Breaking Through With Analysts — How to Win Gartner’s Attention - Dan Lowden CMO BLACKBIRD AI

Are you struggling to make your cybersecurity startup's message stand out in a crowded market? Ever wondered how to get analysts like Gartner to notice your company before hitting $20M ARR? Do you face challenges aligning sales and marketing to target multiple buyer personas effectively? This episode dives deep into these critical issues, offering strategies and actionable insights tailored for cybersecurity sales and marketing leaders.

In this conversation we discuss:
👉 Creating a new cybersecurity category by building real relationships with analysts
👉 Aligning marketing and sales teams for consistent messaging and go-to-market success
👉 Navigating and engaging with multiple buyer personas within large organizations

About our guest:
Dan Lowden is the Chief Marketing Officer at BLACKBIRD.AI, a pioneer in narrative intelligence and protection against narrative attacks, disinformation, and deepfakes. With a track record of 12 startups, Dan brings vast experience in launching, marketing, and growing innovative cybersecurity companies by defining new market segments and partnering closely with both industry analysts and sales teams.

Summary:
Learn how to break away from rail-thin differentiation, earn industry analyst credibility, and align your entire go-to-market team, even when selling to vastly different personas. Dan’s experience and tactical advice will help you grow revenue faster in a competitive landscape. Don’t miss this episode. Tune in now for practical strategies you can apply immediately!

Connect with Dan and more:

• Dan Lowden on LinkedIn
• Blackbird.AI Company Website
• Book a 30-minute meeting with Andrew Monaghan

Fast ramp to revenue for your new sales hires

A proven training program to get your new sales hires productive in just 4 weeks using your content and sales process, but without using your own headcount.

Transcript

Andrew Monaghan:
Dan, welcome to the podcast.

Dan Lowden:
Thank you, Andrew. It's great to be here.

Andrew Monaghan:
You are, believe it or not, episode 299 of the podcast. So we're, we're, uh, we've kind of found our feet a little bit here, but, uh, it's always good to meet new people and, and talk about new things, which is what we're doing today.

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, great. Glad to be here and excited to cover this topic today.

Andrew Monaghan:
Dan, you told me that you're in startup number 12. Most people give it a go for a couple and either think, oh, that's not for me, or they do 2 or 3 and say, okay, that's enough. But then you've done 12. So what on earth keeps pulling you back in to do this again and again?

Dan Lowden:
Great question. I mean, I love the startup world. I've been in it since 2001. I left IBM, big, big, big company where I was part of the IBM ThinkPad team. And we were actually a startup within IBM at that point in time. It was like 300 people and got to understand what the dynamic was and then got pulled in my first startup in 2001 around a Wi-Fi startup. And I've been hooked ever since, right? It's on the leading edge of technology. Every one of these have been— it's been around Wi-Fi services or robotics or mobile computing.

Dan Lowden:
And over the past 12, 13 years, cybersecurity. And to me, as a marketer, being on the leading edge of technology, being able to go in and have a great impact on a company's success, to me, that's— it keeps me young, keeps me excited, it keeps learning, and keeps challenging me. Because there's no bigger challenge to try to get your name out there, especially in cybersecurity when there's 5,000 other cybersecurity companies out there, to get out there and get above that noise and be recognized and help the company be successful. So that's why I love startups. I love the people. Everyone's mission mission-focused, and we work really hard, but we have some fun too.

Andrew Monaghan:
Yeah, I've been in a big company and startup, and, you know, it's nice to be in a position where you know what you do actually matters. It really has a material effect on the success of the company, and some people enjoy that pressure and some people don't, I guess.

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, I mean, it's hard, right? And it's not about what did you do for me yesterday, right? You have to do all these great things on a continuous basis and build on that. You know, people's, you know, their, their livelihood is at line here, right? If you're a small team, you can't bounce back. If you work for a big company and, you know, sometimes you can be safer in that world, maybe not today, but in a startup you have to constantly be producing, constantly having an impact, and it's to help the company be successful, every employee of that company to be successful, especially the sales team. Like, as a marketer, my goal is to partner with the sales team to ensure they are successful, because if they are, the company will be. And that's why, yeah, it's a lot of pressure, but I've been doing it for so long. I've, I've created a marketing playbook that I bring into every company that I serve, and it's a great formula for me to go in and execute on the things that I know work. Some of the things we'll talk about today, and when that happens and you do it well, you can really have a substantial impact on the company's success.

