Start-Up Thought Leadership
Building mindshare and thought leadership for hot cloud start-up Heptio
Making the business case for Heptio
Heptio was co-founded by two of the three creators of the open source container orchestration platform Kubernetes, which has become one of the most rapidly and widely adopted cloud technologies of recent years. While the company launched with some fanfare in 2016, they’d kept their long-term strategy close to the vest. Heptio turned to Voxus for help in telling its strategic business story.
The coming out party
The first order of business was get broad and deep coverage for the company’s upcoming Series B funding announcement. Putting the $25 million round (coming less than a year after the company’s Series A) into the context of a rapidly growing market opportunity would help to cement the credibility of the company and move it beyond the celebrity of its superstar founders. Moreover, it was the perfect way to introduce the company’s longer term vision. Voxus secured Heptio funding coverage in more than 30 outlets including TechCrunch, Reuters, Fortune and Axios.
Accelerating awareness
With the series B as a launching pad, Voxus helped Heptio increase its earned media mentions from a few a month to dozens and sometimes more than a hundred every month. These included features, product news, thought leadership perspectives and contributed articles in top tier outlets such as TechCrunch, Forbes, Reuters and Business Insider, and technology outlets/analyst firms like VentureBeat, eWeek, Gartner and 451 Research. In additions to providing traditional media outreach and analyst relations support, Voxus helped Heptio strategize and execute its social media program, nearly quintupling the company’s LinkedIn following and tripling its Twitter following over the course of a year.
The end of the beginning
In November of 2018, VMWare completed its acquisition of Heptio for $550 million. While the handsome purchase price was no doubt driven primarily by the inherent value of the company, the incredible team built by its founders, and the overall market opportunity, the company’s outsized presence in the media could only have helped.
Heptio unleashes the technology-driven enterprise with products and services that help customers realize the full potential of Kubernetes and transform IT into a business accelerator. The company’s training, support and professional services speed integration of Kubernetes and related technologies into the fabric of enterprise IT, while its products reduce the cost and complexity of running these systems in production environments.
Goal Highlights:
- Increase frequency and quality of coverage
- Position company as a key player in the exploding Kubernetes market
- Leverage the reputation of its founders for thought leadership coverage
Result Highlights:
- Extensive overage in top tier outlets including TechCrunch, Forbes, Reuters, Business Insider, eWeek and more.