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Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Actionable
Takeaways
Layer future-proofing onto immediate ROI:
Post-quantum cryptography doesn't require quantum computers to function—it runs on classical infrastructure while providing superior security. Peter sells banks on moving from SMS OTP to mobile app authentication (tangible, immediate benefit) while positioning quantum resistance as migration insurance: "You won't have to rip-and-replace in three years." For emerging tech, anchor value in today's operational wins, not future scenarios.
Give struggling departments concrete wins:
Large banks have quantum threat teams tasked with replacing every piece of software by 2030-2035. Peter gives them measurable progress: "We move you from 5% to 10% completion on authentication and digital identity." These teams need defensible projects to justify their existence. Identify which internal groups are fighting for relevance and deliver projects they can report upward.
Banking references are binary gatekeepers:
Every bank asks "who else is using this?" Non-banking customers (telcos, gaming, lottery) don't count—banking regulation and systems are fundamentally different. The first banking customer is the hardest barrier. Once cleared, subsequent conversations become tractable. Budget aggressively to land that first bank, even at unfavorable terms.
Respect the annual budget cycle:
Banks allocate resources 12 months ahead. Approaching in Q2/Q3 means budgets are locked—even free POCs fail because internal resources are committed. Peter's pipeline strategy: build relationships and maintain visibility throughout the year, then activate when budget windows open. Don't confuse market education with active pipeline.
Map and sequence multi-stakeholder buys:
Authentication purchases require alignment across quantum threat teams (if they exist), cybersecurity/compliance, CTO/CIO (infrastructure acceptance), and digital product owners (UX concerns affecting their KPIs). Start at director level—board executives are too removed from technical details. Research each bank's org structure before engaging, then tailor sequencing.
EU regulatory leadership creates expansion vectors:
European regulations like PSD2 and strong authentication requirements get replicated in Southeast Asia, MENA, and other regions. Peter benefits from solving EU compliance first, then riding regulatory diffusion. The US remains fragmented with smaller regional banks still using username/password. Founders should analyze which geographies lead regulatory adoption in their category.
Maintain composure through 18+ month cycles: Peter's regret:
losing his temper during negotiations cost him time. Banking doesn't buy impulsively—sales require patience through lengthy security reviews, compliance checks, and committee approvals. Incremental progress and rational positioning matter more than aggressive closing. Emotional control is operational discipline.
Conversation
Highlights
How Wultra Cracked the Closed Banking Ecosystem With Post-Quantum Authentication
Every bank asks the same question when evaluating new security vendors: “Who else is using this?”
For Peter Dvorak, Founder and CEO at Wultra, that question represented the single biggest barrier to breaking into banking. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Peter shared how his company navigated one of B2B’s most notoriously closed ecosystems to position Wultra as the only post-quantum cryptography provider for digital identity in banking.
The answer banks demanded couldn’t come from telecom companies or gaming platforms. “If you say, oh, I have this amazing telco company, nobody cares really, because banking regulation is different, banking systems are different,” Peter explains. You need banking proof points to unlock banking conversations—creating a catch-22 that kills most startups before they gain traction.
Positioning Quantum-Safe Crypto When the Threat Timeline Is Uncertain
Wultra protects digital identities from quantum computing threats through post-quantum authentication. The challenge: most experts agree 2035 is the realistic timeline for quantum computers capable of breaking current encryption, but the actual arrival could accelerate dramatically.
Peter draws a parallel to AI’s trajectory: “If you look at current state of AI, five years ago, talking computer would be complete sci fi. Today it’s pretty normal. You can talk to a computer, ask questions, it gives you very good answers which actually look better than what we imagined even in the sci fi movies.”
The quantum timeline uncertainty creates a positioning problem. Sell too hard on the future threat, and banks deprioritize against immediate concerns. Undersell it, and your differentiation disappears.
Peter’s solution: layer future-proofing onto immediate ROI.
“The important part that we always say is that post quantum cryptography doesn’t need quantum computers to run,” he explains. Post-quantum algorithms run on classical infrastructure—smartphones, servers, existing banking systems—while providing superior security against both current and quantum threats.
More importantly, Wultra positions itself as solving today’s authentication pain points. Banks moving from SMS OTP to mobile app authentication hear: “If you choose our product instead of the competitors, you will be using it in five years as well. You don’t have to migrate in three years.”
The pitch anchors on tangible benefits—better security, improved UX, reduced SMS costs—while quantum resistance becomes migration insurance rather than speculative investment.
Targeting Departments Fighting for Internal Relevance
While most vendors target CISOs or CTOs, Peter identified an underutilized internal champion: quantum threat departments.
These teams exist at large banking groups with an impossible mandate—replace every piece of quantum-vulnerable software by 2035. That includes authentication, digital identity, payments, blockchain deployments, VPNs, and cloud infrastructure. Peter estimates this represents hundreds of software systems at enterprise banks.
These departments face the same credibility challenge Wultra does: how do you justify budget for a threat that might be a decade away?
Peter gives them concrete wins: “We can basically tell them, hey look, we can help you move from 0% or 5% or wherever you currently are to 7 or maybe 10% of the entire task.”
It’s a positioning multiplier. Quantum threat teams need implementation-ready projects to demonstrate progress and defend their budgets. Wultra provides tangible deliverables they can report upward—authentication and digital identity moved to quantum-safe infrastructure—transforming abstract mandates into measurable KPIs.
