What I Learned Watching Wiz Run Circles Around the Cybersecurity Industry

I’ve spent most of my career in cybersecurity marketing and research - running campaigns, chasing metrics, and eventually, stepping back to ask a much harder question:

Are we actually building and marketing for the people who matter most?

For a long time, the honest answer was no.

We were mostly talking at buyers. Rarely with them. And even more rarely, listening.

The result? A go-to-market (GTM) culture built around internal narratives, investor decks, and analyst buzzwords - rather than real, continuous insight from the people using the product every day.

That’s why Wiz stands out.

Their rise hasn’t just been impressive - it’s been instructive. From product design to marketing to community building, they’ve modeled what a modern cybersecurity company can look like when it’s aligned - truly aligned - with its buyers.

And no, it wasn’t just about having funding or a good product (though they had both). It was about focus. Discipline.

And above all, a relentless commitment to understanding and respecting the buyer better than anyone else.

I’ve interviewed dozens of Wiz customers - CISOs, platform security leaders, cloud architects, engineers. The quotes I hear are almost always the same:

“It’s so simple.”
“It just works.”
“They’re fun to deal with.”

(Let that one sit for a sec - fun, in cybersecurity.)

This wasn’t luck. This was intentional.

And I want to walk you through how they pulled it off, and more importantly, what you and your GTM team can take away from it - without needing their multi-million dollar budget to do it.

Take notes.

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Wiz Didn’t Build for the Boardroom. They Built for the People Who Actually Use the Product.

In past roles, I was in charge of demand gen for multiple cybersecurity vendors.

I sat through the roadmap meetings. The messaging debates. The obsession with what competitors were doing. It wasn’t uncommon to hear, “We need to say this because Palo Alto just announced it,” or, “Let’s position ourselves next to CrowdStrike in this quadrant.”

The problem? Buyers weren’t asking for any of that. And we weren’t asking them much either.

Eventually, I started running interviews with real practitioners. I’d talk to the engineers who were actually logging in daily, trying to manage cloud security risks while juggling six other priorities.

And what I learned was humbling: most of the messaging, features, and priorities we were pushing weren’t relevant - or were even adding noise.

What stood out to me about Wiz is that they seemed to skip the stage where vendors make assumptions. From the beginning, they listened. They learned. And they built accordingly.

When I ask Wiz customers what stood out, I hear things like, “We were up and running in a few hours.” Or, “It gave me visibility immediately.” Or even, “I didn’t have to explain it to my boss - it was obvious why it mattered.”

It’s not that the product lacks depth. It’s that it avoids unnecessary complexity. That kind of clarity only happens when you’re truly building with your users, not for them.

What I’ve Learned to Do:

• Run interviews weekly - not as a campaign, but as a habit.

• Bring product and marketing into those conversations. Let them hear the raw truth, not a summarized report.

• Help clients validate roadmap decisions with real users. Not buyers in theory. Buyers in practice.

• Encourage teams to retire features that no one uses, even if they’re “strategic.” Simplicity is strategic too.

Product-Led Growth Only Works If You Respect Your Buyer’s Time

I’ve reviewed more “PLG” decks than I can count. Most are full of good intentions - and bad execution.

You’ll see “Start Free Trial” buttons on websites, but when you click, you're gated. You need to book a call. Then wait. Then talk to a BDR. Then maybe, finally, you can try the thing.

Wiz didn’t do that.

Their product was designed to deliver value immediately.

So many vendors spend more time trying to prove value than actually delivering it.

What I’ve Learned to Do:

• Map the emotional experience of a first-time user. Where do they feel friction, doubt, confusion?

• Strip away anything that doesn’t serve immediate value.

• Build onboarding and evaluation experiences that respect attention spans and urgency.

• Treat time-to-value as a product KPI, not just a sales metric.

Wiz’s “Marketing” Wasn’t Marketing in the Traditional Sense. It Was Momentum.

Here’s where I think most vendors completely miss the mark:

They confuse visibility with momentum.

I admit, I’ve led teams like that. I’ve built campaigns like that.

But visibility isn’t momentum. And Wiz had momentum.

I started hearing about them from CISOs months before I ever saw an ad. They were coming up in closed-door roundtables.

In private Slack groups. In DMs between practitioners. Not because of a campaign - but because their users were sharing their experiences.

That kind of organic buzz is earned. It doesn’t come from brand awareness alone.

It comes from trust. From delivering an experience so strong that users want to talk about it.

I’ve seen vendors try to manufacture this with community programs, branded Slack groups, and big virtual events. But if the experience itself isn’t compelling, those programs don’t stick.

Wiz didn’t force community. They earned it by making users feel smart, empowered, and seen.

What I’ve Learned to Do:

• Create intentional spaces where users can connect - with each other, not just with your company.

• Avoid over-branding. Authenticity wins over polish in these environments.

• Elevate your customers’ language. Let them describe the value in their own words.

• Treat user advocacy as something to support, not script.

Wiz Didn’t Fit Into a Category. They Defined One.

This is something I respect deeply:

Wiz didn’t wait for the industry to tell them where they belonged. They told the industry.

They introduced something different: the cloud security operating model.

They focused on offering a clearer frame for a complex problem. And they stuck with it.

That level of consistency is rare.

I’ve been in situations where messaging changed three times in a quarter. Where different teams were telling different stories. Where even the founders couldn’t articulate the positioning the same way twice.

Wiz avoided that. And it made them memorable because of that consistency.

What I’ve Learned to Do:

• Start with one clear, repeatable narrative. Not five.

• Pressure-test it in buyer interviews: “Is this how you’d describe the problem to a peer?”

• Ensure that narrative is consistent - from founder decks to sales calls to customer Slack groups.

• Anchor your messaging in problems buyers feel - not just frameworks analysts push.

Final Thoughts: Wiz Didn't Just Build a Product. They Built a Feeling.

This is what I keep coming back to.

Wiz made buyers feel something.

That the product was easy. That it respected their time. That it solved a real problem without overwhelming them. And that, somehow, the team behind it actually cared.

That’s not something you can fabricate. It comes from doing consistent work.

And it’s not limited to unicorns. You don’t need a $1B marketing budget to do this.

You need better buyer insight, tighter internal alignment, and a willingness to lead with clarity and empathy.

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from studying companies like Wiz - and from helping dozens of security vendors navigate growth - it’s this:

Good GTM isn’t about being louder.

It’s about being right more often - about the people you serve.