ForAllSecure vs. The Analysts: A Different Approach to Category Creation
Most cybersecurity vendors spend enormous resources trying to create or dominate analyst-defined categories. In a recent Category Visionaries episode, ForAllSecure founder David Brumley revealed why they took the opposite approach – and how it’s paying off.
The Category Creation Problem
“I think that the categories are really defined by the analysts, and the analysts really don’t know what they’re doing,” David states with refreshing candor. This isn’t just frustration speaking – it comes from deep technical expertise confronting market oversimplification.
As a tenured computer science professor, David encountered this disconnect firsthand. “Me and actually most of the faculty had to spend quite a few weeks trying to figure out what analysts were calling different sectors,” he explains. “The terms they were using didn’t correspond to what they thought they corresponded to.”
Beyond Buzzword Categories
The cybersecurity market is notorious for category proliferation. “It’s crazy and it’s just a very noisy place and it’s hard to be original,” David notes. This creates pressure to fit into predefined boxes, often at the expense of technical accuracy.
ForAllSecure saw this dynamic playing out with larger competitors. “Right now, the market really, when you look at it, there’s a big company called Synopsis that has tried to buy kind of one of every tool category that Gartner has,” David explains. “And advantage of that to customers is they have like, just one stop shopping, but they’re really not best to breed anywhere.”
The Technical Differentiation Strategy
Instead of chasing category creation, ForAllSecure focused on technical excellence. “What we’re trying to do is be really laser focused on how do we make sure when we’re trying to find flaws, that everything we say is real,” David shares. “Every time we say there’s a problem, that it’s not what’s called a false positive, it’s a real problem so that it gets fixed.”
This approach extends to how they engage with analysts. “We engage them. I think you have to take it as a cooperation,” David explains. Rather than trying to create or fit into categories, they focus on educating analysts about “what are the real differences between the tech out there and why one might succeed and one might not.”
Finding Their True Market
This technical-first approach helped them identify their ideal customers – companies where security directly impacts operations. “When you look at our customers, like Cloudflare and Roblox, a hack brings down their entire business,” David notes. These customers care more about actual capabilities than analyst categorization.
Their growth validates this approach. “We’re about doubling year over year, as you would expect,” David shares. More importantly, their perfect retention record – “I don’t think we’ve had anyone reduce the size of mayhem” – suggests that technical excellence trumps category positioning.
The Education Challenge
Choosing technical differentiation over category creation creates unique challenges. “In computer security, it’s actually a big space,” David explains. “It’s kind of like saying you’re a doctor and you immediately have to qualify that. Are you a medical doctor? Are you a surgeon or you general practitioner?”
This complexity requires constant market education. But rather than simplifying their message to fit analyst frameworks, they focus on helping customers understand the real technical differences that matter.
Key Lessons for B2B Tech Founders
ForAllSecure’s experience offers valuable insights for founders navigating analyst relations:
- Technical Excellence as Differentiation Instead of forcing your product into existing categories, focus on genuine technical differentiation.
- Educate Rather Than Conform Engage with analysts to help them understand technical realities rather than adapting to their frameworks.
- Find Category-Independent Customers Target customers who care more about solving real problems than following analyst recommendations.
- Maintain Technical Integrity Don’t compromise technical accuracy for market positioning.
For technical founders, ForAllSecure’s journey suggests that authentic differentiation often comes from rejecting conventional category creation wisdom. Sometimes the best way to stand out is to focus on technical excellence and let the market catch up to you.
Their experience shows that in technical markets, creating a new category isn’t always necessary. Building something that genuinely works better, proving it consistently, and finding customers who understand the difference can be a more sustainable path to growth.