On August 3, 2023, the hierarchy of power in the cyber security awareness training sphere changed with the launch of Pistachio.
Since then, a lot has happened. To celebrate this milestone, we want to give everyone a peek into the innerworkings of a tech startup and highlight the “people” (or as I like to call us; cogs) that make Pistachio run.
The Good
1. Our team has grown, we moved into a better office space, and our product has expanded to encompass even more facets of cybersecurity.
2. Our sales-team has been on a 12-month streak of crushing sales records.
3. Our brand identity by Opening Hours was nominated for Best Brand Identity by Visuelt 2024.
The Bad
1. We lost Best Brand Identity to Mjøl.
2. We forgot to update some payment details which caused the domains for our training simulations to be unavailable for an entire day.[1]
3. Trying to integrate Gemini AI and just getting thousands of lines of ‘Not Cauchy, Cauchy, Cauchy' back.[2]
The Ugly
1. The coffee drought of May 2024.
2. Our CTO’s in-house sweatshop marketing stunts.
Intermission
Before we continue, marketing has reminded me that the goal of these types of posts is to try to leave the reader with a positive impression of Pistachio that will later lead to a conversion. They’ve given me a list of key points I should subtly try to shoehorn in throughout the article. I, of course, refused.
The goal with this post is to spotlight us, the cogs, not spew out marketing jargon like how there are now 105 countries benefiting from our product or how we have sent over 1.6 million training emails this past year. Let us not forget our transparent pricing which scales to fit your business’ size. Pistachio – Empowering digital freedom of movement. Ask your doctor if Pistachio is right for you. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Spilling the Tea
Let’s start with the most devastating event of the year: the coffee drought of May. One wildly irresponsible employee, who will go unnamed,[3] broke the coffee pot while attempting to rinse it.
Throwing salt in the wound, the specific one we needed was sold out in Norway. We tried a few other brands hoping to find a replacement, but none would fit with our machine. So, after a few days of growing desperation (and contempt for the person who broke it in the first place) we ended up just ordering a brand-new coffee machine so thankfully all was right in the world again.
Moving on, we had our CTO’s marketing stunt which led to a sweatshop-esque day at the office.
The plan: Use leads from our sales team to send out 100 packages to introduce Pistachio to possible customers. The packages will contain one neatly folded sweater wrapped in silk paper, a personalized, hand-written card, and a brochure. To top it all off, we will master the skill of origami to beautifully wrap each package as taught by a nice Korean women's DIY YouTube channel.[4]
The goal was to book 25 demos. In the end, we booked 36. Unfortunately, this led to the stunt being considered a huge internal success, resulting in Sweatshop Day Episode II – Attack of the Cramps, where we increased production by 1.5x, or 150 packages.
One positive outcome of this experience was that the bonds between departments grew stronger through the shared trauma we endured.
These bonds were strengthened during the two office parties that were held this past year. I was told they were fun, but I wouldn’t know as I did not attend either. I was sent some pictures they wanted me to add to this post, but since I am not in any of them, I opted for free generic stock photos instead.
I imagine this is exactly how it looked.
We also hosted our first event, which, while it went great, we poured way too many resources into, spanning all departments. The worst part is we decided to use third party tools to create email invitations and one-off sites, in place of our internal tooling. It now lives in our heart as a great example of the sunk cost fallacy.
If you are still reading this, wow, we appreciate you, and we hope you enjoyed this little detour from our regular blog post strategy, and that it leaves you with more than just an impression of how Pistachio is a fully automated product that seamlessly integrates to your business - sign up for our 14-days free trial here, no payment card required. But that it gives you a glimpse of the shiny cogs that make Pistachio sparkle.
Okay, so normally these types of posts end with a short summary of what the reader just read, followed by what the company hopes to accomplish in the coming years, one last upsell and maybe an inspirational quote by a famous tech CEO awkwardly shoehorned in.[5] But I would like to end by highlighting what I think has been the real treasure of this year - the value we created for our shareholders along the way.
Thank you for reading til the end of this post. I think I’ve succeeded in never being asked to write one of these again, so I hope you enjoyed it. I'd like to leave you with this quote “‘Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.’ - Steve Jobs” - Erlend Seppola
