How startups in 2025 win visibility, shortlists, and deals.
Without big budgets or big-brand marketing.
The game has changed
Most startups struggle to get their innovation noticed next to incumbents with enterprise marketing budgets. But an opportunity is opening: The weight of technologies like AI makes inquiries with industry analysts surge. Tech strategists, managers and buyers need clarity.
- In the 2010s, about 75% of tech buyers used analyst insights to understand tech impact, identify innovators and shape shortlists.
- In 2025, it’s grown to 92%.
What smart founders do differently
Experienced tech founders don’t wait to be discovered. They use this trend and brief industry analysts early and strategically — explaining their innovation, ICP, and roadmap.
It's shaping the playing field
- 79% of analysts say they speak with startups specifically to identify innovators they can recommend to inquiring buyers. When these buyers ask who to consider beyond the usual suspects, analysts point to startups they’ve come to know and trust. It's part of their differentiation.
- 30% of VCs already observe such direct analyst referrals of their portfolio companies to buyers.
- European startups now appear more often in analysts' innovation reports – 19% in 2020/21, up to 27% in 2024/25. Most are under five years in business and pre-Series A.
- In the SSIA 2025 research with the University of Edinburgh Business School, VCs reported that startups practising Analyst Relations (AR) achieved key benefits:
→ 100% observe higher speed
→ 86% report reduced risk
→ 71% see steeper scaling
Why it works
Real industry analysts are influential — but their business model is not that of influencers. "Pay-to-play → run away". If placement requires payment, that's just an agency masquerading as an analyst firm — and not worth it.
Follow the money: Buyers pay for inquiries and research — and vendor briefings are free. Independence is an unusual positioning - and more impactful than ever.
Why "Snooker Strategy"
It reflects how analyst relations management plays “off the rails”. It may look indirect, but leveraging analysts’ connectedness inside your ICPs - at the exact moment they inquire about the problems you solve – is a highly effective shortcut.
→ Startups that are serious about breaking into these markets don’t leave it to the incumbents – especially since their innovation makes analysts natural allies.
What now
Wonder if industry analysts could be interested in your startup and how a no-nonsense approach to startup AR looks?
→ I give away one AR Viability Assessment per week – free.
→ 10 answers get you clarity within 3 days.
→ Practitioner insight. No selling.
Photo by Christian Wiediger at Unsplash
