Inside Zenity’s ICP Evolution: How They Discovered and Won Their Enterprise Market
Many startups begin by targeting smaller companies, hoping to work their way up to enterprise customers. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Ben Kliger revealed how Zenity took a different path – identifying Fortune 1000 companies as their ideal customer profile from day one.
Reading Market Signals
Zenity’s journey began with a crucial market insight: the rise of citizen development in enterprises. “Gartner estimated that by 2025, 75% of development in enterprises will be carried by citizen developers, not by professional developers,” Ben notes. This trend was particularly pronounced in large enterprises, where digital transformation initiatives were empowering business users to build their own solutions.
Defining the Enterprise ICP
“The ICP for us today, we target very large enterprises, I want to say a Fortune 1000 type of organizations who are relying heavily on major SaaS platforms such as Microsoft Salesforce or service now,” Ben explains. This wasn’t just about company size – it was about identifying organizations where citizen development was becoming a core strategy.
Understanding the Problem Space
Zenity’s ICP crystallized around a specific challenge these enterprises faced. As Ben describes it: “Citizen Development today is a core strategy to make sure that organizations can really advance and continue to digitally transform their businesses. It’s about people building stuff on their own without waiting for it, or professional developers addressing their needs.”
This created a security challenge that was uniquely pressing for large enterprises: “How do you make sure that what these people are building were less tech savvy or of course less security savvy than traditional professional developers? How do you make sure that what they’re building is secure and is not exposing their respective organizations to risks?”
Building Enterprise Trust
Rather than using traditional enterprise sales tactics, Zenity built credibility through deep knowledge sharing. “We believe that we need to show value to our prospects clients, whether it’s with their thought leadership activities, content, publications that we’re doing participation in respectful security organizations, top leadership organizations such as OWA, such as Mitre,” Ben shares.
This approach was particularly effective with enterprise security leaders who were wary of traditional security vendor tactics. As Ben notes, “We never try to scare people off. It’s not the way that we operate at Zenity. It’s not like a FUD motion.”
The Enterprise Feedback Loop
A crucial part of winning enterprise customers was incorporating their feedback into product development. “When you talk to these leaders and it’s not like just, ‘hey, I want to sell you this and that,’ when you actually listen to what they have to say, to their feedback, especially when you’re early in your journey, that helps you get better,” Ben explains.
Framework for Enterprise Market Entry
For founders targeting enterprise customers, Zenity’s experience suggests a framework for market entry:
- Identify Market Shifts Look for fundamental changes in how enterprises operate, like the shift to citizen development.
- Find the Security Gap Understand where these changes create new security challenges that existing solutions don’t address.
- Build Deep Knowledge Invest in understanding the enterprise perspective through industry organizations and analyst relationships.
- Lead with Value Focus on education and enablement rather than traditional sales tactics.
- Iterate with Feedback Use enterprise feedback to refine both product and go-to-market strategy.
Looking Forward
This approach to ICP identification and enterprise market entry has positioned Zenity for significant growth. “We went to solve a problem that, first of all, huge. And with that, of course, there is a large opportunity to build something massive here, like a real company,” Ben notes.
For founders targeting enterprise customers, the key insight is that successful enterprise market entry isn’t just about having enterprise-grade technology – it’s about deeply understanding enterprise needs and building trust through knowledge sharing before asking for the sale.