Andrew Monaghan:
Now we got connected through Megan Dubowski from 1011 Ventures. I asked her, you know, which are the more exciting or interesting people and also companies in the portfolio. And she said, you gotta talk to Dan. So I did my little bit of research and I went to your website and this is not normal. I've been in cyber since 1998. I dig around and I recognize a lot of terms. I could tell from a company's positioning which category they're in, you know, where they're aligned to things like that. And I saw a brand new new term for me on your website, which was narrative intelligence.

Andrew Monaghan:
And that really caught my eye. And I thought, you know, I want to learn more about that. So why don't you give us a summary of what, uh, what you're doing at Blackbird with narrative intelligence?

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, we'll do it. But let me first say 1011 Ventures, they're a wonderful venture capital firm. I've worked with them several times throughout my career at different companies. There's Mark that I've worked with, Megan that you mentioned, and Dave is on our board. To me, there's VCs and then there are VCs and VCs. That do— yes, they provide investment and guidance, is wonderful, but if they're really there to support your success, that is incredible. And that's what I love about working with Megan and her team on the marketing side at 1011, because she really helps not only me, but engage with other CMOs as a part of their portfolio. So that's a huge benefit here.

Dan Lowden:
So I appreciate Megan mentioning that to you. So I joined Blackbird about 2.5 years ago. And to me, it's a mission-driven company. It's focused on a new category, a new threat vector called narrative attacks or disinformation, misinformation, deepfakes that lead to narrative attacks that cause financial, reputational, operational, and even physical harm. So it's a new category that 2.5 years ago when I would go to Black Cat with the team and we'd meet with CISO friends that I know, they're like, "Wow, this is really interesting." but I'm not sure this is me. So that was 2.5 years ago. About a year and a half ago, it started to be like, wow, this is a lot more than interesting. This is impacting my company.

Dan Lowden:
I think I need to take the leadership role here in looking outward for narrative attacks. I look at threat intelligence outside the company, but I'm not looking at it for narrative intelligence. There are cyberattacks and threat actors and nation-states. They're now using harmful narratives that they use, creating with the AI tools that are now available to them to make these realistic attacks, you know, that they're fabricating have an impact on a company or physically target an executive. So over the past 6 months, all of a sudden, all these inbounds, especially from the cybersecurity teams, the CISO, the security operations center, has said, we have been given direction. We need to own this. There have been attacks on executives like in New York City, the incidents that have happened there around UnitedHealthcare and NFL, just terrible, terrible tragedies. But a lot of these things happen digitally first, these discussions, the harmful narratives spin up, and then they turn into physical attacks, right? Or they make a cyberattack 10x worse.

Dan Lowden:
So all of a sudden, threat intel teams, CISOs, even executives are coming inbound to us and saying, "We need to understand this. This is a new threat vector." help us understand this. And that's where we focus as a company is educating the market on this problem. The World Economic Forum talks about it as a top global risk for the past 3 years. Gartner has published probably 8 different reports about this, including one about Blackbird being the company to beat in disinformation narrative intelligence. So all of this education has paid off to say there's actually something you can do about it. And it's really impacting every organization today. Everybody's now aware of it and it's a big concern.

Dan Lowden:
And that's why we can stand in to help.

Andrew Monaghan:
Now, you mentioned Gartner there. I always imagine trying to create a new category might almost be seen as, I don't know, against some of the big analyst firms, right? They like to have their own naming conventions, things like that. I'm wondering how you approach that or how you have approached it so that they're actually on board and you guys are in lockstep on this.

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, this is a part of my playbook. And again, I've been doing this for quite some time, but I've been working with the analyst community for over 20-some years. And there's a, there is a process that you can follow where you build a relationship with these analysts. It becomes strategic. You build trust. You show them what you're doing matters. It's having an impact. You talk about the customers you serve.

