Last week we looked at the case for staying in an established category. Greenhouse tried to create “recruiting optimization” then retreated to ATS. Marketo retreated to marketing automation. Domo retreated to business intelligence.
"Fuzzy categories are the ones with no obvious place to point, which is why your new category can't pull money from them."
This line made me pause. I’m not a startup founder, but as a creative, I’m always trying to name what I do: designer, writer, storyteller, ghostwriter. I know what it feels like to be in that fuzzy space. When I list all those roles, people nod but aren’t sure where I fit. If I pick just one, they get it.
The advice to ask, "what are you replacing?" is helpful beyond business. When I write, what am I replacing? Silence. Confusion. That feeling of being alone with a thought.
Beyond Meat aligning with incumbents reminds me of luxury retailers, or even whatever category retailers, all opening locations near one another. Customers assume they're similar. It's fun to see how this plays out online. It's hotelling's law of spatial competition, had to look up the name.
There's an episode of Arrested Development where GOB opens a banana stand right next to the family's banana stand and cites that the majority of banana sales happen in that place, so why not be there?
Now we know the actual name of where there's typically a Whole Foods and Trader Joes within walking distance of each other!
i know this is not a new challenge by any means in ai startup land, but if youre product has components that are between multiple categories (that dont have a strict category definition) do you more often try to establish a category or float back to one thats an imperfect description of what youre doing?
Tricky to make a call on this without price, audience, incumbents, etc but happy to workshop it with you. Just reply to one of the newsletter emails and we can figure it out.
"Fuzzy categories are the ones with no obvious place to point, which is why your new category can't pull money from them."
This line made me pause. I’m not a startup founder, but as a creative, I’m always trying to name what I do: designer, writer, storyteller, ghostwriter. I know what it feels like to be in that fuzzy space. When I list all those roles, people nod but aren’t sure where I fit. If I pick just one, they get it.
The advice to ask, "what are you replacing?" is helpful beyond business. When I write, what am I replacing? Silence. Confusion. That feeling of being alone with a thought.
Thank you for this. Saving the framework.
This was so helpful! Thank you so much.
Beyond Meat aligning with incumbents reminds me of luxury retailers, or even whatever category retailers, all opening locations near one another. Customers assume they're similar. It's fun to see how this plays out online. It's hotelling's law of spatial competition, had to look up the name.
There's an episode of Arrested Development where GOB opens a banana stand right next to the family's banana stand and cites that the majority of banana sales happen in that place, so why not be there?
Now we know the actual name of where there's typically a Whole Foods and Trader Joes within walking distance of each other!
i know this is not a new challenge by any means in ai startup land, but if youre product has components that are between multiple categories (that dont have a strict category definition) do you more often try to establish a category or float back to one thats an imperfect description of what youre doing?
Tricky to make a call on this without price, audience, incumbents, etc but happy to workshop it with you. Just reply to one of the newsletter emails and we can figure it out.