This 30-person cybersecurity company builds endpoint detection and response tooling for mid-market companies. Their product had strong technical reviews and a growing customer base, but pipeline generation was stuck. CISOs at mid-market companies receive an average of 40-60 vendor pitches per week and block nearly all of them. The company had tried a lead gen agency for 3 months ($4K/month) and got 2 meetings. They partnered with Fluum to reach CISOs and Heads of IT Security through warm introductions at companies actively evaluating security vendors.
MEETINGS BOOKED
22
With CISOs and Heads of IT Security at mid-market companies (200-2000 employees)
ICP MATCH RATE
93%
Of meetings matched the exact seniority, company size, and industry vertical requested
TIME TO FIRST MEETING
11 days
From campaign launch to first qualified CISO conversation
What this company was facing
CISOs are the most aggressively gatekept B2B persona. They use email filters, have executive assistants screening calls, and ignore LinkedIn connection requests from vendors. The company had invested $12K in a lead gen agency over 3 months and received 2 meetings, both with mid-level IT managers rather than the CISO. Conference attendance produced introductions but not at the decision-maker level. The founding team needed a channel that reached CISOs directly, not through layers of gatekeeping.
$4K/mo lead gen agency producing 2 meetings in 3 months
Both meetings were with mid-level IT, not CISOs
Cold email response rate below 0.5%
Conferences producing mid-level introductions only
22 CISO-level meetings in 10 weeks
93% ICP match rate on seniority and company size
First meeting booked in 11 days
6 moved to proof-of-concept stage
WEEKS 1-3
Cross-referenced Fluum’s opted-in decision maker network with public breach disclosure databases, compliance audit schedules, and security vendor contract renewal cycles. Built signal agents tracking companies with expiring endpoint security contracts, recent security incidents reported to regulators, and Heads of IT Security hiring patterns indicating internal security reviews.
WEEKS 4-7
Each outreach message referenced a specific security challenge relevant to the prospect’s industry (healthcare compliance, financial services data protection, manufacturing OT security). Messages positioned the intro around the prospect’s current threat landscape, not product features. Every message reviewed by a strategist before sending.
WEEKS 8-10
Signal agents refined targeting toward companies in financial services and healthcare where regulatory pressure created shorter evaluation timelines. Meeting volume stabilized at 3+ per week. 6 CISOs requested proof-of-concept evaluations. Feedback loops identified that Heads of IT Security responded at higher rates than CISOs at companies over 1,000 employees, shifting outreach for the next sprint.
“We spent $12K on an agency and got 2 meetings with the wrong people. Fluum put us in front of 22 CISOs in 10 weeks. These are people who block every vendor email they receive. The warm intro approach was the only thing that worked at this level.”
CEO, endpoint security startup, 30 employees
CISOs do not engage with cold outreach. They block vendor emails, screen calls, and ignore LinkedIn. The only path to a CISO-level conversation is through a warm, contextual introduction that references their specific threat landscape. Fluum’s signal-driven approach identified companies with active security vendor evaluations and facilitated introductions that bypassed the gatekeeping entirely. The company went from 2 meetings in 3 months to 22 meetings in 10 weeks.
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