Dan Lowden:
Like we just did a big announcement around our support for NATO. And enabling their team to leverage narrative intelligence in their geopolitical world that they live in. So my view is engage with the analysts. And at Blackbird, for the first 2 years, we did not pay an analyst anything. But I've been able to get a lot of briefings with analysts with Gartner, with Forrester, with advisory firms like TAG Cyber and many others because they're interested in this topic, but they don't know that much about it. So I've been feeding them customer wins, all the blogs that we publish. We published 150 blogs, papers, reports last year alone, and I share that with the analysts to help them because they want to write about it. They want to understand what's truly going on out there.

Dan Lowden:
And that's kind of the relationship you can build with an analyst. And if you do that and you do it well, and again, in a way that you're providing value to them, they will be thankful. Right. And again, we didn't pay them anything, but they published a lot of reports on disinformation narrative intelligence or narrative attacks. They're using our language because that's what we've been feeding them over the past 2 years. And they've changed it a little bit, which is fine, but they've come up with this category and we're in a good position because of all this work that I've done. Every month I send them a summary in an email. To everyone, every analyst I work with at Gartner, which is probably 20 of them now.

Dan Lowden:
Hey, here's all the things that we've learned over the past month. Here's an announcement. Here's a new risk report that we came out with. And they appreciate that. And then they will include you in their research. And then because of all that, what they publish, we decided to sign up for one of the analyst firms as with a partnership with Gartner, and we'll do more over time. But it's because they created so much great content. We are now using that content and sharing that with our prospects and with our customers.

Dan Lowden:
And remember, a lot of customers will not do business with you unless Gartner, Forrester, and others say good things about you. Like, they will not take that risk. So to me, it's part of, a major part of a strategy from a marketing perspective and a major part of my playbook.

Andrew Monaghan:
I've heard from some people at my clients over the years that it's really hard to get any real attention from firms, especially, I mean, Gartner's the one that everyone picks on. Until you get to $20 million ARR or $30 million ARR, you're just not going to qualify for a magic quadrant or a Wave or whatever it might be. Why is that wrong?

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, here's— and I'm going to be blunt— then you don't have a good story to tell, right? If you can't get their attention, yes, they are so busy. They are writing, they are doing briefings, they're talking to customers, right? They're recommending, hey, here's the people that we think would be good that might solve this problem that may have. So you have to engage with them in a way that gets their attention, that stands out. Treat them like a customer, treat them like a prospect, right? Like there's 5,000 cybersecurity companies trying to call on a CISO or a security team. It's really hard to get their attention. So you have to have a great story, a great message, a message that's easy for them to understand about a topic that they want to learn about that's going to make them want to publish about because it makes them look smart. You make them look the hero. So if you don't have a good message or a good story or something exciting to tell, you're really not going to get their attention.

Dan Lowden:
And that's why I would say from a marketing perspective, that's critical, not only for analysts to get their attention, but for customers and prospects too. And I think if you do it right and it's a new category that they want to learn about— that's what Blackbird's involved in right now. We're fortunate that they're interested in in this world and want to learn more. And we're on the front lines, like I said, with NATO, with global 2,000 companies, with executive teams, and we can teach them a lot.

Andrew Monaghan:
I must be blunt as well. 99% of cybersecurity companies are not creating a new category. They're doing something a bit better than everyone else, and there's gonna be a very crowded category as well. How do they approach trying to get their attention of the analysts to somehow claim that they're different? What's the ways to get the attention like that?

Dan Lowden:
The best way to do it is talk about customers or have a customer actually speak to the analyst. Analysts, right? So that's when it becomes real. Like if a customer says, hey, I'll give you an example. I was at Invincia, I don't know, 7, 8 years ago, maybe. Yeah, it was around that range where we were in the category of next generation antivirus. Antivirus had been around 20 years, right? So McAfee and, you know, Symantec and all those other companies have been doing this forever. But then there was this new group coming in, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne. SILANCE, Invincia was right there with them.

