case studies

Casted: Making Content Loud while Keeping Data Quiet

by Trava, Cyber Risk Management

Casted amplifies content while protecting their clients' data, with Trava. Read the story.

About Casted

Casted, the world’s first amplified marketing platform, helps clients leverage targeted audio and video content across multiple channels and collect crucial metrics.

Casted is a Series A-funded SaaS content marketing platform now in its third year. The company positions itself as the “first and only amplified marketing platform,” placing audio and video podcasts as the center of content strategy and spreading recorded assets across multiple channels. Proving their worth via marketing metrics is key. And so is proving their trustworthiness.

“When a company shares their content with us, when they’re putting our players on their websites and trusting us with their viewer and reader data, they want to know Casted is taking the protection of their data seriously,” explains Adam Patarino, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer. “We want a company of any designation to come to Casted and see the sophistication of our security platform. We want to win those deals.”

Casted’s commitment holds appeal for another important audience as well: “As a venture-backed company, our current board and future investors will be noticing our security posture,” Patarino says. “The more mature our security posture, the more attractive we are to future investors.”

The Business Challenge

From Casted’s inception, its co-founders recognized the critical role a holistic cyber risk management program would play in its ability to land enterprise clients. Casted understood that the threat vectors of large corporations were often their vendors. “We are a dependency in our customers’ tech stacks,” Patarino explains. “We don’t want to be a weak link in the chain.”

Armed with a vision for generating authentic, compelling marketing content, Casted was poised for a fast rollout and eager to move beyond the small to medium-size clients and approach large organizations. But larger prospects demanded rigorous proof of cyber security policies, and protocols as well as badges such as SOC2 attestation and ISO 27001 would take months.

We have not lost a single deal during the security process. The only deal we ever lost due to security was pre-Trava. Trava is helping us earn new enterprise business and renew customers.

Adam Patarino
CPO,
Casted

The Trava Solution

Credentials are valuable. But compliance is not defined by a badge. Trava’s detailed vulnerability assessments and mitigation tools provide customers and prospects with an accurate picture of Casted’s security posture. In fact, establishing and monitoring compliance is arguably more effective, since Trava’s program included a regular cadence of vulnerability risk assessment scans, rather than just once a year for credential renewal.

From the start, Trava and Casted had a very similar approach: “If we can make Casted secure, then compliance will come easy.”

Patarino and the team at Casted understood that when you’re small, companies don’t need you to have your SOC badge. “If you can demonstrate some security practice and you can show some diligence, that’s usually enough.” But as Casted saw its platform complexity grow, it became clear that providing more value would mean taking on more risk and liability with more sensitive data. Patarino knew they were going to need to have the right certifications in place. But more than that they needed to know that what they were doing in terms of security would truly mitigate the risk.

Their customers were depending on it.

Enter Trava’s automated vulnerability risk assessment platform. Trava provided a virtual Information Security Officer (vCISO) to prioritize Casted’s mitigation needs—as well as contributing impressive expertise in talks with prospects and customers. Transferring unanticipated risks to a cyber insurance company is the final piece of Casted’s holistic cyber risk management program. Again, Casted will be counting on Trava for ongoing monitoring and mitigation strategy. “You can’t be negligible and then ask for a payout,” Patarino points out.

Casted recognizes Trava’s critical role in the 130% net retention plus growth in 2021. “We have not lost a single deal during the security process,” Patarino says. “The only deal we ever lost due to security was pre-Trava. Trava is helping us earn new enterprise business and renew customers.” In 2021, Casted landed a contract with IBM that required a robust cybersecurity analysis lasting almost a year. “Having an expert from Trava on our bench enabled us to close the deal with IBM,” says Patarino. Other Fortune 500 discussions are in the works.

Words of Advice from Casted

  1. When you are small and first starting out, things that cost money and don’t have a clear ROI get overlooked. But don’t assign a cost to managing risk. Instead, look at how much you will gain.
  2. Cyber security is directly related to revenue, especially when dealing with selling business to business. You’ll close deals faster, your AEs will have more confidence in the selling process, and you can land larger deals because you can pass their security reviews. All of those are direct ROI.
  3. Understand that being compliant does not mean you are secure. Don’t stop with having your SOC2 attestation or ISO27001 certifications in place. Look at what you are doing in terms of cyber security, truly understand where you are at risk and put a solution in place that will mitigate the risk.
  4. Look for a solution provider that will be a true partner, who understands your business, and looks at cyber risk as enterprise risk.

Questions?

We can help!  Talk to the Trava Team and see how we can assist you with your cybersecurity needs.