Category Creation

Curated Learning Resources

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  To Create a New Category, Name the New Game

  Andy Raskin, Product, Skype

  Andy describes how a celebrity running coach disrupted conventional wisdom at a pre-marathon carbo-loading party. He argued that loading up on carbs the night before was not optimal for long-distance runners, presenting new science showing the body could be trained to burn fat instead. This ran counter to the accepted practice of carbo-loading but made logical sense. Many runners were skeptical at first but open to the alternative perspective. The coach's message was effective at both changing minds about effective pre-race nutrition as well as attracting new clients to his Coaching services. His example demonstrates that challenging existing paradigms can be an impactful strategy for promoting new approaches or categories.

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  What I Learned About Category Creation as an Early Box Employee

  Anthony Kennada, CMO, Gainsight

  Anthony shares lessons learned from his early career at Box, a cloud computing startup. Box evangelized the subscription business model and helped usher in major business transformations. Anthony outlines five lessons from Box that he applies at his current company Gainsight, which helps businesses improve customer success. The lessons include: • Developing a bold brand message • Creating an industry movement • Iterating on entry points early • Using events to spread ideas, and • Building a community beyond just customers An interesting point is that the author believes hosting a conference very early can help establish thought Leadership and generate pipeline even when a company is small.

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  Tweetstorm: Define Your Category to Win the Category

  David Sacks, Co-Founder, Craft Ventures

  In this tweetstorm, David Sacks discusses the concept of product-market fit and agrees with Christopher Lochhead's point about category design. Sacks highlights that those who define the category usually end up winning it. He gives an example of Yammer, which launched in the "Social Software in the Workplace" category defined by Gartner's Magic Quadrant. Instead of trying to fit into that category, Yammer defined its own category called Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) and focused on key features like ease of use and cloud-based deployment. This category definition helped Yammer gain press attention, establish legitimacy, and secure contracts with Fortune 500 companies. In the end, Yammer's approach of defining its own category contributed to its success and eventual acquisition.

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  No New Categories

  Greg Kogan, VP Marketing, Pinecone

  While some startups try to create new product categories, Greg argues this is generally not necessary for success. Most successful companies compete within existing categories, as did legendary founders like Steve Jobs. In fact, category creation is much harder than it seems due to the difficulty of moving the market. The majority of recent tech IP Os also positioned themselves in established categories rather than unique ones. Positioning innovations into existing markets like "disruptive" or emerging categories is lower-risk and provides valuable opportunities. Testing different category positions before fully committing resources is also advised.

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