Dan Lowden:
It was the next-gen AI leveraging machine learning, right? Where the old ways were not working anymore, right? They were maybe stopping 50%, 60% of the bad stuff. With leveraging machine learning, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, SILANCE, and Invincia were able to stop 98%, 99%, a big jump, right? And all of a sudden, that quadrant that had been around for 20 years shifted. Very, very quickly. And that's when the new guard went from innovative to leadership within a couple of quarters. And we positioned ourselves right there. And fortunately for us, we were acquired by Sophos not that far after, right? So you can use these magic quadrants and Forrester Waves. If you're positioned well, it can help you be acquired. And that, that's why this is important from that aspect.

Dan Lowden:
But it's also, if they like you and trust you, they will say, hey, you have this problem, you need to talk to these companies. And, and if you're part of those top 2 or 3 that they recommend, it helps. It's happened to us already over the past 6 months at Blackbird where customers said, we saw the Gartner report, or we talked to a Gartner analyst, and that's why we're talking to you today. So it still really matters.

Andrew Monaghan:
I always think when companies are trying to do a category creation exercise and they're trying to reposition what they're doing it must be tough to know, is this really working, right? I'm wondering how you think about that.

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, I mean, it's hard. I'll just tell you that it's really hard. But I think like I've had these relationships, some of these analysts have become my friends over the years, right? And I'm like, who should I be talking to? Who's writing about this, right? And you can get their insight, you can get their attention. But to me, it's the impact that you have on these briefings. Like if you get their interest and all of a sudden 2 or 3 more analysts show up, or all of a sudden they start writing about this new approach to maybe an old problem or a new category, and you can significantly show why you're different, why you're unique, I mean, that's how you can tell if this is working or not, right? You know, all of a sudden all these reports started to be published around disinformation misinformation and deepfakes, and we were being included, named in these reports. You know, like 1011 Ventures is like, Dan, how did that happen? Right? You guys aren't paying them anything, right? And it's like, well, this is a new category. They're really interested about it. And if they're writing about it, that means you've done it right.

Dan Lowden:
You've done it well. You know, I think fortunately there's a lot of— unfortunately, there's a lot of bad things happening with disinformation, misinformation. So we're riding that wave. But we're writing it to help do something about it, to protect something about it.

Andrew Monaghan:
And it feels like in cybersecurity that we're not short of buzzwords. How do you thread that needle between trying to name something but not sounding like, you know, yet another phrase or buzzword that the industry doesn't need?

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, I mean, this is the reality of things, right? Like, CISOs, I think, have the toughest job in the world. Security operations center. They just never have enough resource. They're always You know, they protect against 10,000 things, and if one thing gets through, they get hurt by that, right? The company gets hurt by that. So, you know, my view is in marketing, you have to have integrity. You have to be honest. You have to— no buzzwords, right? No marketing slop, no AI slop. It's got to be real.

Dan Lowden:
And that's one reason why we focused on my past 3 companies is the people who are publishing our content are threat intel analysts or narrative intelligence analysts. So it's coming from the real-world incidents and it's their voice and they want to be heard. And to me, that's the best way to break through. And there's no buzzwords in that. They're just telling, here's what's real, here's what's really happening. And I think the CISOs and the security operations center appreciate that. It's their peers who are telling them about it. Right.

Dan Lowden:
And then if you have Gartner saying things and Forrester saying things about it, and then you have advisory firms like TAG Cyber where Ed Amoroso, the former CISO of AT&T, saying this is a big problem, or you have organizations like CyNet run by Robert Rodriguez, it's a CISO community saying this is a big problem, and then they're including us in that conversation. You know, I think that's when you can say you're having an impact, right? And then it turns into opportunities coming into the company.

Andrew Monaghan:
Now, my background is on the sales side of cyber going back all that time. And I'll be honest, I've sat at various kickoffs over the years and had someone come on stage and talk about new positioning or new ways to describe what we're doing, our new product naming, things like that. And often it's met with salespeople kind of looking at their feet and shuffling around and wondering, look at their watch going, yeah, okay, this is cool and all, but in the real world, you know, we don't talk like this or whatever. So I'm wondering, it must be an interesting thing because you can't dilute what you're doing, but you have to recognize there's a different message, I guess, one-to-many from one-to-one. And the salespeople, you know, they'll say what they feel comfortable with. How have you kind of gone through that process?

