Your 10-Second Sterling Cooper Pipeline Review

Core Problems They Are Trying to Solve

1. Lack of control over what enters internal repositories

• Sterling Cooper currently relies on scanning after packages are introduced, not at ingestion.
• This creates blind spots around compromised or malicious open-source components.

Buyer verbatim:

“Once something lands in Artifactory, we’re basically trusting that it’s clean unless it trips something later. That’s not a great place to be.”

2. Security slowing engineering without actually reducing risk

• Security policies are seen as reactive and disruptive.
  
• Developers often bypass controls to keep velocity high.
  

Buyer verbatim (CISO):

“We keep telling ourselves we’re reducing risk, but all we’re really doing is adding more checks after the fact — and engineering hates us for it.”

3. Inability to confidently address zero-day exposure

• Sterling Cooper lacks a proactive control to stop malicious packages before they spread internally.
• Current tooling is dependent on known CVEs and delayed intelligence.

Buyer verbatim:

“Zero-days are the ones that keep me up at night because by the time we see them, they’re already everywhere.”
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Internal Consequences if Unresolved

• Increased breach likelihood through transitive dependencies introduced silently into production.
• Organizational friction between security and engineering leadership is reducing trust and slowing future initiatives.

Buyer verbatim:

“If something happens and we have to explain why we let it in at the front door, that’s on me.”

Cost / Risk Mentions

• CISO referenced breach impact in the context of incident response costs and board scrutiny, not specific dollar amounts.
  
• No fines mentioned, but SOC 2 and enterprise customer audits were cited as pressure points.
  

Buyer verbatim:

“The cleanup cost isn’t even the worst part — it’s explaining to the board how it happened.”

Budget Signals

• Security budget exists for 2026 planning; not yet locked.
  
• Buyer initiated conversation about pricing ranges and contract structure.
  

Buyer verbatim:

“If we do this, it has to come out of preventative controls, not incident response.”

Tradeoffs Discussed

• Potential reallocation from:
  
  • Additional SAST tooling
    
  • Manual security review headcount
    

Buyer verbatim:

“If this actually stops bad stuff from getting in, I’d rather invest here than hire another analyst to chase alerts.”

• Security evaluates and recommends
  
• Engineering leadership must sign off on workflow impact
  
• Procurement involved post–technical validation
  
• Final approval rests with CISO
  

Timeline

• No fixed decision date
  
• Buyer referenced Q4 planning for 2026 initiatives
  
• No external forcing event (breach, audit deadline) currently driving urgency
  

Assessment:
Process is understood but not yet time-bound.

• Primary competitor: Status quo (existing scanning + manual review)
  
• Secondary: Native repository tooling upgrades
  
• No direct head-to-head competitive bake-off underway

Buyer verbatim:

“We’re not unhappy enough yet to rip everything out — this has to be meaningfully better.”

Risk: High likelihood of delay due to “good enough for now” thinking.

• Engagement is moderately strong but security-heavy
  
• Buyer participates consistently in calls
  
• Engineering leadership has attended one session but remains cautious
  
• Follow-ups are mostly rep-driven
  

Pattern observed:

• Security agrees conceptually
  
• Engineering asks “how disruptive is this?”
  
• Momentum slows after technical discussions
  

Assessment:
This is not a one-sided deal, but the buyer is not yet pulling the deal forward.

Will this opportunity close?

Possibly — but not without a shift in urgency and internal alignment.

This deal is real in the sense that:

• The problem is acknowledged
  
• Budget is plausible
  
• Buyer is engaged
  

However, it will stall or slip unless:

• Engineering leadership internalizes the cost of inaction
  
• A concrete decision timeline is established
• The value is reframed as risk prevention, not tooling improvement

1. Engineering impact must be validated
   
   • Demonstrate how Yellowsail blocks malicious packages without slowing developer workflows
     
2. Cost of inaction must be quantified
   
   • Translate risk into scenarios that leadership can’t ignore
     
3. Buyer must own the timeline
   
   • Tie the decision to the planning, audit, or risk review cycle

1. Facilitate a security + engineering working session
   
   • Focus on real repository workflows
     
   • Surface objections early
     
2. Create a one-page “before vs after” risk narrative
   
   • Show how bad code enters today vs. how Yellowsail blocks it
     
3. Pressure-test urgency with the CISO
   
   • Ask directly what would cause this to slip to “next year”
     
4. Secure a buyer-owned milestone
   
   • Example: internal recommendation meeting or budget earmark

Would you like me to provide a probability of this closing based on the close date and other listed factors?