Cyber: $15 Million Raised to Build the Future of Linux Security
Dan Lowden
CMO of Blackbird.AI
How to Create a Category: Dan Lowden’s 8-Exit CMO Playbook
Tom Jermoluk
CEO of Beyond Identity
Tom “TJ” Jermoluk: The GTM Storyteller of Beyond Identity ($1.1 Billion Valuation)
Dimitri Sirota
CEO & Co-Founder of BigID
Dimitri Sirota: The GTM Story of BigID ($1.25 Billion Valuation)
Dave Mor
CEO and Co-Founder of OneLayer
Dave Mor, CEO and Co-Founder of OneLayer: $15 Million Raised to Protect Private Cellular Networks
Carole Winqwist
CMO of GitGuardian
How to Win with Rapid Response: GitGuardian’s Media Playbook
Tony Lombardo
VP of Marketing of ThreatModeler Software
Why 99% of Cybersecurity Marketers Are Doing Demand Gen Wrong
Dimitri Sirota
CEO & Co-Founder of BigID
Dimitri Sirota: The GTM Story of BigID ($1.25 Billion Valuation)
Amit Gupta
Senior Director of Marketing Operations of Fortanix
Why Marketing Ops Should Be Your First GTM Hire
Tom Jermoluk
CEO of Beyond Identity
Tom “TJ” Jermoluk, CEO of Beyond Identity: $200 Million Raised to Build the Future of Multi-Factor Authentication
Ian Amit
CEO and Founder of Gomboc
Ian Amit, CEO & Founder of Gomboc: $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Security Remediation
Spencer Thompson
CEO and Co-Founder of Prelude
Spencer Thompson, CEO and Co-Founder of Prelude: Over $30 Million Raised to Build the Future of Continuous Security Testing
Ryan Schonfeld
Founder & CEO of Hivewatch
Ryan Schonfeld, CEO of Hivewatch: $25 Million Raised to Build the OS of Physical Security
David Etue
CEO of Nisos
David Etue, CEO of Nisos: $33 Million Raised to Build the Future of Managed Intelligence
Jason Martin
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Permiso Security
Jason Martin, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Permiso Security: $10 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Security
Philippe Humeau
CEO of CrowdSec
Philippe Humeau, CEO of CrowdSec: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cyber Threat Intelligence
Kyle Hanslovan
CEO & Co-Founder of Huntress
What happens when you outgrow your messaging? w/ Huntress CEO Kyle Hanslovan
Edward Wu
CEO and Founder of Dropzone AI
Edward Wu, CEO & Founder of Dropzone AI: $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI SOC Analysts
Ani Chaudhuri
CEO & Co-Founder of Dasera
Ani Chaudhuri, CEO & Co-Founder of Dasera: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Data Security
Joe Levy
CEO of Sophos
Joe Levy, CEO of Sophos: $1.5 Billion ARR and the Future of Cybersecurity at Scale
Eric Olden
CEO and Founder of Strata Identity
Eric Olden, CEO and Founder of Strata Identity: $42 Million Raised to Build the Identity Orchestration Category
Robert Cowart
CEO & Co-Founder of ElastiFlow
Robert Cowart, CEO & Co-Founder of ElastiFlow: $8 Million Raised to Power the Future of Network Performance and Security Analytics
Marina Segal
CEO and Co-Founder of Tamnoon
Marina Segal, CEO & Co-Founder of Tamnoon: Over $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Security
Ben Kliger
CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity
Ben Kliger, CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity: $21.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Security and Governance for AI, Low-Code, and No-Code Development
Eddie DeCurtis
Co-Founder and CEO of Shush
How Shush differentiated against competitors by solving business operations, not just deploying technology | Eddie DeCurtis, Co-Founder & CEO of Shush Inc.