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, and it's a great point that you make, right? It's, you know, this is where I would say from a go-to-market perspective, you know, and that's why I love this talk that we're having. The sales and marketing team has to be 100% aligned, right? I have a call every 2 weeks with my sales team and I'm talking to individual sales members and my CRO and I are partners, you know, in helping go tell the world about this story. And my goal, like I said earlier, is to enable them to be successful and tell them, look, I've been doing this a long time. I know our ICPs. I know what they're looking for. We get feedback from the sales team in, but then I'm also giving feedback to the sales team and we work together and collaborate together. So when we do these type of rollouts, everybody's aligned. I'll give you an example.

Dan Lowden:
We're going to announce a product on Tuesday, and it's a product that we've had out in beta for 6 months, and customers giving us great feedback. We've got a lot of great momentum. The sales team's already on board. So when we launch this and officially launch it, I'm using a lot of the words that the sales team has brought back from customers, right? So they're, they're on board, they're bought in, and they see this product has momentum already. When they see that and they see an opportunity to go help companies and serve companies, and yes, to make money, but to serve And again, because we're a mission-focused company, to me, that's where that alignment comes together really, really well. I've been in some organizations where that alignment doesn't come together as well, right? I've been through a couple mergers and acquisitions in past companies. And, you know, there's strained relationships between different groups. And that's— that doesn't help the company be successful.

Dan Lowden:
It has to be aligned. And I can't stress that enough.

Andrew Monaghan:
I'm wondering what you have learned or how you, I guess, enable the team with what's commonly the sales deck, right? The first meeting deck that's used. I am working with a client right now, working with a bunch of new hires, and within 2 weeks they come back to me and they say, well, we got the deck, but then John's got this version and Jimmy's got that version and Tommy's got this version and I'll create my own version, right? And I can imagine from your side, it might be really frustrating when you think, oh, we put a lot of work into trying to make this real and make it effective and everyone's going off the reservation. Trying to do their own thing.

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, you know, and I give them credit for, hey, if they feel they have a different way in or a different way to connect with the customer, I give them credit around that. I just tell them, I want to be aware of what you're presenting, right? So it's not far off the brand and the story, right? And that's where again that partnership comes in. They're like, Dan, hey, we want to add this slide or this group of slides because we just had a great customer meeting and we learned XYZ and we we want to include this in the story. I'm like, great, let me, let me help create it, design it, make sure it's very crisp and clear. And that way we'll give them something back that everybody can use, right? So that way there's not 10 different versions. I will tell you, there are still 10 different versions or 50 different versions. There will always be that. But if they feel comfortable enough coming to you to say, hey, can you make this better? Can, can you support this? Does this, you know, support the product and the brand? Trust between the groups is what's critical, or otherwise they may go down a path and maybe promise something that we can't deliver on and set the wrong expectation with customers.

Dan Lowden:
You know how that goes. That doesn't end well, right? So if we're all working together and aware of what's there and what they're saying and coaching them based off of best practices and learnings, then, you know, that, that's where you could be successful. And those are some things that we share in that biweekly sales marketing call. Hey, this pitch really worked well, or this use case came up. Can we start talking and building assets around this use case? Right. And that's where the give and take and the collaboration really helps.

Andrew Monaghan:
So it's the skunkworks deck creation projects that are the ones that might torpedo things, but as long as everyone's communicating, then we can learn from each other, right?

Dan Lowden:
Yeah. And that's where like trust marketing, trust sales, like we're in this together. We're here to be successful. Like don't. There's so many companies that, that does not happen today, right? And that is going to impact the level of success they have or going to cause failure.

Andrew Monaghan:
Who buys Blackbird inside an organization?

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, great question. Originally, the team was focused on the chief communication officer, brand reputation folks, public relations, and that's still a big part of who we serve because if a narrative attack happens and it targets the brand, 25% of the stock value can go down in a day. And that's happened. Billions of dollars have been erased from market value from companies. So originally it was that group, but more and more it's the security operations center, the CISO, and even members of physical security teams who want to have a view of digital and narrative intelligence on the digital version before it becomes physical. So We serve really the chief communication officer, the chief security officer, and sometimes the physical security teams. We will get calls from executives, too, to say, hey, I want you to engage with XYZ teams. But those are the three that we split to.

