The Onyxia Playbook: Building Enterprise Trust Without an Established Category

Convincing Fortune 500 companies to adopt new technology is challenging enough. But how do you convince them to adopt a solution in a category that doesn’t exist? In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Onyxia founder Sivan Tehila revealed the playbook that helped her company build enterprise trust from scratch.

Starting with the Problem, Not the Category

When Sivan approached enterprises, she didn’t lead with category definitions. Instead, she focused on a universal pain point: “Almost any Fortune 500 CISO I spoke with showed me an Excel sheet that they’re managing since they started their position as a CISO in any company.” This discovery revealed that even the largest companies struggled with manual security program management.

Building Credibility Through Strategic Relationships

Rather than rushing to secure funding, Sivan invested time in building meaningful relationships with investors who could add value beyond capital. “I really felt that I need to build a relationship with my investors,” she explains. This approach paid off: “Now any investor in my cap table brings value to the company that is not just the money they were putting in.”

Focusing on Mature Organizations

Onyxia made a strategic decision to target companies with established security infrastructure. “We’re focusing on mid sized companies and enterprises,” Sivan notes. “Companies that are less mature usually don’t have enough security products, so we can’t give them the value they need.” This focus helped establish credibility by ensuring their solution could deliver meaningful value.

Leveraging Domain Expertise

Sivan’s background as a CISO in the Israeli Defense Forces provided crucial credibility. Her experience taught her resilience and problem-solving: “I remember myself many times waking up in the middle of the night when I got a phone call that something is happening and you just need to act and you need to act fast.” This operational experience helped her understand and address enterprise concerns.

Embracing Regulatory Tailwinds

When new SEC cybersecurity regulations emerged, Onyxia was positioned to help enterprises comply. “Many companies I spoke with a while ago got back to me recently and they told me, ‘hey, Sivan, we’re thinking about your product with their relation to the SEC regulation.'” This external validation helped accelerate adoption.

Clear Problem Definition

In the noisy cybersecurity space, Sivan emphasized the importance of precise problem definition. “Because cybersecurity is a very overwhelming space… really doing your research around the problem and define the solution in a very clear way could be very helpful,” she advises. Without this clarity, “often when investors hear your pitch, they really feel like they heard that 100 times before you showed up.”

Building for the Long Term

Rather than focusing on short-term wins, Onyxia built for the future. Their vision extends beyond just solving today’s problems: “Were talking about performance, or performance management, but the way I see Onyxia is really becoming a platform that combines different solutions for security leaders to manage all their security efforts in one place.”

For B2B founders creating new categories, Onyxia’s playbook offers valuable lessons. Focus on solving real problems rather than fitting into existing categories. Build relationships with strategic investors who understand your vision. Target customers who can derive immediate value from your solution. And perhaps most importantly, maintain unwavering focus on the problem you’re solving, even when it means challenging industry assumptions about how things should be done.

The key to building enterprise trust isn’t always about having an established category – sometimes it’s about having the courage to create a new one when existing categories don’t adequately address customer needs.