Competitors would simply alert clients to a security threat, leaving them to investigate. eSentire differentiated by handling the entire incident response: investigating the threat, kicking out the attacker, and providing an "all clear." This deeper service commitment was their key competitive advantage.

Large cybersecurity incumbents are not fully embracing an AGI-centric strategy for forensics. Their focus on existing product revenue, combined with a cultural skepticism among security professionals about AI's true capabilities, means they are undervaluing the paradigm shift. This inertia provides a crucial opening for 'AGI-pilled' startups.

Security products are naturally sold top-down. CISOs need central governance over a fragmented tool landscape, and the product's value is subjective and hard to measure (like insurance). This environment favors a high-touch, relationship-based sales motion, making pure bottom-up adoption difficult to monetize.

Faced with resource-heavy US competitors in the direct market, uSecure identified the Managed Service Provider (MSP) channel as an underserved green space. They executed a hard pivot, rebuilding their product and licensing specifically for MSPs, which created a key differentiator that fueled their growth.

Huntress succeeded with MSPs by framing its security product as a way to protect their margins. Since MSPs charge a flat fee, a security incident meant lost time and negative profit on a client. Huntress helped them avoid financial losses and become heroes to their customers, ensuring deep partnership alignment.

Large incumbents struggle to serve newly-formed startups because these customers offer low initial revenue but require significant sales and support. This P&L constraint creates a protected 'greenfield' market for new vendors to capture customers early and grow with them.

The B2B sales channel has evolved from a linear reseller model to a complex ecosystem. Deals are now shaped by multiple, often unknown, partners like consultants and system integrators. Vendors must act like detectives to map this hidden influence network to succeed.

Terra Security chose to sell its AI pentesting solution directly to end customers rather than licensing it to existing pentesting firms. This strategy provides direct product feedback, builds brand equity, and creates market pressure on incumbents, forcing them to adapt or be replaced.

To overcome the lack of public cybersecurity data, Asymmetric Security employs a services-first business model. Their human-AI teams handle real incidents, ensuring customer reliability while simultaneously generating a unique, high-quality dataset of forensic investigations. This data becomes a key asset for training their AI to achieve full automation.