Dan Lowden:
And then I would tell you national security is a big, big effort for us because we do work with NATO and NATO countries. We do work with ministries of defense. And that's where I can tell you these narrative attacks are impacting every organization out there, right? So, you know, a lot of banking customers come to us because it's all about trust. If people have trust in the banking system and in institutions, they're good. If that starts to evaporate and bank runs start to happen and narratives make it worse, that's not a good situation. So that's why, you know, we're seeing success across the board in pretty much every industry, but across those three ideal customer profiles.

Andrew Monaghan:
When I heard you say 3 different profiles of people, very different departments, very different levels of technical awareness, capabilities, things like that. As an old salesperson, it makes me shiver a little bit, right? It's like, okay, do I have to be an expert learning all 3 of these different people and have completely different conversations with them? It must have an interesting challenge helping the sales team with.

Dan Lowden:
It is. It's a great point. And there are some people who are really comfortable in the comms world and there's some people really comfortable in the cybersecurity world. And that's how So we kind of divvy up the opportunities that come in. But what is happening, to your point, which is really interesting, is we see more and more of these what we call fusion centers, where it's led by typically now the CISO, because they're now looking outward with threat intelligence. They can look outward with narrative intelligence and go deep, be more technical, and be more understanding of these advanced threats. And then what they're doing with these fusion centers is there's a chief communication officer, PR, comms person. There's maybe a risk officer, a legal officer.

Dan Lowden:
There could be a CMO, chief of staff, and they get together now monthly. So talk about disparate groups coming together and they're saying we need to be more prepared for these attacks. They impact every department. We think CISOs and security teams should lead this. And then communicate when they start to see bad things start to come up and let's address them before they really impact the company. And if they can get ahead of these and maybe have a counter-narrative or change their security profile or change the physical presence of an executive, they can significantly reduce risk working together as a team. And that fusion center is a real thing and it's happening a lot in banks, but we're seeing it in other organizations. As well.

Andrew Monaghan:
Targeting standpoint, is it easy to find where all the fusion centers are?

Dan Lowden:
It's not, to be honest. Like, every company is different, and that's part of the challenge. Some, like, some, this, the chief communication officer may be leading an effort, or the CISO is leading an effort in another company, but they'll bring the other groups in, right? So a lot of times we will get, you know, a starting point with one department, and then other departments are brought into the conversation. So it's part of the challenge, but we make sure those sales conversations that we have with the CISO, it's with security-related teams that know their language. And same thing with the chief communication officers. We have experts who know the chief communication officer's language and we engage with them that way.

Andrew Monaghan:
I feel like many startups underinvest in the field CTO, the field CISO, the field communication officer role. How do you view that at BlackBerry?

Dan Lowden:
You know, I really like the field CTO or CISO role, especially if that is— I'm going to say the word— a badass CISO, right? A badass that has proven themselves over many companies. And, you know, they're now in this different world and kind of want to represent a brand that they like, that they believe in, right? So if there's a field CISO working for my organization, which I've had in the past and have now at Blackbird, they want to talk to their peers, right? And the customers and prospects we work with, they want to talk to their peers about this. But if they know we have a field CISO that is badass, they'll want to talk to them and get their perspective. You know, they don't necessarily believe in what marketers say or what salespeople say, right? And that's just the way it is. And that's unfortunate. But that's why I say I do marketing with integrity, things that I believe in that we can really support. But if they want to talk to someone of their peers, have at it. And that field CISO is the perfect person to do that.

Andrew Monaghan:
I've never been a CISO, but it feels like to me a very stressful job. You know, you do your job well, no one really thanks you. And you know, something bad happens, you get all the blame. Being a field CISO or someone like that at a startup seems like much less stressful. Let's put it that way.

Dan Lowden:
I think it is right. But I think you have to have gone through that hard part of being a CISO to really understand them. Right. I'm fortunate I built some really good relationships with some current CISOs and former CISOs. As I mentioned, Ed Amoroso is the former CISO of AT&T, and people believe in and trust in what he says. And he's written about our company and written about the problem. I think it's the hardest job. You know, there's been issues where some people have been gone, taken to prison, right, or been investigated because they didn't do the 999th step out of 1,000 that they were supposed to do.

