Navigating a large military organization is like enterprise sales. Success depends not on an idea's merit, but on understanding the political landscape: each player's influence, incentives, and how they interact to enable or block a decision.
When Axonius's founder discovered a major breach, the security team was surprisingly nonchalant. They couldn't act because they lacked basic asset visibility. This customer acceptance of a huge, unsolved problem was the signal for a massive market opportunity.
After a buggy POC, the founder presented the economic buyer with a simple slide: a timeline showing every issue raised and how quickly it was fixed, often in days. This demonstration of extreme responsiveness and partnership outweighed the product's imperfections and built the trust needed to close the deal.
Enterprise word-of-mouth isn't driven by long-term ROI, but by immediate, impressive value. Products like Wiz and Axonius became popular because customers could spend very little effort and see an immense amount of value almost instantly, compelling them to tell their peers.
To sell into a cynical market where previous solutions failed (a "Third Journey"), you can't just be a "next-gen" tool. You must re-educate buyers with precise messaging and a new category name, then instantly prove you're different by delivering undeniable value with minimal effort.
VCs struggled with Axonius's pitch because the problem had existed for years with no solution (a "why now" issue). The founder overcame this by having the VC put him in front of Fortune 500 CISOs. When every CISO told the VC it was a top, unsolved priority, the market validation was undeniable.
Getting to $1M ARR can be driven by a founder's personal hustle. To scale to $10M and beyond, you must have a repeatable GTM recipe. The key question is: can you hire an average account executive off the street and teach them to replicate your success? If not, you don't have a scalable business.