Mapping Multi-Stakeholder Enterprise Purchases
Authentication purchases in banking require alignment across four distinct stakeholder groups, each with different concerns:
Quantum threat teams (where they exist) prioritize post-quantum cryptography implementations and progress toward 2035 compliance deadlines.
Cybersecurity and compliance focus on regulatory requirements—strong authentication mandates under regulations like PSD2 in Europe—and security audit results.
CTOs and Chief Information Officers must approve infrastructure compatibility, deployment models, and integration requirements with existing systems.
Digital product owners obsess over user experience metrics. As Peter notes, “bad user experience influences his or her KPIs” like mobile banking adoption rates and authentication completion percentages.
“We always need to research the bank a little bit, understand the stakeholders and then we can kind of tailor our strategy towards going there,” Peter explains.
His targeting approach: start at director level—board minus one. “If you go to board level, they have no idea what we talk about, it’s just too specific.” Board executives lack the technical depth to evaluate authentication solutions; directors have both authority and understanding.
Respecting the Annual Budget Cycle
Peter learned banking budget mechanics the hard way.
“If you come to a bank in June or July, it’s really difficult to get any budget for any activity,” he notes. Banks allocate resources twelve months ahead. By mid-year, not just dollars but also internal resources—developer time, product management bandwidth, compliance review capacity—are committed to approved projects.
This kills even free POCs: “Even if it’s free, it still has a cost for the bank.”
The implication reshapes pipeline strategy entirely. Approaching banks in Q2 or Q3 expecting near-term closes is ineffective. Instead, Wultra focuses on year-round visibility—conferences, analyst validation, LinkedIn presence—to ensure they’re in consideration sets when budget windows open in Q4/Q1.
“It is not really about closing them immediately because banks rarely buy impulsively,” Peter observes. “Typically you have to be kind of in the space, be visible. And eventually when they are looking for something, when they decide when they are ready, they can buy.”
This requires reframing what “active pipeline” means. Most conversations won’t close for 12-18 months. Early engagement is market education, not deal acceleration.
Building Credibility in Closed Ecosystems
Breaking into banking required Wultra to build credibility through multiple validation channels simultaneously.
Conference presence drives ecosystem visibility. Peter attends Money 2020, Finovate, and Singapore Fintech Festival—not for lead generation, but to establish Wultra as a recognized player. “We basically go to conferences to be kind of connected to the industry.”
Analyst relationships counter the “are you too small?” objection. Wultra works with Gartner and KuppingerCole (boutique analyst firm for digital identity). These relationships provide third-party validation that helps small vendors pass procurement committees.
Content strategy maintains presence without overwhelming prospects. Peter focuses on LinkedIn, sharing insights on post-quantum cryptography and banking authentication. The goal: ensure Wultra appears when banks enter buying cycles, not force premature conversations.
Peter positioned Wultra narrowly to own a defensible category: “We are currently the only company that does post quantum cryptography and digital identities for banking. So we are kind of narrowing down the segment, but it’s still pretty big.”
The European Regulatory Playbook
Peter benefits from building in the European Union, where banking regulation leads global adoption.
“I am actually this is one of the situations where I’m happy that I’m in the European Union because banking regulation is actually ahead of time. So it’s kind of being copy pasted,” he explains. EU requirements around strong authentication get replicated in Southeast Asia, MENA, and other regions.
The US market operates differently. While large institutions like Wells Fargo and Chase maintain sophisticated authentication, thousands of smaller regional banks still use username-password authentication that would violate EU regulations. “In Europe this would be basically illegal. You cannot use it’s not strong enough.”
This regulatory leadership creates expansion vectors. Solutions satisfying EU compliance provide templates as other markets adopt similar frameworks. Founders should identify which geographies lead regulatory adoption in their category.
The Discipline of Extended Sales Cycles
When asked for his biggest lesson selling to banks, Peter doesn’t cite tactics or frameworks.
“Never get discussion to heated,” he says. “I actually lost some time by basically losing my temper at some situation. Not like on the meeting, but internally during the negotiations and staying calm, looking at the situation rationally and basically moving forward in smaller steps actually helps.”
Banking sales stretch 18+ months. They involve security reviews, compliance approvals, committee decisions, and proof-of-concept periods. Progress happens in increments—winning over one stakeholder, passing one security review, completing one POC milestone.
“That’s like the big learning that kind of, if I could do some things differently, this would be it,” Peter reflects.
Emotional control isn’t soft skill advice—it’s operational discipline for founders in enterprise markets.
Building the Quantum-Safe Baseline
Peter’s vision extends beyond selling authentication solutions to individual banks.
“The big vision for us would be to have like invisibly embedded finances everywhere in applications protected by really strong security,” he explains. “Quantum safe should be by default. It shouldn’t be viewed as the big threat somewhere in the future. It should be viewed as something that we can build immediately and protect the world from quantum computers even before we have them kind of on a baseline level.”
For B2B founders targeting regulated industries, Wultra’s journey provides tactical frameworks: solve immediate pain while positioning future protection, identify internal champions fighting for wins, respect institutional rhythms like annual budgets, map multi-stakeholder decisions before engaging, and maintain composure through extended cycles.
The banking ecosystem remains difficult to penetrate. But Peter’s approach—combining deep category expertise, strategic patience, and precise stakeholder navigation—demonstrates how startups crack even the most closed enterprise markets.
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