Behind the Scenes of a Cybersecurity Unicorn Announcement
A candid shot of the author thinking “is this real life?”

Behind the Scenes of a Cybersecurity Unicorn Announcement

People tell us that they see Axonius everywhere - and we love hearing that. But a lot has to happen behind the scenes. Here’s a backstage look at what went into our recent news along with some massive thank yous to those that make everything look easy. 

Plans and Punches to the Face

There’s a quote I love from Mike Tyson:

 "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

Originally, we planned to announce our funding round on March 3rd, but with so many huge funding announcements in the news, we wanted to give ourselves until March 9th. The great and powerful Megan Berry decided we should do a Times Square takeover, so we planned to have the press coverage coincide with billboards on the NASDAQ and Thomson Reuters buildings. We wanted to go big. 

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PR strategy is simple: with news like our funding announcement, there are two options:

  1. Exclusive - You pitch one major outlet and let them break the story.
  2. Embargo - You pitch everyone and tell them what time they’re okay to publish the news.

Going exclusive lets you shoot for a higher-tier publication, but you sacrifice breadth. The embargo route gets you more coverage, but when you’re a young company, that usually means the top-tier publications won’t cover the news. 

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Sin Embargo

None of that matters in this case. Instead, someone leaked our news to a publication that refused to hold the story. On a Sunday. So we had to improvise.

Great PR is like chess: you have to be strategic and think 3 moves ahead, BUT you also have to react to what’s thrown at you. That Sunday morning, LookLeft (our PR firm) pulled off what should be taught as a case study in rapid response PR. They were able to get a top-tier publication to interview our CEO and Co-founder and the story got massive coverage everywhere. Outstanding work. 

Let the Professionals Do It

To share the news with our customers, we wanted to shoot a short video of Dean Sysman. I’m a big fan of DIY video, but there are times when you should call in the pros. TestimonialHero shoots all of our customer videos, and this is what they were able to create for Dean’s announcement:

I simply cannot recommend TestimonialHero enough. Everything they produce is amazing looking, and getting people to feel comfortable while doing something inherently uncomfortable is their superpower. 

Times Square Takeover

Although the news of our unicorn status was already out, we decided to move forward with the Times Square billboards anyway. I had some truly terrible ideas for a design. Like, embarrassingly bad. So I consulted with the mighty Kaite Rosa, and like always, the result was something we loved. And then, superstar designer Maddie King created something that was jaw-dropping:

If we were living in a normal world, we would have invited everyone in the company to be there to see it. My only regret is that we couldn’t have all Axonians together in Times Square to be part of that moment, but that would have been irresponsible. It takes a massive effort from everyone in the company to go from nothing to a $1.2 billion valuation in such a short time, and although only a handful of people could be there to witness it, I hope they feel the same sense of awe. I need to thank Eileen Ann, Linor Shust, and Jacklyn Goldstein for making this all happen safely.

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Back to Work - Now What?  

Instead of our billboards coinciding with our unicorn status, that day we announced that YL Ventures sold its stake in Axonius for $270 million to make room for IPO-focused investors.

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The fact that our earliest investor sold its stake in Axonius makes sense all around. YL Ventures is able to focus on what they do best while making room for later-stage investors that have expertise in scaling companies to IPO and beyond. 

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So that’s the plan. We want to push ourselves to solve a huge, nagging problem that’s been around for decades and do it with a simple product that our customers love. We want to do that with exceptional employees that aren’t afraid to do really hard things while maintaining standards that are just shy of impossible. 

So far, so good. 

Arpeet Ravalji

Data + Strategy = Growth

3 年

Amazing! Congrats Alexandra Mangold & Jerry Raphael

Roi Mit (Rio)??

Marketing Director at proteanTecs

3 年

Another one of your great summary posts, thank you for the sneak peak behind the scenes and glad the PR turned out so well.?

Jennifer Tanner

Senior Vice President

3 年

I know I've said it before but we are really so excited for the incredible team at Axonius and honored to be a part of your journey to the top!

Sam Shepler

CEO at Testimonial Hero | B2B Customer Stories That Close Deals Faster

3 年

Congrats Nathan Burke and thank you for the kind words on Testimonial Hero! It's been an absolute blast working together as always, particularly with this rocket ship! ??

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