Taking a Silicon Valley Startup from Founding to Acquisition

In their earliest days as a startup, Aporeto hosted a launch event at an AWS conference in Las Vegas. In the space of one month, the Buttered Toast team and the Aporeto leadership team conceptualized a full conference presence. This included designing and building a log cabin (as a booth), producing printed materials, designing t-shirts and lanyards, and many other functions. The event was a huge success and drove some exciting early growth for the company.

In the two years prior to their acquisition, Buttered Toast were with Aporeto every step of the way. We drove two full-scale, bottom-up company branding projects. As the product evolved, we helped execute three shifts in brand positioning. Throughout this time, we kept up a full content output, with a focus on market-validated thought leadership in the form of pillar pages. We also produced a host of animated videos for branding and social media purposes.

In the final stretch, with the Aporeto product flourishing, the team knew that an acquisition was a possibility. We created dedicated and targeted awareness campaigns to raise our profile in the space. This involved creating landing pages aimed at specific personas within a target segment. These campaigns were highly successful; it was empirically demonstrated that they reached individuals who were influential in the eventual acquisition process.