In mid-2022, BlockSpaces hired me to help them apply category design thinking as they matured as a startup. Two months after I joined, our team had developed a strong category point-of-view (POV) that’s not only been guiding our marketing but our product roadmap and overall strategy as well. In this post, I’ll explain the exercises
As a growing technology company, BlockSpaces was facing a critical challenge: how to communicate the value of their software integration platform to investors, partners, and potential customers. The platform was designed to solve the problem of using blockchain technology at scale, which had previously been prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for enterprise companies. But without a
Kevin Maney is one of the most interesting minds to listen to when it comes to category design. Not only is Kevin a co-author of Play Bigger, but he’s also a partner at Category Design Advisors, a bestselling author, and an award-winning columnist who’s been writing about technology for 30 years. Oh, and he moonlights
In 2006, BombBomb was founded as a tool to help real estate agents communicate effectively with clients using “video email.” The company became well-known within the real estate industry, generating significant revenue. However, in 2020, BombBomb reached its maximum potential for revenue within its niche and growth began to plateau. Additionally, other companies entered the
Aristotle is credited with saying, “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” Category design is a lot like that. Once you understand the basic concepts, a whole new set of questions open up for you. And so on. That’s why I always like to learn from other category design practitioners –
A good lightning strike is a core part of any good category design strategy. Its main job is to create a mental shift in the minds of your prospects. You want them to think differently about the problem you address and the solution you’ve created to solve it. Since we just executed our second lightning
Sometimes you’ll hear people describe category design as an “all or nothing” strategy. In this view, there are only two possibilities. One, your business has created an entirely new and separate category – one with clean lines of demarcation from existing categories. Or two, you’re simply competing for market share in an established space –
Every week or so I come across someone who loves the idea of category design but feels stuck because their current employer isn’t pursuing that strategy. It’s a bummer because as exciting and challenging as the work of category design can be, this way of thinking about business isn’t on the radar of most execs. And it’s
What’s worse than a weak point-of-view (POV) for your category? A great POV that no one hears about. For category design to work, your category POV has to be out in the world, evangelizing a position on behalf of your brand. It needs to elicit a response from customers – not collect dust in some
If you’re a growth-oriented leader who wants to help your business break free of crowded markets and avoid commoditization, then I want to share this presentation with you. A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at the Empower B2B conference about a business strategy called category design. What is category design exactly? It’s an
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