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Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Actionable
Takeaways
Use Budget Discovery as Your Primary Market Intelligence Tool:
Matthew's approach to understanding customer needs centers on direct budget conversations: How much money exists in a category? Which vendors currently receive that budget? What's the consolidation plan for next year? This systematic inquiry reveals both competitive positioning and emerging trends. When customers consistently indicate they're consolidating spend away from certain vendors toward others, you're observing market tectonic shifts in real-time. This framework provides concrete validation of product-market fit and reveals whether you're competing for existing budget or trying to create new budget categories.
Identify Technical Architecture Shifts as Category Creation Opportunities:
The most defensible category creation opportunities mirror fundamental technical architecture shifts, not marketing narratives. Matthew draws a parallel between the 10-year transition from monolithic three-tier applications to microservices and the emerging shift from perimeter-centric security to data-centric security with molecular-level controls. These "tectonic shifts" create genuine new buying patterns because they solve problems the old architecture couldn't address. Look for technical transformations where engineering teams are rebuilding fundamental infrastructure—these create real budget reallocation, not just messaging differentiation.
Time Your Analyst Relations Investment to the Market Development Curve:
Analyst firms don't make markets, they follow them. When Gartner receives inquiry call volume that grows from 0 to 100 to 1,000 over 36 months, they're measuring real market emergence—and that's your signal to invest heavily in analyst relations. Matthew deprioritizes AR spending in mature or pre-market stages but goes all-in during the second or third inning when analysts are codifying their thinking. Insert yourself into the category definition process when inquiry volume proves market momentum but before the category hardens. Early thought leadership during this window positions you favorably regardless of how the final category boundaries settle.
Accept Category Imperfection and Optimize for "Good Enough" Positioning:
Pure category creation—defining a market exactly as you envision it—is lightning in a bottle. Matthew acknowledges Virtru's category may ultimately split across multiple existing Gartner categories rather than creating one perfect new category. The pragmatic approach: do the foundational work to ride the technical trend, establish thought leadership across relevant analyst conversations, and position to "compete and win fair share" once the dust settles. This realism prevents the trap of over-investing in perfect category definition while missing the actual market opportunity.
Build Presence Across the Long Tail of Micro-Media With Authentic Voice:
Mass media is dead; millions of markets of dozens of buyers define modern B2B discovery. Matthew invests in being present across G2, Reddit, emerging LLMs, and niche communities—not with promotional content but with authentic human engagement that adds value to practitioner conversations. For cybersecurity buyers facing overwhelming vendor noise, showing up with something to teach rather than something to sell builds long-term positioning. This requires discipline: engage where your ICP actually discusses problems, contribute genuine expertise without sales pitches, and accept that conversion happens over extended timeframes through trust accumulation.
Apply the 60-60 Framework to Event Marketing ROI:
Events deliver value through preparation and follow-up, not floor presence. Matthew's 1:10:2 ratio (every $1 spent should generate $10 pipeline and $2 ARR) requires 60 days of pre-event work: identifying attendees, securing meetings, building targeted outreach. The event day executes on that preparation. Then 60 days post-event captures value through systematic lead qualification and pipeline acceleration. Without this framework, event spending becomes brand presence theater. Matthew shifted events from priority level 7 (pre-COVID) to 3 (post-COVID) to 4-5 (current), with growing budgets focused on niche events where you can "play big" rather than being one of hundreds at RSA or Black Hat.
Cultivate Strategic Patience During Market Evolution:
In an industry obsessed with quarter-over-quarter growth, patience is a competitive advantage when positioning for tectonic shifts. Matthew emphasizes earning the right to future conversations: "I don't have a perimeter security product to sell you today. But if you believe the architectural shift is happening and in three years 20% of your budget moves to data-centric controls, call me." This requires CFO and board alignment around longer conversion cycles, but it positions you as the category expert when buying patterns finally shift rather than scrambling to catch up after competitors establish market position.
Prioritize Customer Context Over Product Pitches in Practitioner Communities:
CISOs face brutal economics: short tenure, inevitable breaches, success measured by "failing less than others." Vendors who acknowledge this reality and contribute educational value rather than sales pitches earn mindshare. Matthew's team engages on Reddit and other practitioner forums by sharing insights about architectural trends and security strategy—building brand association with thought leadership. When budget shifts and the conversation needs to happen, you've already established credibility. This approach flips traditional demand gen: instead of interrupting buyers, you position so buyers seek you out when their timing aligns with your solution.
Conversation
Highlights
In this episode of The Marketing Front Lines, we speak with Matthew Howard, SVP & CMO at Virtru. Matthew brings a unique perspective shaped by his early career in enterprise sales, which taught him the critical discipline of customer discovery and budget-based market validation. At Virtru, he’s positioning the company at the forefront of a tectonic shift in cybersecurity—moving from perimeter-centric defense to data-centric security with granular, molecular-level protection. Through systematic customer conversations about budgets, vendor consolidation patterns, and multi-year roadmaps, Matthew identified this trend in its second or third inning, enabling Virtru to establish thought leadership before the category fully crystallizes. His approach emphasizes patient brand building, authentic engagement across the long tail of micro-media channels, and the strategic timing of analyst relations investments to capture emerging market momentum.
Topics Discussed
- Transitioning from sales to marketing with customer empathy at the core
- Budget-based customer discovery as a market intelligence framework
- Identifying tectonic trends through vendor consolidation patterns
- The microservices-to-data-centric-security analogy for architectural shifts
- Strategic timing of analyst relations investments during category formation
- Navigating founder pressure for category creation versus market reality
- Multi-channel presence strategy across the long tail of micro-media
- The evolution of event marketing ROI and the 1:10:2 ratio framework
- Authentic engagement in communities like Reddit for B2B cybersecurity
- Patience as a competitive advantage during market evolution
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