Too many early-stage cybersecurity startups waste critical time and capital building in isolation. They develop features without input from real buyers, polish decks that don’t resonate, and delay customer conversations until they’ve staffed up a commercial team. By the time they reach the market, the gap between what they’ve built and what enterprises actually need is often wide and expensive to close.
A growing number of founders are starting to flip this script. They are engaging enterprise security teams before launch and treating go-to-market as a core part of early product development. At YL Ventures, we’ve seen this shift take hold across our portfolio, and we’ve structured our business development program to support it from the very beginning.
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This change also reflects a deeper shift in what early-stage investors should be responsible for. Writing the check isn’t enough. At the seed stage, investors need to help founders connect with the market, validate their assumptions, and lay the groundwork for real commercial traction.
Buyer Conversations Start Early
For cybersecurity startups, engaging with security professionals early is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s essential. The goal isn’t to sell a product that doesn’t exist yet, but to validate the problem, shape how it’s framed, and understand what buyers actually care about. That process starts with defining an ideal customer profile based on real buyer input, not just founder intuition or a “persona” definition.
The best founders are already doing this. They talk with security leaders before their product is live. They test messaging in real conversations, listen carefully to objections, and adapt their approach based on what resonates. These conversations often lead to design partnerships that shape the roadmap. They also clarify what the buying process looks like in practice, long before a formal sales cycle begins.
This model reflects a deeper shift in how early-stage companies grow. Founders are no longer waiting to engage with the market. They’re building their companies around what customers actually say, want, and respond to. We call this customer-led growth. It means product direction, messaging, and go-to-market strategy are all shaped by direct input from real buyers. That early feedback keeps teams focused, exposes friction points early, and gives startups a clearer view of what makes a buyer say yes. But for many startups, accessing these conversations is the hard part. That’s where we come in.
Building a GTM Engine at the Investor Level
Many venture firms talk about being “value-add.” Few show how that support translates into pipeline and revenue. At YL Ventures, we’ve taken a different approach by building an in-house business development function focused entirely on helping cybersecurity startups engage with enterprise buyers. It’s hands-on, operational work to generate qualified enterprise leads before a startup has hired its first seller.
We run this as a structured, repeatable program. Together with each company, we define the ICP based on urgency, budget, and team maturity. We test language with real CISOs in our network. We introduce the company in a focused, relevant way that gets to the core of the problem they’re solving. We manage the outreach, track the pipeline, and work closely with founders to convert early interest into meaningful traction.
In practice, this means our companies are often having serious, high-signal conversations with buyers in their first year of existence. Many are signing early deals before they have a sales team. This gives them customer proof points, pricing clarity, and confidence that their positioning is working in the real world.
A Better Experience for Buyers Too
A win-win for all involved, this structured process also benefits the enterprise buyers who are brought into these early conversations. Many of the CISOs we work with are eager to collaborate with startups, but they just don’t want to waste time. When we make an introduction, they know the company has done the work. The problem is clear. The founder is prepared. The conversation is real.
That’s because we treat these buyers as long-term partners, not just leads to close. We brief them in advance, set expectations on both sides, and follow up after every meeting. Our role is to help founders build companies that solve real problems and to make it easy for buyers to shape the tools they want to see in the market.
What This Means for the Market
The cybersecurity market is crowded, technical, and moving fast. Startups that wait too long to engage buyers often end up rewriting their story, changing their roadmap, or struggling to show traction when they go out to raise again. Investors who wait for founders to “figure out sales” miss the opportunity to help them build momentum from the start.
This is where focused support matters. We don’t promise outcomes. We help founders prepare for and lead serious, high-signal conversations with enterprise buyers. That means pressure-testing the pitch, understanding what drives decisions, and building real commercial traction from the start.
As seed investors in all of our portfolio companies, and often follow-on investors as they scale, we have a long-term stake in their success. Our portfolio companies don’t wait to start selling. With support from our business development team, they engage with buyers early, refine their message in real conversations, and move faster toward commercial traction. This early focus helps avoid costly missteps and gives founders a clearer path to revenue.
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