How to Crack the Market and Gain Momentum as a Startup

Cybersecurity startups don’t fail because of weak demand generation or field marketing. They fail because their positioning is wrong.

We’ve all seen it: a company invests heavily in messaging –whether through a top-tier agency or internal product marketing – and lands on a polished, board-approved narrative. It sounds impressive. It looks great on a pitch deck.

But look closer, and it’s often some version of “the everything platform.”

Then they launch.

Leads come in – but revenue doesn’t. Sales misses targets. Marketing is blamed – but the real issue is that the market doesn’t understand what the company actually does, or who it’s specifically for. Teams scramble to fix campaigns, channels, and conversion rates, when the real problem isn’t execution – it’s positioning.

In this session, Kate Turchin, Senior Director of Growth at Atico ATX, breaks down the most common positioning mistakes she sees across the industry – and why they quietly kill growth.

Drawing from hands-on experience helping startups translate narrative into revenue, Kate introduces the concept of the “narrative wedge”: a sharp, focused position that a company can uniquely own – and win with.

Startups don’t win by casting a wider net. They win by throwing a sharper spear.