Dan Lowden:
So there's personal risk. There's a lot of risk to the company. And they're, like I said, underfunded and just doing the best they can with the tools they have. The challenge is the cyber criminals, the nation states have unlimited budgets. They are on the leading edge of using AI and technology to try to break in. And they're very well funded and they're on a mission too. So I think the CISO role is so hard. I have total respect for them and that's why we're trying to help them.

Dan Lowden:
And over the past 12, 13 years I've been in companies is my goal is to help the CISO be successful because I give so much credit for people to take on that responsibility.

Andrew Monaghan:
Yeah, it's such an interesting role, interesting change in the career when, if they were to make that change, you know, in many ways, in all sorts of different ways, it's probably quite rewarding for them as well. One of the things you were talking about the alignment that you have internally with the sales team. It really struck me as you were talking, it seemed like a genuine, really thoughtful way to work together with each other, which as we both know is not all that common. What do CMOs get wrong about trying to work with sales teams?

Dan Lowden:
Ah, boy. I mean, to me, it's if you're not listening, if you're not engaging, if you don't have that trust, if you don't feel like you can call any of these sales reps at any time and say, hey, how can I help you, or tell me what's going wrong, you're missing, you're missing a lot. And if you think you know everything, which I will never admit even though I've been doing this a long time, that I know everything, because everything's changing so fast, you're constantly learning. And it's just about trust and building relationships. To me, if you have that you're going to get through 90% of the bad stuff, right? And really work well together. If you don't have that, and I've been on some teams where a CRO was brought in and this was a long time ago, but it was not a good match for the company. It really became toxic. A lot of people left and, you know, it caused the company for a year to not have any momentum because of that.

Dan Lowden:
Right. So that's why these teams coming together is so critical that The connection needs to be there. The trust needs to be there. And if, if the CMO doesn't realize that, that they're not in a good spot.

Andrew Monaghan:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Dan, we're recording this at the end of February. It's going to go out the week before RSA this year. What do you have in store at RSA if you're going?

Dan Lowden:
Yeah, we're really excited about RSA. One of the other groups that are involved with us is NightDragon, Dave DeWalt. Former CEO of multiple cybersecurity firms, is a personal investor in our company. They have an innovation summit on Tuesday where we will actually be on stage. Our CEO, Waseem Khaled, will be on stage in a Shark Tank-like venue forum. And even Robert Herjavec is going to be one of the sharks judging the 6 companies that are going to give their pitch. So we're really excited about that because We think we're in a great position to share that. And I think over 600 people have already signed up for that event.

Dan Lowden:
It's all day Tuesday. To me, that's one wonderful thing about RSA. The other thing is getting together with people in the industry. Like, we rely on— this is a team sport, right? We rely on each other. I walk the floor. I've gotten to know a good amount of people. Like, we get there and we hug people. Like, we're like so happy to see each other because we're there to support each other and help each other be successful on this mission to protect what's important to us.

Dan Lowden:
And that's what RSA does. It brings the best of the best people together, not necessarily on the show floor anymore. It's more around the conference and at the Four Seasons bar or at these side events and things like that. And then, you know, there's chances to celebrate a little bit too. So we always look forward to RSA, whether it's investor discussions or customer or partner or prospect discussions, it always moves the conversations forward.

Andrew Monaghan:
Yeah, it's a great moment in the industry every year. Some people obviously don't like it. They kind of disparage it. But if you embrace it, I guess, and really say, okay, how do we get most out of this? That's the right way to approach it.

Dan Lowden:
There's nothing like face-to-face. There's nothing like face-to-face, right? And it moves conversations forward. You learn a lot and good things come from it. So yeah, it's a hard slog that Black Hat, right? Same type of thing. But when you're done with that week, you feel good about the community is moving forward and taking the right steps to help protect the world.

Andrew Monaghan:
Yeah. Well, Dan, on that note, thanks very much for joining us today. We wish you every success for this year and beyond.

Dan Lowden:
Thank you, Andrew. Appreciate it. Great conversation.