Have you ever wondered what it takes to aggressively grow a company ahead of institutional fundraising? Join Christina Cacioppo, Co-Founder and CEO of Vanta, as she shares the steps taken to achieve 400% YoY growth, and lessons learned throughout Vanta's pre-Series A journey.

1. Building to $10MM in ARR
Without taking a Series A
Christina Cacioppo
CEO & Co-founder
Vanta
@christinacaci

2. Act like a startup

3. Move fast
Get a SOC 2

4. Get a SOC 2
Move fast
and

5. 2018-01 2018-04 2018-07 2018-10 2019-01 2019-04 2019-07 2019-10 2020-01 2020-04 2020-07 2020-10 2021-01
Vanta’s ARR
End of 2020

6. May 2021

8. Good things to do instead of building pitch decks
Selling the product
Growing conviction
Talking to customers
2
1
3

9. Waiting to raise has lots of benefits
Relying on organic word of mouth good barometer of PMF
Instills discipline around spending across the team
Internal calibration and focus and fewer distractions

10. Lesson 1:
The market always wins.
AKA Build something people want

11. Two key purchase triggers for security
Deal stuck at 1 yard line. CTO losing sleep.
1 2

12. SOC 2 = the “common app” for security

14. Vanta v0

15. Key questions to ask customers
Would you use it?
How much would you
pay for it?
What did I give you?

16. We knew we were on the right track!
We could engineer-ify SOC 2
People understood it
They would pay for it!

17. You can’t raise your way
into the right product.

18. Lesson 2:
Charging annually makes
everything better.

19. Should I pay
month-to-
month?
Is it better just
to get a year
upfront?
How fast can I
do this SOC 2
thing?
When will I
kick off?
Do I even
need this??
Security automation

20. Security isn’t month-to-month
SOC 2 HIPAA ISO 27001
Security Monitoring Platform

21. Charging annually makes GTM much easier
Simpler RevOps with fewer SKUs
Revenue becomes a lot more predictable
Easier customer lifecycle mapping  better support

22. Did you build something
people really want?

23. Lesson 3:
Hire more workhorses.
Spend less time looking for unicorns.

24. Top tips on recruiting (there is no silver bullet)
Spend 50%+ of your time recruiting
Build a pipeline
Don’t over-engineer your roles

25. Your job description. The role.

27. Standard SaaS titles that work
✓ Customer Success Manager
✓ Account Executive
✓ Revenue Operations Manager
✓ Product Marketing Manager
✓ Software Engineer
✓ Design Manager
✓ General Counsel
✓ Analytics Engineer
✓ Head of IT
✓ Product Support Specialist
PS: We’re hiring… vanta.com/jobs 😉😉

28. Lesson 4:
Know which problems
money can and can’t solve.

29. Good reasons to raise before $10MM in ARR
Your competitive dynamics are changing
Your market dynamics are changing
You’re hiring really fast (and really well)
Your marketing machine is printing money!

30. Think critically before you go
out to raise money.

31. Recap: 4 lessons for building to $10MM in ARR
Build something
people want.
Charge annually upfront
if you can!
Spend lots of time hiring,
but don’t over-engineer
your org chart.
Be realistic about what
fundraising can and
can’t solve.

32. Visit Vanta at Booth 415
…or find us
at vanta.com

33. THANK YOU