Most enterprise software companies compete within established categories, fighting over budget lines that already exist. But what happens when your solution is so fundamentally different that no budget line exists? That’s the challenge Anjuna faced as they pioneered the confidential computing category.
In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Anjuna CEO Ayal Yogev shared candid insights about the opportunities and challenges of category creation in enterprise technology.
The Category Creation Revelation
While many startups set out to create categories from day one, Anjuna’s journey was more organic. “I remember looking at all these sort of category maps, especially in enterprise security, that you can kind of… And I remember looking at the map and trying to kind of figure where we fit. And I really couldn’t,” Ayal explains. “We can fit here, but we also fit here and we also fit here. We’re going to impact this.”
The Infrastructure vs. Security Positioning Pivot
One of Anjuna’s most crucial insights came from understanding where their solution truly belonged. “Interestingly enough, I grew up in security, so I thought about us sort of as a security solution,” Ayal reveals. “But the way the customers are looking at us is not as a security solution, but more as an infrastructure solution.”
This realization fundamentally changed their go-to-market approach. “We end up talking to the CIO or the infrastructure team and not necessarily to the security team,” Ayal notes. This positioning shift accelerated their sales cycles and elevated their conversations.
The Budget Line Challenge
Creating a category means facing unique challenges. As Ayal explains, “Usually we walk in and there’s no budget allocated for confidential computing.” This forces a different type of conversation – one that focuses on enabling new possibilities rather than competing for existing budgets.
While this might seem like a disadvantage, it actually helped Anjuna reach higher-level decision makers. “We’ve gotten to board level visibility just because of what this enables you to do,” Ayal shares. “This is not just a security solution that allows you to reduce the risk a little bit. This essentially enables you to do things that you just couldn’t before.”
The VMware Blueprint
Rather than inventing their category creation playbook from scratch, Anjuna found inspiration in VMware’s transformation of the data center. “We’re essentially following VMware footsteps to some extent,” Ayal explains. Just as VMware made virtualization accessible without requiring companies to rewrite their applications, Anjuna is doing the same for confidential computing.
The Analyst Equation
The role of analysts in category creation isn’t straightforward. “They’re definitely talking to the market or talking to customers,” Ayal notes. “But there’s sort of a chicken and egg type of a thing because they’re not gonna talk to you or take you seriously until they hear enough about it from customers.”
The solution? Balance. “You kind of have to do it in the right way and the right time,” Ayal advises. “If you kind of go with an idea and like a very early product with no customers to Gardner and Forrester, they’re not going to be that helpful to you.”
The Growth Validation
The success of this category creation approach is evident in Anjuna’s growth. “We’re growing extremely fast. We’re about to quadrupling every year now,” Ayal shares. Even more impressively, they’re closing deals with major banks in six-month cycles – unusually fast for financial institutions.
The Future Vision
Looking ahead, Anjuna’s category creation strategy focuses on becoming the default platform for confidential computing. With a two-year technological lead and partnerships with major cloud providers, they’re positioning themselves as the clear category leader.
For founders contemplating category creation, Anjuna’s experience offers valuable lessons. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t building the technology but helping the market understand why they need it. Success requires not just creating a new solution, but fundamentally changing how businesses think about the problem you’re solving.
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