How Did Vanta Lose Its Famous Billboard?

Christina Cacioppo says Vanta lost the billboard spot the company was known for because the deal was a placement order, not a multi-year contract. She had told podcast listeners the contract was locked up for years. It was not.

The billboard got famous, and people kept asking how Vanta did billboards. Referrals to one agency contact added up to millions of dollars of business. Years later, at a dinner, a startup friend said they had just signed the same spot. The supposed contract was written in crayon: there was no real contract. The contact called it a placement order. The other company paid more, so the spot was swapped out underneath Vanta. She went to that founder ready to pay almost any price. He was paying about a million and a half. She offered to double it and pay three, just to get the spot. He refused. The startup was cash-flow positive, so no price worked, and Vanta lost the spot.

She took the loss as a bad omen and thought Vanta had probably just lost a bit of market cap.