Building Trust for a New Cybersecurity Startup
tl;dr
- Xcalibyte, a new startup in cybersecurity was looking to build a strong reputation fast to reach potential clients and investors in China.
- Influence Matters built a PR system from the ground up designed to target clearly identified stakeholders
- Results: During the first year, our program put Xcalibyte on the map of source code security and delivered interest from at least 3 investors
New startup – Xcalibyte needed to rapidly build a strong reputation towards CTOs and potential investors in China. Static Analysis is a testing process whereby code is analyzed when the program is not running, i.e. when it is ‘static’. This process is ideally applied during the testing stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC) and is an important component of testing and the formal code review which can save tremendous amount of time and money to developers.
However, the benefits of Static Analysis and source code review are unknown in China despite a huge potential market, and tools are complex or expensive to use. Xcalibyte’s platform solves all these issues to bring to China, but the company needed to educate the market while developing its suite of tools.
Influence Matters proposed to build a highly modular PR program that would start with building the PR fundamentals, messaging, stakeholder mapping, and then leverage the combined 200 years of experience of the 4 founders to demonstrate leadership in code security.
The founders would discuss the benefits of static analysis in various channels depending on their strengths (business, technical, industry applications), setting out to educate CTOs and programmers in China about the importance and benefits of source code security, especially in IoT and finance applications as an added protection towards cybersecurity issues. On top of social media channels Influence Matters built for Xcalibyte, we would introduce them to influential editors in programming, cybersecurity, fintech and IoT development media.
As product development timelines evolved, and when communication focus needed to support funding, the modular program moved towards supporting pressing objectives swiftly.
Xcalibyte was regularly featured in top business tech, technology and programming press with thought leading articles showing the company’s commitment to improving code security in China, leading to both business and investor interest, notably delivering directly interest from 3 investors during a 6-weeks focus on supporting funding mid 2019.
As Zhiding reported after an interview we arranged, “Xcalibyte improves productivity through quality first mindset.”
In the Press.
On social media.
What results look like
