5 Insider Tips to Crack Industry Analyst Relations

The tl;dr of 15 years in AR - Part 1/3: Replace Misconceptions with Winning Moves

1. Depth

🚫 MISCONCEPTION

• Analysts value prop is tracking markets and large vendors… - Not only...

🚀 WHAT MATTERS

• The many vendor briefings an analyst gets makes them a trusted source for buyers. A single analyst gets hundreds to thousands of buy-side inquiries per year. 

• Since these are paid and nda-protected, buyers share actual strategies, architectures, priorities, and project needs to get meaningful advice.

✅ WINNING MOVE

• Tapping into the resulting insights is how smart startups make bolder decisions sharper and earlier than rivals.

• It means speed and accuracy. See examples in a later post.

2. Timeliness

🚫 MISCONCEPTION

• The key value is in analysts’ annual publications… - Yes & No.

🚀 WHAT MATTERS

• Buyers ask analysts for vendor recommendations beyond the usual suspects when they refine tech strategies, examine options and when shortlisting vendors.

• Which is all the time.

✅ WINNING MOVE

• Educate analysts about your capabilities, ICP, programmes continuously.

• Once they gain confidence in your startup, you can find yourself matched to best-fitting opportunities that you never knew of.

3. Focus

🚫 MISCONCEPTION

• The only thing that matters are the MQ-type analyst reports. - No.

🚀 WHAT MATTERS

• The practitioner relevance of less prominent but equally respected innovation-trend reports can unlock crucial early conversations.

• Your startup’s mention as an example vendor can ignite market pull (and result in better investment term sheets).

✅ WINNING MOVE

• Prioritise analysts by research agendas that best match your positioning and strengths.

• Time and tailor your briefings accordingly.

4. Breadth

🚫 MISCONCEPTION

• We don’t need an analyst to tell us about our playing field. - Well...

🚀 WHAT MATTERS

• Your product is part of an architecture.

• Your solution may touch multiple processes / business functions.

• Your clients may be in various industries.

✅ WINNING MOVE

• Don’t think too narrow. Engaging analysts in adjacent markets and technologies broadens both, your visibility and gathering of insights enormously - at minimal effort.

5. De-Risk

🚫 MISCONCEPTION

• Analysts are innovation-averse. - No, but BS-averse.

🚀 WHAT MATTERS

• Established vendors’ hijacking of innovative concepts w/o actual capabilities but throwing marketing budgets at it, is a huge threat to startups.

• Analysts’ role in protecting buyers from hype, separates capable innovators (like you) from mere pretenders (like, you know who).

✅ WINNING MOVE

• At the “cost” of free briefings, startups can win powerful natural allies in protecting the strategic value of their innovation and differentiation.

Part 2 will be about evidence (VC views, Research)

Part 3 will be about real-life examples (Startup cases)