What a CISO is asking before you finish your intro.
“Who did you actually bring?”
The CISO and their team are technical. In the first two minutes they decide whether this meeting can go deep enough to be worth the next twenty-three.
You send the person who can close. The CISO needs the person who can answer. The moment a real question gets “let me follow up,” it’s over — you find out a week later.
Put someone in the room who can hold the deep “how” without flinching, even if that’s you. Cover both the business case and the technical truth.
“What are you, in one sentence I can repeat?”
Before they can care about anything you built, they have to file you. Which shelf are you on, and are you a thing I understand? This takes seconds, before the demo loads.
You lead with the architecture, or with how unlike everything else you are. In a market whose whole job is cutting the list, a thing they can’t categorize isn’t intriguing — it’s noise to cut.
Make the category legible in the first line, then earn the nuance. “We’re X for Y” lets them follow you. Clarity beats completeness every time.
“Can you back that, or is it AI-washing?”
Say AI, and they want to know supervised or unsupervised, and why. They spot the inconsistency fast, and the second they catch one, every other claim is suspect.
“First of its kind.” A superlative with no mechanism under it reads as exactly the AI-washing they’re screening for.
Replace every superlative with the structural thing a rival can’t copy. When you don’t know, say “I’ll get you the answer.”
“Where’s the proof, and does it reduce my problem?”
They want facts and one real scenario. The proof that lands is proof you make their stack simpler, not heavier.
You open with the logo wall and the analyst slide. Both feel like credibility; neither wins the first meeting. They signal you don’t know what this buyer actually weighs.
Lead with one high-value scenario and the evidence under it. Save the logos and analyst nods for diligence, where they do their job.
“Which budget, and what do I kill to pay for you?”
The money isn’t going to “more.” It’s going to rationalization — and this year the buyer’s default is to subtract.
You assume that once they see how good it is, the budget appears. It doesn’t. A great product with no budget home stalls forever — not rejected, just never prioritized.
Name the budget you’re competing for and what you displace, before they ask. Then hand your champion the one sentence they’ll use to defend the spend upstairs.