Mykolas Rambus
CEO & Co-Founder of Hush
Mykolas Rambus, CEO & Co-Founder of Hush: $7.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Data Privacy
Nadav Arbel
CEO & Co-Founder of Cyrebro
Nadav Arbel, CEO & Co-Founder of Cyrebro: $51 Million Raised to Build the Future of ML-Backed MDR
Sivan Tehila
Founder and CEO of Onyxia
Sivan Tehila, Founder and CEO of Onyxia: $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cybersecurity Performance Management
Bob Tinker
CEO & Co-Founder of BlueRock
How BlueRock identified three distinct buyer personas by asking “How would you describe what we do to your peers?” | Bob Tinker
Matteo Bogana
CEO and Co-Founder of Cleafy
Matteo Bogana, CEO & Co-Founder of Cleafy: $12 Million Raised to Build the Future of Online Fraud Prevention
Ori Eisen
CEO & Founder of Trusona
Ori Eisen, CEO & Founder of Trusona: $38 Million Raised to Power the Future of Account Takeover Prevention
Adam Cecchetti
CEO & Co-Founder of Staris AI
Adam Cecchetti, CEO & Co-Founder of Staris AI: $5.7 Million Raised to Build Total Context Security for Application Protection
Rodrigo Leme
Marketing Director of Right-Hand Cybersecurity
Rodrigo Leme, Marketing Director at Right-Hand Cybersecurity: Standing Out in a Crowded Market – Niche Targeting and Customer-Centric Approach
Michael Assraf
CEO & Co-Founder of Vicarius
Michael Assraf, CEO of Vicarius: $29 Million Raised to Build the Future of Vulnerability Prioritization
Paul Lewis
Founder and CEO of Calamu
Paul Lewis, CEO of Calamu: $20 Million Raised to Build the Cyber Storage Category
Oren Kaniel
CEO & Co-Founder of AppsFlyer
Oren Kaniel: The GTM Story of AppsFlyer ($2 Billion Valuation)
Peter Dvorak
Founder & CEO of Wultra
How Wultra built category leadership as the only post-quantum provider for banking digital identity | Peter Dvorak
Scott McCrady
CEO of SolCyber
Scott McCrady, CEO of SolCyber: $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Managed Security
Matthew Howard
SVP & CMO of Virtru
How to Time Analyst Relations for Maximum Category Impact
Alan LeFort
CEO of StrongestLayer
How StrongestLayer achieved 85% meeting-to-POC and 100% POC-to-win rates using transparent one-week pilots | Alan LeFort
Paul Valente
CEO and Co-Founder of VISO Trust
Paul Valente, CEO and Co-Founder of VISO Trust: $17 Million Raised to Build the Future of Third-Party Cyber Risk Management
Tom Tovar
CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome
Tom Tovar, CEO of AppDome: Over $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Mobile App Security
Itzik Alvas
CEO & Co-Founder of Entro Security
Itzik Alvas, CEO & Co-Founder of Entro Security: $24 Million Raised to Build the Future of Non-Human Identity Management
Arie Zilberstein
CEO and Co-Founder of Gem Security
Arie Zilberstein, CEO and Co-Founder of Gem Security: $34 Million Raised to Power the Future of Cloud Detection and Response
Tiffany Ricks
CEO and Founder of HacWare
Tiffany Ricks, CEO and Founder of HacWare: $2.6 Million Raised to Build the Future of Security Awareness
Ben Levine
Senior Director of Product Management and Marketing of Axiado Corporation
Building Marketing Guidelines That Actually Stick Across Teams
David Brumley
CEO of Mayhem
David Brumley, CEO of Mayhem: $38 Million Raised to Build the Future of Security Testing
Danny Lopez
CEO of Glasswall
Danny Lopez CEO of Glasswall: $60+ Million Raised to Make the Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) Category Mainstream
Josh Shaul
CEO of Allure Security
Josh Shaul, CEO of Allure Security: $6 Million Raised to Help Businesses Win the Battle Against Online Scammers
Russell Spitler
CEO & Co-Founder of Nudge Security
Russell Spitler, CEO & Co-Founder of Nudge Security: $17 Million Raised to Build the Future of SaaS Security
Dan Lorenc
CEO & Founder of Chainguard
Dan Lorenc, CEO & Founder of Chainguard: $250 Million Raised to Power the Future of Software Supply Chain Security
Neil Serebryany
CEO and Co-Founder of CalypsoAI
Neil Serebryany, CEO & Co-Founder of CalypsoAI: $38 Million Raised to Power the Future of AI Security
Stijn Vande Casteele
Founder of Sweepatic
Stijn Vande Casteele, Founder of Sweepatic: $4.4 Million Raised to Build the Future of External Attack Surface Management
Justin Beals
CEO, Co-Founder of Strike Graph
Justin Beals, CEO of Strike Graph: $12 Million Raised to Build the Future of Automated Security and Compliance
Ayal Yogev
CEO and Co-Founder of Anjuna
Ayal Yogev, CEO and Co-Founder of Anjuna: $42 Million to Build The Future of Confidential Computing
Bill Moore
CEO and Founder of XONA
Bill Moore, CEO and Founder of XONA: $30 Million Raised to Build the Future of OT User Access
John Milburn
CEO of Clear Skye
John Milburn, CEO of Clear Skye: More Than $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Identity and Access Governance
Jessica Pratt
Director of Marketing and Communications of Peak Metrics
How PeakMetrics Turns Product Data Into Marketing Gold
Mike Janke
Co-Founder of Data Tribe
Funding the Future: Mike Janke, Co-Founder of Data Tribe
Jean Le Bouthillier
CEO of Qohash
Jean Le Bouthillier, CEO of Qohash: $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Data Security
Ken Bagnall
CEO & Founder of Silent Push
Ken Bagnall, CEO & Founder of Silent Push: $22 Million Raised to Transform Threat Intelligence Through Adversary Infrastructure Monitoring