“Do we even need to be doing this?”

They were talking about analyst relations.

No one had ever asked me that before…

For a second, my brain froze — the way a Mac throws up that spinny beachball icon right before an app crashes. Total mental beachball.

It’s not every day an exec asks you a question like that. To be honest, I panicked a little bit.

Normally, I’d have a well-prepared justification ready to go for something I was spending that much time on.

But in that moment, my internal processor just… hung, flashing back through all of the inquiries, RFIs, and prep docs from the previous year, searching for what felt like a should-be-obvious reason.

Is AR a must-have?

I realized… I didn’t actually know.

—

In every SaaS startup I’d worked for previously, AR wasn’t something that ever got debated. It was just part of the operating system of enterprise B2B — how you penetrate a market, build credibility, and show up like one of the big kids at the table.

So hearing an exec ask, plainly and sincerely, whether we even needed to be doing it?

As surprised as I was, I had to admit, it was super reasonable question.

Realistically, it doesn’t matter for every company – and it doesn’t matter for any company until certain conditions are met.

While I knew AR mattered in our industry, I’d never truly articulated why. I’d never defined the circumstances that make AR worth the time, the budget, or the headspace for someone who’s already wearing multiple hats.

That moment became the starting point for this newsletter. Because if you own AR part-time at a startup — whether you're a PMM, SE, marketing leader, or the unofficial “catcher of anything strategic” — this question is going to find you eventually.

And you need an answer that isn’t just:
“Well… we’re supposed to?”

So Episode 1 begins where that conversation left me: when does it make sense to have an AR program?

Below is a 5-question framework that B2B startups can use to determine if AR makes sense for their company.

The major analyst firms define market categories by looking for repeatable buyer problems, overlapping vendor capabilities, and clear value outcomes that distinguish one solution set from another.

Because analysts prioritize their research around the market categories they recognize, vendors need to know whether their space is already defined — or whether they first need to make the case that it should be.

If Gartner, Forrester, IDC (or other firms relevant to your industry) haven’t formalized your space yet, you’ve got two choices:

I’ve worked at companies that existed in long-standing categories as well as newly formed ones.

Both paths are valid, but the approach is different.

If you’re in the second camp — the “we're shaping something new” camp — AR can be incredibly high leverage.

But it also demands:

If you have real conviction, and real evidence, you can help them get there.

But if you’re building something brand new and you don’t even know how to describe it yet?

AR can’t do that part for you.

When you brief analysts, they’re subconsciously scanning for a few types of momentum. You don’t need all three, but if you can’t give them at least two, it’s hard to build credibility or sustain interest long-term.

Here are the big three:

This is:

The keyword here is real.

If you pitch a capability in January and, by July, there’s nothing tangible to show for it, analysts will remember. While it’s acceptable for roadmaps to change from time to time, you’ll erode trust if you repeatedly show vaporware or commit to timelines that never materialize.

Analysts also want to hear about things like:

These are all signs that show analysts your company is gaining momentum, maturing operationally, and becoming a credible player worth tracking.

This one is huge, and often overlooked by early-stage teams.

Analysts care about:

Don’t mistake this for just throwing up a “NASCAR” slide of customer logos. While those are helpful, what really lands are specific stories:

A single strong customer story can do more than a page of generic marketing claims.

If you’re solid in at least two of the big three, you’re in a good place to start (even if everything isn’t perfect yet). If you’re thin on all of them, AR is likely to feel frustrating and premature.

This is the question almost no one asks early, and it’s often the most important one.

Analyst influence matters a lot more if you:

In those environments, analysts are:

Even if no one says, “Gartner / Forrester told us…” out loud, the opinion is still there in the background.

If, on the other hand, you sell primarily to PLG-style buyers, or focus on SMB or mid-market with fast cycles, analyst influence may not be a major factor.

This is where a lot of teams technically could do AR, but practically speaking, shouldn’t.

You don’t need a full-time AR lead right away. Most startups don’t have that luxury.
But you do need a clear owner — and that owner needs a specific skill mix:

If AR ownership is vague (“we’ll just tag-team it”), everything will feel last-minute and messy, and you probably won’t get much value out of your analyst relationships.

Ask yourself:

If the answer to two or more of those is yes, then your buyers might be seeing the market through someone else’s lens.

AR isn’t just about vanity dot placements. It’s about:

To be clear: no one competitor can shape an analyst’s market definition on their own. Analysts form their own unique opinions based on learnings from a variety of sources, including prospective buyers, customers, partners, vendors, and more. If you’re not proactively engaging with them, you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re left out of their narrative.

When my exec asked me —
“Do we even need to be doing this?” —
I didn’t have a clear answer ready.

Now I do.

You shouldn’t invest in analyst relations because you think you’re “supposed” to.
And you shouldn’t do it out of FOMO or quadrant envy either.

AR is worth doing when:

Analyst relations isn’t just about chasing placements, it’s about participating in the conversation that shapes how your market understands itself.

If you realize you need an AR program after reading this and aren’t sure where to start, next week, I’ll tell you what to do in your first 30 days to get ahead.

See you in Episode 2.

Did You Find This Helpful? I’d love to hear what you thought. Reply to this email with your feedback, and let me know what you’d like to see in future episodes (I read every one!)

Till next time,

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